I got up early to get to the Delta Urbanism Plenary which explored some of the issues around the formation of South Louisiana around the Mississippi Delta and other global deltas. Took me back to my GCSE geography days! The issues which led to the flooding of New Orleans were gone through, in particular how the city has subsided due to drainage and urbanisation. An interesting comparison is between the extent of the post 1900 city, and the extent of the areas that stayed dry during the floods. It is pretty much all the areas developed in the 20th Century that were worst affected by flooding demonstrating that the city planners of yesterday had a much better idea about how to build a flood resilient city (i.e. stick to high ground).
Han Meyers of Delft University of Technology then discussed how Dutch cities have evolved and how cities such as Rotterdam are successfully developing in their flood plains.
A session on the post Katrina planning gave an excellent perspective as to how the planning process has acted as a force for good in bringing the city back. A layer of various plans have been produced since 2006 by several different agencies, with varying degrees of success. The panel of New Orleans residents who had been engaged in the planning process spoke of the many problems and disagreements that occurred, but the consensus was that the process was amazing and helped to galvanize and engage the community.
Vera Tripplett of the University of New Orleans in particular gave a fantastic perspective on the planning process. One of the many people whose homes had been destroyed she was desperate to come back to her own house, and it was this that got her passionately involved in the planning process. One of the early plans showed a series of “green dots” to illustrate new open spaces across the city (which is something pretty usual for concept planning). However, when residents saw their houses were under these “circular parks” there was an outcry, and this short-sighted planning approach was recognised by the panel as the catalyst for getting local people involved. Vera described the population as now being “passionate, educated and informed about planning”.
Vera spoke of how she doesn’t know how to describe the impact of Katrina on her and her friends, families and neighbours. There are people in the city that literally lost everything and this is a reason why so many people haven’t returned. In a lot of disasters there is a social network to fall back on, but following Katrina whole families and social networks were destroyed as so many people lost their homes, and this is why it’s been so difficult for people to return.
I took a mobile workshop in the afternoon which focussed upon “housing choices in a recovering community”. This took us round various new housing schemes that have taken place since Katrina including modular homes and factory built units, existing houses that have been lifted up on stilts, and some of the philanthropic schemes. The tour was led by Stephen D Villavaso who is a local property developer who was accompanied by a very passionate bus driver who had a lot to say about the housing issues that he had come across.
We stopped at Project Home Again close to Bayou St John. This was a high quality scheme of mixed housing that had been started by the founder of Barnes and Nobel who had invested $5m of his own money into the scheme. Despite this he had apparently come up against a lot of problems from the city government in terms of support, and difficulties in permitting.
The subject then turned to Brad Pitt who the bus driver loudly proclaimed “should stick to movies” and who clearly has ruffled quite a few feathers amongst local property developers and the comparison with the Project Home Again scheme is quite surprising. Brad Pitt and the Make it Right foundation has received significant support from the city and gained massive publicity as he has bought himself a reputation for philanthropy, investing $1m of his own money.
However, as Stephen and the bus driver made clear the Project Home Again is located close to neighbourhood amenities including schools and shops, is walkable and importantly allows residents to build up some equity. The Make it Right scheme is a few individual houses in a sea of empty lots, there are no sidewalks, schools or shops, and they have been very expensive to construct. Stephen wasn’t going to take us to the Lower Ninth to see the Make it Right homes, but the bus driver had other ideas: “Right I’m going to drive y’all there now” he screamed and away we set.
They are right. I got to get a better look at the houses (it was a very quick drive past on Saturday) and when you look around they are in a desert with no facilities and it is unlikely that the Lower Ninth will ever see the majority of the plots rebuilt. The houses are “bimbo architecture” to the max, but they are well designed, they are sustainable and they have got people talking. As with all development it is good to get a mixture, but I see the point that is being made, and why property people are perhaps a little resentful towards Mr Pitt.
I managed to get back for a couple more sessions which were very interesting!The first was entitled “CEOs on the state of the Landscape Architecture and Planning Profession”. A chunk of the conversation focussed upon the “alphabet soup” consultancies that are going around buying up small firms to achieve Wal-Mart style dominance. The panel (some of whom were ex-EDAW) were fairly cynical about such firms but it was recognised that they play a part and are probably not a threat to the industry. Indeed the potential for collaboration with such firms was seen as a good thing.
The final session focussed on the potential for using social networking sites in planning – both for consultation and career development reasons. I was a little bit cynical about using Facebook, twitter and blogging for consultation purposes, but the case studies given (many of which were from Texas) suggested that it can work very well. Maybe something to try out when I’m back in the UK.
I was privileged to be invited to the APA President’s Reception at the Hilton Hotel after the conference finished for the day, so thought I’d better put on a jacket. I met lots of high and mighty planners including Bruce Knight, this years APA president and various people from around the US. The Planning Institute Australia representative (who looked like he’d had a few tinnies before he came out) gave me a kangaroo lapel badge which was nice of him.
Myself, Ann Skippers, her husband Clive and Sue Percy of the RTPI then went to dinner to the Palace Cafe on Canal Street which was grand and delicious. I invited Shana along – I’m not sure she’d ever been in the presence of so many English people so it must have been a culture shock!
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