Fewer Poor Blacks in New Orleans

Here is an article from World Socialist Website by Jeffrey Isaacs.  A US Housing Official has said that New Orleans will have fewer poor blacks. I'll spoil the surprise: it isn't because the poor blacks will be provided with proper housing, child care, job training, employment, health care, and other benefits. It isn't because the casinos will be torn down in order to provide schools, art museums, gyms, bakeries, restaurants, small manufacturing concerns that will be organized, managed, and owned by the people in the communities in which they are located. It isn't, in other words, because a radical new experiment in eliminating poverty is being carried out in New Orleans. Precisely the opposite!

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson predicted New Orleans would slowly bring back as many as 375,000 people, but that only 35 to 40 percent of the population would be black. Prior to Hurricane Katrina the city had nearly 500,000 residents, more than two-thirds of whom were African-American.

“Whether we like it or not, New Orleans is not going to be 500,000 people for a long time,” Jackson said. “New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.”

Jackson, who was appointed by Bush to aid in the reconstruction of the city, made it clear that such an outcome was not simply the product of the hurricane and flooding, but the desired policy of the Bush administration and the city’s political and financial elite.

Because the worst hit areas were low-income minority neighborhoods, Jackson added, they may never be repopulated. “I’m telling you, as HUD secretary and having been a developer and a planner, that’s how it’s going to be,” he said.

Jackson also acknowledged he had told New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin not to rebuild the city’s predominantly poor and black Ninth Ward neighborhood. “I told him [Nagin], I think it would be a mistake to rebuild the Ninth Ward. I said I’m not sure what we do with it, or if we decide to build in the Ninth Ward we have to look at different ways of building.”

The HUD secretary suggested that the Ninth Ward was too flood-prone to rebuild, repeating suggestions from local officials that it should be bulldozed. Jackson made no similar proposals, however, about more affluent areas of the city which are just a vulnerable, including Lakeview, a predominantly upper-middle-class white neighborhood that was overwhelmed by floodwaters from nearby Lake Pontchartrain.

Simply put, the majority of the poor have been forced to evacuate, Jackson said, and they are not coming back.

The federal government has done nothing to provide shelter or low-cost housing for the majority of the 350,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and many are little more than refugees spread across the US. Two weeks before President Bush’s mid-October goal for moving victims out of Red Cross and other emergency shelters, more than 100,000 people still reside in such makeshift lodging and another 400,000 are in hotel rooms costing up to $100 a night, according to an October 2 report in the Washington Post.

Plans to provide housing assistance vouchers and to set up large-scale trailer camps have not materialized. To date, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has set up less than 1,400 mobile homes in Louisiana for displaced people, with about 1,100 occupied by workers engaged in the New Orleans recovery effort.

Well aware that the lack of affordable housing and employment will make it impossible for most poor people to return to New Orleans, FEMA officials are now openly encouraging low-income workers to move elsewhere. Evacuees, said FEMA spokesman Eugene Kinerney, “need to consider long-term housing in areas where there is available rental stock and prospects for employment to take care of other needs, such as food.”

Alphonso Jackson’s comments that New Orleans would no longer be a black-majority city have certainly been welcomed by the most bigoted elements. At heart, however, he expresses the contempt for the working class shared by all layers of the wealthy elite, black and white. Jackson, who is black, was the president of American Electric Power—Texas, a $13 billion utility company, before his nomination by Bush to be HUD deputy secretary in 2001.

Indeed, Jackson only said publicly what the business and political establishment in New Orleans and throughout the US have been discussing privately. For these elites the hurricane is seen as a golden opportunity to rid the city of “undesirable” elements—through a sort of “class-cleansing”—and a chance to reshape New Orleans in their own interests, with further tax cuts and billions in government rebuilding contracts.

This retrograde sentiment was captured in the comments of one real estate appraiser cited by the New Orleans Times Picayune, who said, “This may sound mean and rotten, but if we can get rid of 100,000 of the lower class that are takers and not givers to the community, we’ll be much better off.”

