NNO: What are you trying to accomplish?
The pillory, I have always thought, was among the cleverer of human punishments, mingling ostensible restraint with cynical cruelty. What could be more salutary than exposing the malefactor to public humiliation and shame? And what could be more deniably vicious than placing him where one could rely on the cowardly sadism of passers-by to shower the victim with garbage, feces, stones or worse?
Such is the nature of our public processes, where those who wish to take an action must submit to a political grand guignol of holding a public hearing, only to be pilloried by those, some number of them from out of town, who come solely to fling political mud and worse.
Load up!
I’ve previously chronicled, at length, the sorry tale of New New Orleans’ rise from the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina, and how the submersible part of the city has been doomed since early 2006. I’ve admired from afar the dedicated work of commission after commission, all thwarted by short-term political pandering by the mayor and city council, and the abject failure of anything like a policy response. The obituary for an optimistic New New Orleans was written nearly two years ago:
Triage is no joy, and this recommendation gives me no pleasure.
Mayor Nagin, please spend what is left of your political capital by making an unpopular but correct choice.
Deny building permits for everything below sea level.
“We’re holding our breath for decisive action.”
Never mind that the reinvention of New New Orleans has been completely botched, or that the Administration was spectacularly absent when key decisions were being made — the fact remains that because of lawyers, molds, and money, the derelict public housing is uneconomic and should be demolished. That decision — a correct one in my view — was made a year and a half ago, in June, 2006. As I wrote at the time:
Last week, New New Orleans took a step forward by officials showing judgment and courage:
Predictably, the decision was made by one far from the scene:
“Hurricane Katrina put a spotlight on the condition of public housing in
Bravo. I have had many differences with Secretary Jackson in the past, and doubtless will have many more in the future, but on this one he is dead right. New New Orleans should be, will be, and is already becoming smaller and more viable than decaying and decrepit Old New Orleans.
The demolition, which is scheduled to begin over the next several months, would be the largest of its kind in the city’s history and would erase the sprawling low-rises of the St. Bernard, C. J. Peete, B. W. Cooper and Lafitte housing developments.
The Fisher public housing development, October, 2005
Those who stage street theater seem more interested in abstract concepts suitable for a universe other than our own, where some
Friday,
Take a careful look at that photograph. Three protesters, who appear not hurt but acting hurt. One cop, trying to catch a shaved-head man determined to clutch a fence. One photographer anxious to capture the visual. It’s street theater.
Whatever it is, we’re against it
Police said 15 people were arrested on charges ranging from battery to disorderly conduct. Four people were taken to hospitals — two of them women who had been stunned with Tasers — and five others were injured and treated on the scene, police said. All four in the hospital were stable, police said.
So I asked myself, what were those protesters hoping to accomplish?
Protesters said they pushed against the iron gates that kept them out of the building because the Housing Authority of New Orleans had disproportionately allowed supporters of the demolition to pack the chambers. Dozens tried to force their way in.
The vote to demolish was 7-0. What would their presence have done to change the vote?
At the peak of the confusion, some 70 protesters were facing about a dozen mounted police and 40 more law enforcement officers on foot.
“Is this what democracy looks like?” Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who opposes demolition, said as he held a strand of Taser wire he said had been shot into another of the protesters.
Officers “did not use excessive force in any way,” police chief Warren Riley said.
After roughly 30 minutes of on-again-off-again struggle to get into the meeting, protesters fell back, continuously chanting with bullhorns.
What did the protesters hope to accomplish? To get into the media — and in that they clearly succeeded.
But are the protesters speaking for the residents? Perhaps not.
Some public housing residents repeated during the daylong debate that they welcome the plan to replace the decades-old structures with mixed-income, mixed-use development.
They should — mixed-income, mixed-use is what makes cities work. Concentrating the very lowest incomes in isolated enclaves is what spawns urban riots.
Just out for a bit o’ fun, that’s all
I’ve had a variety of encounters with resident advocates and resident groups — some years ago, I and my company represented the residents in a complex preservation transaction in Braintree — and it’s made me cynical of some organizers. Often the advocates have agendas very different from those of the residents in whose name they chant. And when the protest is over, the advocates come home, somewhere else, and take up the next barricade.
Other residents and their advocates said they fear the plan will result in the loss of badly needed housing for the city’s low-income black residents.
The housing’s already been lost — it’s currently uninhabitable.
Most of the units HUD plans to demolish are vacant [And have been for 2¼ years — Ed.], and many suffered heavy damage in Hurricane Katrina …
It’s economically irreparable, costing more to fix than it could be worth when fixed.
… but those who oppose their demolition say they should be improved instead.
With whose money? And why is renovating a fifty-year-old structure better than building a new one?
The C. J. Peete complex, ready for reoccupancy?
From a real estate perspective, I can tell you — it isn’t. Some properties have to go somewhere to die, and 2¼ years of moist emptiness after a hurricane is a death blow to those physical structures.
Critics of the plan say it will drive poor people from neighborhoods where they have lived for generations —
— but HUD denies that and says the plan will create an equal amount of affordable housing as existed before Katrina hit.
It would certainly be legitimate to question HUD’s credibility, given the moral bankruptcy of its Section 8 funding strategy, or the year-after-year starvation of public housing nationwide.
Are you questioning my credibility?
The council promised to monitor the redevelopment and make sure the poor have places to come back to, but those assurances did little to assuage opponents.
“The vote was already a done deal,” the Rev. Marshall Truehill said. “There were no concessions.”
If by concessions, Councillor Truehill means delays and hearings, these have been extensive already.
HUD had planned to begin demolition last weekend, but late last week agreed to allow the City Council to weigh in first.
Mayor Ray Nagin on Thursday brokered compromises with HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson on how the redevelopment plan will be carried out, allowing more oversight, opening some new units and redeveloping two of the complexes in phases. He said it will ensure “that our fundamental principle that every resident has the right to return to better housing will not be empty promises but words in action.”
HUD Secretary Jackson (third from left) and Mayor Ray Nagin (behind, right) opening 500 units of new housing in the Lower Ninth Ward
The vote itself was 7-0 — no one opposed demolition.
HUD officials said they hoped to be able to start demolition within weeks.
Critics, however, said the agreement amounted to minor changes. Endesha Juakali, a protest leader arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace [and an attorney whose law license has been revoked — Ed.], said Thursday’s confrontation with the council was not the last breath from protesters.
“For everything they do, we have to make them pay a political consequence,” Juakali said. He vowed that when the bulldozers try to demolish the St. Bernard complex, “it’s going to be an all- out effort.”
Then what, Mr. Juakali? After you’ve made ‘them’ pay ‘a political consequence,’ where will the housing come from?
For weeks, protesters have been gearing up to battle with bulldozers and have discussed a variety of tactics, including lying in front of the machinery.
How will lying down in front of bulldozers improve the housing?
Attorneys handling lawsuits to stop the demolitions said they have not exhausted their legal options. One suit is challenging the bidding process for selecting the developers while another one contending the demolitions are illegal is on appeal in the federal courts.
The whole show has a fundamental un-seriousness about it.
Let’s suppose for a moment that the Federal government is duplicitous, that it cares not a whit for the poor people, and that demolition is simply a pretext for dispersal. Opposing demolition, and showing no interest in the promises of rebuilding, actually helps your opponents. They don’t have to build anything new if they are spending time litigating their right to demolish the buildings. Meanwhile, the residents whom the advocates claim to represent have no housing, and must fund for themselves.
It’s a shame. The housing is mortally wounded and should be gone. Energy expended in preventing it from being torn down simply delays the time when new housing may arise.
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