A Long Road Home: Gentrification and Disaster Relief in Mid-City New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

Keywords

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Authors

Issue Date

2019-07-09

Language

en

Document type

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Title

ISSN

Volume

Issue

Startpage

Endpage

DOI

Abstract

Where previous literature focused either on the gentrification of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or how the housing relief program, the Louisiana Road Home Program, disenfranchised low-income people in neighborhoods with a lower socioeconomic status, this thesis tries to show the relationship between post-Katrina gentrification and the Louisiana Road Home Program. It asks in what ways the Louisiana Road Home Program, which focused specifically on homeowners and people with a higher socioeconomic status instead of low-income – often non-white minority people – gentrified or contributed to gentrification in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The thesis uses the Mid-City planning district to illustrate that the Louisiana Road Home Program exacerbated pre-existing socioeconomic and racial disparities. It is relevant to research the link between disaster relief programs and gentrification in a post-disaster city because it can help planners to more carefully consider previously established urban patterns prior to implementing relief and recovery programs. This can prevent communities with lower socioeconomic status from being neglected during the post-disaster recovery phase. This thesis establishes that the Louisiana Road Home Program gentrified the Mid-City planning district. That means that urban planners must analyze the existing urban patterns in a city before they implement a post-disaster relief program to support communities with curtailed resources.

Description

Citation

Faculty

Faculteit der Letteren

Specialisation