Joyce Martin, 48, fears her home in eastern New Orleans has been completely engulfed by water. Martin has been on a harrowing journey, after fleeing her home in the storm’s path, she briefly stopped at the congested convention center, then dropped by a shelter, and later, lived at an army barracks with her family. A religious charity offered her a one-way ticket out, free of charge—she chose Los Angeles, the furthest she’s ever traveled.
But she plans to return.
“I miss my city so bad,” she says. “I can’t tell you.”
Stuart believes the Bush administration will have to embrace public housing in New Orleans to guarantee shelter for the displaced citizens.
“If the federal government actually commits to building public housing, there is a huge opportunity there to create a city,” he says. “[But] it is unlike this administration to put such dollars behind public housing. They may go for some sort of voucher system and that’s a little bit more of a crap shoot whether we will simply be repeating the problems which existed in New Orleans before.”
Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at KSG John P. Holdren agrees with his colleague’s lack of faith in the current administration.
“The federal government—and FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency], in particular—were slow to realize the magnitude of the problem and to start moving resources into play,” he says. “There was no sign that there were any positioned supplies anywhere within easy reach from the areas likely to be affected.”
But with the federal government now poised to offer abundant funding to the relief and rebuilding effort, Harvard Business School Professor of Management Practice Arthur I. Segel ’73 of says it is imperative that the government dedicate much of its finances to attracting capital to the beleaguered city.
And the tried-and-true method of depending on tourism to fill the city’s coffers, he says, just won’t cut it.
“It’s much more than tourism,” says Segel, who predicts that recovery efforts will total $200 billion. “Serious infrastructure issues need to be addressed right away. We need to figure out a way to get business to come back in a big way.”
Segel suggests that New Orleans should be rebuilt miles from its original location, keeping the region’s economic advantages as a trade hub, specifically its port for the shipping of oil and grains, while doing away with its rampant crime and corruption.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation Report of Offenses Known to Law Enforcement in 2003 had the New Orleans murder rate seven times higher than the national average. By mid-summer, total murders in the city neared 200, a nine percent increase from last year.
“There’s going to be a lot of job training and there’s going to be unions,” says Segel. “And there is a lot of political corruption in New Orleans which has to make some a little nervous.”
Whatever the angle, many within the academic community envision a complete overhaul of New Orleans’ modus vivendi—but building a utopia where only water and carnage lie now will be a Herculean feat.
Segel, who sees no choice but to make the attempt, remains a skeptic.
“There are lots of things that are going to have to work right,” he says.
—April H.N. Yee contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Robin M. Peguero can be reached at peguero@fas.harvard.edu.