Mississippi's Reversal of Fortune

Warr, a developer sworn in seven weeks before Katrina hit, has hired New Urbanist architects from Oakland, Calif., to redesign the local banking and retail center into a pedestrian-friendly Dixie Riviera, combining the residential charm of Charleston, S.C., with the resort life of Palm Beach, Fla.

"We want it to be a city that is uniquely Southern and a city that our residents -- who lived here and built it -- still recognize, like and want to live in after it's been redeveloped," said Warr, 42, who envisions new shopping, dining, museums and an aquarium. "The quality level will step up, but we want to make sure that culturally it addresses what is charming about the South."

In neighboring Biloxi, veteran Mayor A.J. Holloway, 66, expects that casino operators will more than double their pre-Katrina presence of 15,000 jobs and 7,000 hotel rooms in the region, which has been historically reliant on the military, seafood processing and shipbuilding.

"My prediction is . . . within the next 10 or 12 years, Biloxi will be the second casino revenue-producing center in the United States," said Holloway, a 13-year incumbent who has steered a pro-business recovery. "Casino gaming is going to be the economic engine for Biloxi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast."

Although the storm drew no distinctions between rich and poor, middle- and upper-class residents are rebuilding. But low-income people, fixed-income seniors and renters in poor, low-lying areas -- about 20 percent of the storm victims -- are being squeezed out by demolition and redevelopment, according to such groups as Oxfam America.

Biloxi fueled that perception by razing neighborhoods that housed black longtime residents and Vietnamese immigrants who have taken up the region's fishing tradition in the highly desirable but low-rent East Biloxi peninsula. State and local officials made the area more valuable after the hurricane by authorizing gambling operations to expand to 800 feet onto dry land. Previously, gambling was restricted to offshore barges.

In Gulfport, a commission appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour (R) identified the intersection of I-10 and U.S. 49 as the coast's economic hub, linked to the nearby Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport. But it is also home to the historic African American communities of Forest Heights and Turkey Creek, the latter established in 1866 by freedmen after the Civil War.

"For lack of a better term, you're almost looking at the gentrification of the Mississippi coast," said Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP. He said the state has not released plans to replace public housing lost in the storm.

"There's too much concern with casinos and not enough for residents," said Sharon Hanshaw, 51, head of Coastal Women for Change. Hanshaw said her home on a corner lot near Bayview Avenue "is gone, it's flat, it's a parking lot for the casino -- there's no sign I was ever there." Only two of 18 families on the block have returned. A vacant lot priced at $18,000 before the storm is now priced at $125,000, she said.

"They say they want to save Biloxi, but if there's nowhere to live, who are we saving it for?" she said.

Affordable housing is a key challenge, Warr and Holloway said, for which they could use help to plan.

Overall, housing will take years to recover, but progress is visible. Power has been almost fully restored; more than 80 percent of displaced families have received temporary housing; and federal advisory flood maps -- which dictate required elevations and availability of flood insurance for rebuilding -- were released in November, after Katrina hit.