Comments

[Edie]

The implications of incorporating such an attitude into policy decisions are really quite significant. Another WSWS article which deals with this in greater detail can be found here:

William Bennett's 'hypothetical' on racial genocide: A spreading stench of fascism
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/benn-o03.shtml

It is a genuinely chilling phenomenon.

[Jodi]

Thanks for the heads up, Edie.

[Lynn]

Stage 1: Hand out no bid contracts to crony contractors.

Stage 2: Hide the dispossessed.

Stage 3: Support your local real estate developer.

Stage 4: Find some suckers to pay the tab.

The business model is both predictable and shameless.

[Rodkong]

Even if crony contractors do get bids, they're going to have a difficult time finding insurance protection. Given that this was the worst insured loss in U.S. history, the insurance industry will be reluctant to support new development along the Gulf Coast. Despite the anticpated increase in premiums, the reconstruction of New Orleans will be too risky for insurers to handle. The likelihood that New Orleans will become a gentrified city is doubtful.

I'm surprised no one on this site has brought up the issue of Eminent Domain? If it weren't for Katrina, the city could have used Eminent Domain as a means to displace the poor and introduced corporate investment. Katrina may have done New Orleans a favor by scaring away contractors...

[Edie]

Actually, insurers are expecting more than a bounce-back next year by extorting from average Americans through premium hikes. Believe it: disasters are always a windfall for vultures.

[Rodkong]

Eddie: what do you propose as an alternative? Government subsidized insurance?

Insurance companies are consumers just like the average American. They buy insurance from reinsurers to cover their loss exposures. So these vultures, which are picking up the Katrina tab, will be subject to the same premium hike. Essentially, insurance companies will be getting a taste of their own medicine.

Prior to Katrina, developers found that it was cheaper to buy insurance, rather than build quality “hurricane proof” structures. Now, at the expense of their employees, companies like Wal-Mart have relocated, taking jobs with them. A premium hike will force developers (commerical & home) to build quality structures that can withstand a hurricane, or at least limit the amount of damage. This would reduce their risk exposures and dependence on the insurance industry…and for the sake of the workers; it would allow them to keep their jobs.

[Jodi]

Rodkong,

I've found your comments on insurance really interesting. So, insurers pass on risk, themselves getting insured by reinsurers. And, you are saying that the reinsurers are having to pay a lot for Katrina and that this will make them up their premiums on the insurers (did I understand this correctly?). And, then we have an interesting point where developers no longer have an economic incentive to do shoddy work but will have to build more reliable structures. Is this right?

It does seem to follow that insurers will pass on the expense to their customers (as Edie points out). Presumably, the developers will also pass on the expense to their customers. This suggests one of the ways that rebuilding New Orleans will prevent lower income people from living there.

On eminent domain: the process of commercializing New Orleans was going on without eminent domain. Paul found a great article in an architectural or urban planning journal written pre-Katrina but just published. The gist of the article was the city's economic strategy: tourism. So, casinos and hotels, bars and clubs, mainstream stores. Small businesses and owners were rapidly declining. Insurance was mentioned as something that larger companies (Hard Rock cafe, say) could afford but which disadvantaged smaller ones.

[Rodkong]

yes that is right...the only way to retain lower income people (if that's the goal), is to provide lower income housing. If the federal government were to subsidize housing, they would have to provide either state or federal insurance (the state/federal government is the only provider of flood insurance currently)Not only would this create a heavier tax burden for the rest of America, but it may also lead to shoddy low income housing. Even if the government did have the funds to provide low income housing, they still wouldn't build given that New Orleans is centered in the middle of flood plain. Maybe this city is destined to be a tourist trap filled with strip clubs, casinos, and hotels...

[Jodi]

How is that expensive housing in flood plains can be built? The housing guy quoted in the piece I re-cited in this post didn't say that the higher income housing would have to go. Or maybe this simply means that it has been built and won't be detroyed?

