A Shared Uncertainty

A Shrinking City

Politicians have yet to agree on a master plan for redeveloping the city or for deciding which neighborhoods should not be rebuilt.

What is clear is that New Orleans, which was two-thirds black and one-third poor before the storm, will shrink dramatically. Consulting groups have guessed that the city, once it is rebuilt, will lose about half its pre-Katrina population of 470,000. Right now, less than a quarter of that number live in the city, most in areas that sustained little damage from the hurricane.

As for the rest of the city, the first attempt at a recovery plan was released last month. It said that since the population was certain to shrivel, so should the city's footprint. The plan said safer, higher-elevation and less damaged neighborhoods deserve first crack at limited resources, while terribly damaged neighborhoods are sent to the end of the queue. It roped together the Lower Ninth Ward, which was 98 percent black, and parts of Lakeview, which was 94 percent white, into a kind of no man's land, where reconstruction should be delayed pending "significant study."

"Neighborhoods should be redeveloped as whole units and not piecemealed back together lot by lot," according to the plan. It warned against the "jack-o'-lantern syndrome," with homeowners rebuilding on abandoned blocks.

The plan -- which city leaders requested and which was put together by the Urban Land Institute, a research group in Washington -- kicked up an enormous fuss.

Black leaders, in particular, said it would disproportionately zero out their neighborhoods. The City Council unanimously rejected the plan. Mayor C. Ray Nagin, facing reelection next year along with the council, also backed away from it.

A revision of the plan, expected to be made public next month, cushions the sharp elbows of the Urban Land Institute, said Reed Kroloff, dean of Tulane University's architecture school and a member of the panel working on the revised blueprint.

If approved by the mayor's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, it would give residents a year to prove which neighborhoods are viable. They would do so by voting with their feet, moving back home and spending money to rebuild. After a year, the city or a yet-to-be-created redevelopment authority would decide if a neighborhood is on the road to recovery or should be bought out.

To Return or Not

If anyone should be able to figure out when to return home, it is Ron Martinez, 49, an architect who grew up in the city. He has been all over New Orleans since the flood, helping clients decide whether to rebuild.

Yet, as he weighs the risks of bringing his wife and two children back to Memphis Street, he says he cannot make an informed decision.

"I flat don't know what to do right now," said Martinez, who shortly after the storm bought a house in the suburb of Destrehan, about a 40-minute drive west of New Orleans. "A lot of things that are out of my control have to happen before I say I am rebuilding my house."

When the White House and Congress moved decisively this month to pay to rebuild the city's levees, the overriding concern of Martinez and of many of his Lakeview neighbors was finally addressed. The 17th Street Canal, just half a mile from Martinez's house, was breached during the storm and deluged Lakeview. Levee reconstruction would include barriers and pumping stations to stop a storm surge from pouring into Lakeview through the canal.