David Brains Letter

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As everybody keeps saying, this isn't just a natural disaster, its a social and political disaster that is very closely linked in many ways to the social and environmental consequences of the development patterns that we have been struggling to change. It is also an urban disaster. With all due respect to the beauty of New Orleans, Herb Gans just pointed out that his recollection of New Orleans is that it always seemed like a third world city-- with a large population of largely unseen working poor, living in decaying neighborhoods sharply segregated from both the tourist sector and the more affluent neighborhoods (on the high ground). As even David Brooks points out (not the most "progressive" voice on the block typically), the hurricane and its aftermath brings a lot of racial and class resentments to the surface, as such events have done repeatedly over the last century. The political aftershocks are difficult to predict, but they are likely to be significant.

As Nathan Norris says, the CNU has the people who can make the connections necessary to put things back together so that they are better, stronger and more resilient. One aspect of this that I think is really important is that the CNUers have the ability not only to play an important role in rebuilding devastated places, but in rebuilding devastated communities.

One of the concerns that has already surfaced is the concern that this is a massive "slum clearance" opportunity that could easily swing in the direction of the old urban renewal projects, making displacement of the working poor permanent. Imagine the third-world slums and squatter settlements we might see as a result of large numbers of displaced "refugees" who have lost what little they had. It is crucial that the rebuilding efforts be conceived in terms of the principles of mixed-income communities that the CNU has been promoting. Not just for the sake of the refugees, but for the sake of the very sustainability of these devastated cities and towns. The CNU has ability to link the ecological and the social dimensions of this disaster in solutions that are comprehensive, practical, and effective.

The spatial order of American cities, characterized by patterns of segregation, creates a situation where the impact of anything from a hurricane to an economic downturn is differentially distributed and amplified for those least able to weather the storm. Disasters, as David Brooks pointed out, tear the scab off these wounds.

The Fox News hounds are already baying about "these people" who chose to stay behind (it's all their fault), many of them choosing to stay behind precisely in order to loot and take over the city. It's easy to imagine a multilateral backlash coming-- people outraged by the slowness or apparent lack of response, on one side, and those on the other side dismissing these people in the same callous attitude that is fully justified for the thugs. The politics are likely to get very ugly. It's more than the built environment that needs some healing. (It's no accident that I use the same word here as the Prince of Wales. )

It's not about rebuilding the beautiful plantation houses, but rebuilding healthy communities. That's the voice of this movement that should be really clear. There's some danger of sounding just like the Modernist vultures, unless it is clearly about more than design-- ecological restoration, social equity, civic pride, sense of history and place, an inclusive sense of community that is about giving everybody back their home (except the looters and thugs, of course, who should have been shot dead by that time). It seems to me that the opportunity is really there to turn rebuilding into healing, and that the CNU has the technology. All the skill sets are right here among the group on this list.

This is not marketing. This is not political positioning. I really think this is something we could do.

David Brain
Associate Professor of Sociology
New College of Florida

Last edited by Johanna Nyden.   Page last modified on September 02, 2005