Katrina and the Demographics of Destruction and Reconstruction

A man carries a baby through the flooded streets of New Orleans outside the Superdome.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast region need to be rebuilt in a sustainable and socially just way. It will cost well over $100 billion in federal funds to rebuild the region. The people who lived in the areas of New Orleans that were still flooded days after Hurricane Katrina struck were more likely to be black, have more children, earn less money, and be less educated than those in the rest of the city. People of color and low income communities disproportionately bear the burdens of the Katrina disaster, and disproportionately stand to loose out on the benefits of recovery and relief.

The City Project and Marc Brenman, Executive Director of the Washington State Human Rights Commission, present recommendations (344KB [PDF]) to help ensure the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of reconstruction, while promoting democratic values of full information and full and fair public participation in rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

See the neighborhoods that were hit hard and those that weren't.