8/6/2019 New Orleans Neighborhoods Case Study (Presentation from 2008)

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New Grass Roots Order?Civic Networks in Post-Katrina New OrleansRay Mikell, University of New Orleans

Our saga begins with the Urban LandInstitute (ULI) proposes to shrink thefootprintthat is, shrink the physicalsizeof the city. Proposal given toMayor Ray NaginsBring New OrleansBack Commission (BNOB).

This would have entailed possibleclosure or green-space conversion ofsome flooded areas. A moratorium onrebuilding was proposed for theseareas.

This proposal died, but a Philadelphiaplanner firms proposal to the BNOBechoed it. Flooded neighborhoodswould have been required to provetheir viability during 4-monthmoratorium.

Burns,P.F.(2006) Electoralpolitics is notenough:Racial and ethnicminorities and urban politics.Albany NY:StateUniversity ofNew YorkPress.

Burns.P.and Thomas,M.O.(006). Thefailure ofthe nonregime:How KatrinaexposedNew Orleansas aRegimelessCity. Urban AffairsReview 39(6),791-812.

Ikeda,S.andGordon,P.(2007). Powertothe neighborhoods: Thedevolution ofauthorityin post-Katrina New Orleans(MercatusPolicy Series).FairfaxVA:MercatusCenter,George Mason University.

Lewis,PierceF. 2003. New Orleans:Themakingof an urban landscape(Second Edition). Santa Fe,New Mexico:Centerfor American Places.Putnam,R.(2007). E pluribusunum:Diversity andcommunity in the Twenty-firstCentury. Scandinavian PoliticalStudies 30 (2),137-74.

Stone, C.; Henig, J.R.; Jones, B.D.andPierannunzi,C. (2001).Buildingciviccapacity: Thepolitics ofreformingurban schools. LawrenceKS: University Press ofKansas.

Stone, C.(1989). RegimePolitics:GoverningAtlanta 1946-1988. LawrenceKS:University PressofKansas.

Photos (fromleft):Reno vation in Holy Cross fundedby Preservation ResourceCenter (mostcitedno nprofit), Mikell,2008:photos fromUnified New Orleans Planprocess inMid-Cityand Gentilly, 2006 , MaitriVenkat-Ramaniand Sarah Elise Lewis of New Orleans; NeighborhoodHousings FreretStreet Festival, Mikell, 2008.

While NOLA has no neighborhood councilsystem of the sort that could help the city forma clear governing coalition, it still has sometightly bound neighborhood network clusters.Recovery appears to be moving along faster inthese areas.

Regardless of clustering, neighborhood groupsare not divided in regard to what nonprofitgroups they work with most often. Moreimportantly, they are nearly unanimous in citingtheir working with City Council representativesand the Planning Commission .

The citys small and in some cases moredemocratized sub-networks, and their ties tocouncil members, may help the city betteraddress more strictly neighborhood-oriented

issues (e.g., zoning, commercial development) .

What these groups lack are ties to theCrescent Citys larger urban administration .

The literature on urban governing coalitions(Stone, 1989, e.g.) suggests that this shouldlimit the effectiveness of the citysneighborhood groups in regard to an impact oncitywide policy.

The lack of linkages between clusters alsoechoes Putnams (2007) recent research abouta hunkering down effect in cities with diversepopulations.

A survey instrument was designed to explore these issues, and was administered to55 representatives of 50 groups citywide. Given information from nonprofits whoregularly work with these group, about 75 homeowners or neighborhoodassociations are thought to be active in Orleans Parish (City of New Orleans).

Officers were asked to name no more than six groups with whom they were mostlikely to work with at least once a month. They were further asked about theirrelationships with local government and elected officials, as well as ties to non-profit organizations.

It was expected that neighborhood organizations with membership of moderate tohigh SES on average would not likely, except in limited circumstances, to workclosely in a regular manner with organizations whose memberships are of lower SESon average, even if those neighborhoods were located nearby.

Meanwhile, based on results of a 2006-07 neighborhood group survey, the literatureand observations, it was expected that the groups would have strong ties to CityCouncil representatives, but not Mayor Naginor city administrative agencies.

The Green Dot Effect

Proposition, Methods

Paradox: Democratization and Isolation Vertical Ties: Local Govt. and Neighborhoods

Conclusions

References, Credits

ProducedwithUCINET/Netdraw

Producedwith UCINET/Netdraw(w/ Givran-Newman clusteringfunction)

Use of the Givran-Newman algorithmwhich is used todetect natural groupings within larger networksallowed IDof the above clusters . The French Quarter was initiallyincluded (in six clusters) with the Mid-City to Gentillyone.