Anyway, the question then arises: where will the people who do clean these hotels and casinos live? Will they be paid enough to drive to work? Will there be adequate public transportation so that they can get to work that way? I talked for a while with a bartender in Las Vegas who praised their hotel and casino workers unions for providing sustainable wages. (The battle for these unions was long and fierce and continues; not all the casinos there are unionized).

On the political front: I think it makes sense to distribute risk and responsibility throughout the citizenry in the form of taxes.

[Rodkong]

"How is that expensive housing in flood plains can be built?"

...expensive housing won't be built on the flood plains. Most of the structures that survived Katrina were reinforced industrial based structures (i.e. Norfolk/Gruman shipyard). In the aftermath of hurricane Andrew, heavy commercial/industrial insurers (see Factory Mutual Global) built research facilities that were designed to test the impact of hurricanes on commercial structures. They found that if they spent more money upgrading and reinforcing existing structures that they would save money on existing reinsurance contracts. Ultimately it was the desire to increase profit that drove the insurers to build better fortified structures...So rather than building expensive housing in the flood plains, there is a greater likelihood that contracts will go to heavy industry...

[pebird]

First of all lets not forget that insurance companies spend a great deal on litigation.

They have a dual advantage: 1) size, 2) they have a lot of experience in the courtroom. While they may be the "bad guy" if a trial gets to jury - they also know how to work the system better than most claimants.

In California, expensive housing IS built on flood plains (called the Delta), as well as fire lanes and earthquake faults.

You used to be able to get earthquake insurance in California at a reasonable premium. Now it is either impossible to get or priced out of your budget.

That's another thing that insurance companies do well, if the risk is too high, they don't sell insurance and they socialize the cost back to the state. Then they lobby the state to make sure they are not on the hook for any taxes to fund those costs.

I want that gig - pick the bets I want to place with the odds in my favor, and shove the real risk to everyone else.

[RodKong]

That's the Excess and Surplus Lines Market (ENS) which is basically junk insurance that won't be picked up by the state or national insurance carriers...you also must realize that insurance regulations vary from state to state. While New York is considered consumer friendly (regulates premiums through price controls), states in the Gulf Coast are less stringent when it comes to the needs of consumers...

[Edie]

I am no expert on the insurance industry, which might be likened to the neighborhood gangster. "Pay us regular-like, so's nothin' bad happens to your nice family."

Yes, I am suggesting that the capitalist system had everything to do with the catastrophe in New Orleans. Much tragedy might have been prevented if proper (but "prohibitively expensive") safeguards had been in place.

As far as city planning goes, when New Orleans was settled, it was hardly a conscious decision to build on an area that was below sea level. Between then and now, it has sunk appreciably. However, I point to Holland. Proper dykes can avert tragedy. By no coincidence were the wealthier neighborhoods of New Orleans "spared" while the Lower Ninth was obliterated.

[Jodi]

The Holland example is a good one. Some of my Dutch friends say that their entire political orientation, toward compromise and cooperation (as well as lots of involvement and committees etc) is because of the dikes. Given the problem of flooding, they have to cooperate, or everyone suffers. Of course, it's more complicated than this, but it isn't impossible. It only seems impossible when one lets a particular set of assumptions about markets constrain one's thinking.

[Manion]

Ken Mehlman, on behalf of the GOP, has been floating the notion that the Republican Party offers black voters a real choice. I believe it was also he who declared that too much government dependency was destroying black families. In the light of FEMA’s abysmal performance in New Orleans, I would have to agree. I for one will never forget the pictures of my brothers and sisters floating down Canal Street. The strength of feeling provoked by these images has prompted me to join the Millions More Movement in Washington on the 15th.
Regardless of any disquiet about its sponsorship I believe it is a viable opportunity to express our contempt of Republican hypocrisy.

http://www.millionsmoremovement.com/index_noflash.html

[Pinto]

Well, why do rich and upper middle class white liberals live in overwhelming white neighborhoods?

Not a lot of ethnic divershitty among the liberal rich elites of the Hamptons, Beverly Hills, and Monterey.

Hmmm? I guess divershitty is okay as long as the elite white liberals rarely have to practice it. Suckas.