Radical deconcentration
Even as Paris suffers through the hideous consequences of malignant income over-concentration, back home Hurricane Katrina has done what three decades of well-meaning urban social policy could not: it has decisively and permanently deconcentrated poverty from Old New Orleans.
Old New Orleans was one of the nation’s sickest cities, with declining population, a shrinking employment base, high poverty (23%), and high unemployment (15%):
The largest over-the-year unemployment rate increase was reported by New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner,
Public housing in Old New Orleans … if you lived here, you and your home would both be gone by now
In terms of economic demography, Katrina did two things simultaneously:
- Scattered the poor across the country.
- Created an unprecedented labor opportunity for those in the building trades.
Those who are mobile: the affluent and the economically hungry. If you wave money, they will come, as this New York Times article reports:
Workers from all over have been pouring into Louisiana, some bused in by contracting companies, others simply turning up on their own in search of jobs. While nobody seems to know how many are here, there is plenty of work; the federal government estimates it will spend more than $450 million just to clean up hurricane debris.
Who comes is not who left, as demonstrated by this story in the Chicago Tribune:
The work that has brought them here is neither glamorous nor high-paying:
Jose L. Garcia, right, and fellow workers originally from the Mexican state of Michoacan get $10 for every refrigerator they throw out.
Jose L. Garcia and five of his friends were camping recently under a live oak tree, sharing three tents, eating food from a church kitchen and bathing in a plastic garbage can. The men live in
Behind their pickup trucks were two large trailers, which the men use to transport debris to a dump. They get $10 for every reeking refrigerator they throw out, Mr. Garcia said, but they do not want to do that work anymore - it makes them smell too bad.
Even as the Latinos arrive, many Old New Orleanians will not return:
As more Latinos move into the region, a September survey found that most
The change is visible:
The situation is new to
As a result, not only will New New Orleans be considerably smaller than Old New Orleans, it will be far more Hispanic and far less black:
The swelling numbers of Hispanic migrant laborers, legal or not, have raised political tensions. A
The gap between job demand and housing supply is also defining who comes (those who do not mind living …) and who doesn’t:
The complaints also reflect the widespread frustration over the continuing lack of housing in the area. Tens of thousands of houses were destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, leaving their former residents adrift. Businesses of all sorts are frantically advertising for workers, even as the jobless rate for Louisianans jumped to 11.5% in September, from 5.8% in August.
Who comes depends in part on who will live in what New New Orleans currently has available:
The camp, operated by a New York company called LVI Services, is not much to look at: a row of tractor-trailers crammed with bunks, a long line of portable toilets, a couple of RV’s and three tents with striped roofs. Gun-packing guards wear black T-shirts reading, “Police.”
It is a temporary home for hundreds of LVI’s workers, some of whom said they were in the United States illegally. They are commuting into
In some places, the workers are creating spontaneous communities:
There are less formal living arrangements, too. On the west side of
Informal settlement, Seattle, Great Depression
They were named “Hoovervilles” in mockery of President Herbert Hoover
Why would people come from hundreds of miles around and then choose to live in minimally acceptable housing?
One man, a Honduran who said he was afraid to give his real name, said he wanted nothing more than to return to
In a word, remittances. When the family is in one place and the job another, the breadwinner goes where the job is and voluntarily chooses a dormitory-style minimal (or worse) accommodation. Today remittances are among Mexico’s biggest sources of US foreign exchange. As a result of this sudden demand for basic accommodations, nowheres become new towns:
In Kenner, just west of New Orleans, the City Council has passed an emergency ordinance to try to regulate workers’ trailers and tents that have mushroomed all over the city.
Does this mean a new ethnically different poverty will reconcentrate? Possibly.
Meanwhile, as the Federal government fails to grasp the opportunity to create a viable strategic plan, Mayor Ray Nagin continues to make asinine and irresponsible statements:
The backlash was fueled by
“How do I make sure
Way to throw out the Welcome Mat, mayor.
“
[Previous posts on New Orleans here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.]
