The Loss of Community After Katrina

A visit to the Lower 9th Ward almost six years after Hurricane Katrina is revealing to how humans exacerbated the crisis. Before the hurricane, the neighbourhood was no utopia. It had its share of poverty, unemployment, crime, alcoholism and drugs. But despite all this when talking to the residents, there was a sense of community and people knowing each other, a state that no longer exists among the people who live there now.

The Lower 9th Ward is struggling with its new identity and purpose. For the moment, it is a mixed patchwork of plots of land where houses once stood but were demolished and are now susceptible to weeds and grass, homes that are now restored, and homes called by local's the 'Brad Pitt' houses as he did contribute funds and coordination with architectural firms to build homes where homes were demolished (see the photo below). Occasionally it is possible to see a home that remains from the hurricane's damage that has not been razed to the ground.

The future of the lower 9th Ward is still undecided. It was the home of predominantly African Americans but given the desires of developers and city planners to gentrify and add value to land, there is concern that African Americans will be pushed further to the fringes of New Orleans and deprived of their land rights and ability to rebuild their community in the Lower 9th Ward.