What the network graphs, like the map, show is thatneighborhood cooperation does not extend much beyonddistricts with natural and man-made boundaries (highways,canals) and entrenched identities.

The Lower 9th Ward at far right of the cluster circled gold--would have been a separate cluster, meanwhile, and Gentillyless tied to Lakeview if not for ties to Beacn.

This is Beacon of Hope , a Lakeview-based group dedicated tohelping residents rebuild. Not a neighborhood group per se, itstill works mainly with neighborhoods and associated groups.

Beacon was added to the mix to better demonstrate how

bridging connections have been made post-Katrina.

This and other complexities are not easily accounted for bynetwork graphs (see Broad St. Redevelopment at right.)

Running the data through social networksoftware bore out my predictions, and alsoclarified the matter of clusters.

What I identified as clusters above areapproximated with circles of the same colorin the network graph at left.

Note that the Mid-City to Gentillycluster isparticularly dense, but only at certainpoints. This is largely a consequence of thepost-Katrina formation of an umbrellagroup in Gentilly, and greater use of anexisting district-wide group in Lakeview.

What separates these areas is not justgeography and an Interstate, but thepresence of lower-income and now highlyblighted areas in between.

After about half the data ultimatelycollected had come through, I beganplotting network ties on a city map.Clusters of ties were noticed in localesincluding:

Middle class areas Mid-City, Gentilly, BayouSt. John and Lakeview (all racially mixed butthe latter, which is mostly white) , circled gold.

Sections of the racially and economicallymixed to historical ly wealthy sections ofUptown, circled red.

The French Quarter and environs, in blue.

Eastern New Orleans (mostly black andmiddle class), in peach

Algiers, across the Mississippi, in green.

Lower 9th Ward is eas t of the Quarter. Lookfor NENA inside of a black border

The data also showed that tieswere strong between respondingneighborhood groups and theCity Council (center, followedclosely by the city PlanningCommission.

Mayor Nagin(node at upper left)is decidedly less central to theneighborhood/govt. network.Nearby is Ed Blakely, the citysrecovery director.

You could almost draw an ovalconnecting the City Councilmembers. Two are at-large, whileothers at-large (one of them justelected in 2007).ProducedwithUCINET/Netdraw

These proposals led to increased civic engagement at the grass-roots level.

Neighborhood organization membership democratizes, increases many times overin some flooded areas.

Some neighborhood groups have become involved in policy areas not traditionallytheir forte, including economic development, green space and recreationaldevelopment, even education. George Mason researchers recommended devolutionof power to neighborhood groups based on this (Ikeda and Gordon, 2007).

This summer, Rockefeller and Ford Foundation-sponsored meetings are to begin inregarding the possible forming a citywide citizen participation or neighborhoodcouncil systemthis in a city with little to no tradition of civic engagement.

However, neither literature on New Orleans politics and recent socioeconomichistory, nor scholarly work on civic engagement and social capital would lead one topredict much in the way of reaching across sectoral or neighborhood boundary lines.

The city has been termed regime-less by urban scholars (Burns and Thomas,2006) , suggesting that it has no governing coalition, but decentralized power.

The study of social networks in the social sciences and organization theory,meanwhile, suggested that people and groups are more likely to form ties when

there is little social distance between them.

Neighborhoodmapvia theGreaterNew OrleansCommunity DataCenter(GNOCDC)

Many residentsfirstlearned of thesecond BNOBproposal fromthismap,pu blished by the citysdaily newspaper, The Times-Picayune.

Spotlight: Broad St. Redevelopment

Four neighborhood groupshave selected

board members for Broad Streetco nnections,

anonprofitthatwill be the lead organization

for itsplanned redevelopment.Itis one of 16

areas targeted for redevelopmentby the city.

Some of the cityspoorestneighborhoodsline

Broad,mostly toitssouth.

Participatinggroupsincludethe FaubourgSt.

John Neighborhood Assoc.(FSJNA), Phoenix

ofN ew Orleans(PNOLA), the DowntownNeighborhoodsImprovementAssn.(DNIA)

and the Mid-City Neighborhood Org.(MCNO).

Groupswhose boundariesoverlapwiththe

newer DNIAgr oups, however, declined to

participate inthe new venture.These include

the EsplanadeRidge/Treme group, whose

boundaries take inthe historic, predominantly

blackandpoorandgentrifyingTremearea.

While participatinggroupshave highhopes

for Broad, the non-participating statuso f

some areahighlightsa citywide issue:Multiple

groups in single jurisdictions.

Whatresidentsdoparticularly groups

represent?Should claimsbetaken atface

value?

BetweennessCentrality inCluster 4 (Mid-City to Gentiilly)

Mapping the Clusters