August 29, 2006 marks the first year since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, leaving some 780,000 Louisiana residents displaced from their homes. One year later, the rebuilding and cleanup in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama is still going on. People from Louisiana, where New Orleans took a direct hit, are scattered throughout all 50 states; many are living temporarily with family members or starting new lives. Although Houston, Atlanta, and other cities opened themselves up to those displaced by the storm, some people have gone back to the Gulf region.
In New Orleans, which now has a population of approximately 155,000—the population was almost half a million before the hurricane—people are rebuilding and using many programs to do so. (Three examples are The Road Home, FEMA, and programs run by the American Institute of Architects.) The city has focused on rebuilding houses and businesses. As the population starts to rise again—estimates place the population at 280,000 by 2008—the city will also be rebuilding its infrastructure. Crime has run rampant, police have been accused of wrongdoing, and the people returning home will need to become part of the solution to rebuild not only homes and business, but the infrastructure and their communities.
Those who come back to New Orleans will want to move to a safe, secure neighborhood. Only if the residents of those neighborhoods work with their law enforcement will this be possible. Only if those programs engaged in designing the new and rebuilt communities work to make them less accessible to people considered dangerous will New Orleans flourish once again. Just rebuilding an old house or building or building a new one doesn’t make a community. The people who live in the house or building are what make the community, and only if they are involved can they make a difference.
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