Disneyfication of New Orleans
Read between the lines: White folks of a certain touristic type would feel a whole lot better about rebuilding New Orleans if it were just a little more like Seaside, FL. Yeah, and I wanna live on a movie set with the Stepfords for neighbors. We can replace Café du Monde with Starbucks and prefabricate some precision-milled gingerbread and all-weather recycled PVC grillwork, and listen to oom-pah-pah versions of "Struttin' with some Barbecue," just to give it that authentic New Orleans color without the messy business of keeping actual colored folks around...
From Doug MacCash in today's Times-Picayune:
New Orleans architect Errol Barron points out the coals-to-Newcastle irony of bringing New Urbanism to New Orleans, where, he feels, new urban ideals are already largely in place. "I'm totally against it," he said. "New Urbanism is a concept of something we already have in New Orleans. . . . We are a very neighborhood-oriented city, loosely designed, with recognizable precincts with shops and bars within them. . . . We don't need any New Urbanism, we need protection from the water."
May I insist that folks read The Second Battle of New Orleans (Baumbach and Borah) again? One of the perpetrators of the Disneyfication of New Orleans is developer Pres Kabacoff; another is Donald Trump. What a waste of money. Far better that those guys set up a foundation to teach and use the AUTHENTIC restoration techniques our city needs to save itself.
This is what was cooking for riverfront development when Katrina hit. The City Planning Commission and the various historic and neighborhood groups had better unite against the multi-headed hydra of outside (and inside) developers bent on high-density, high-rolling ant farms with extruded faux Victorian and pseudo-Spanish Colonial facades.
Beyond aesthetics and historic preservation, the issue of cultural preservation looms largest. Slum clearance failed in the 1920s; it will fail again. It always does. See Gambit ca. early 1989 for a "Dateline" I did on just that issue. Better yet, I'll see if I can find a clip and scan it.
Mardi Gras Indians? Brass bands? Jazz? Po-boys? Where do these people think all that comes from? Kenner?
From Doug MacCash in today's Times-Picayune:
New Orleans architect Errol Barron points out the coals-to-Newcastle irony of bringing New Urbanism to New Orleans, where, he feels, new urban ideals are already largely in place. "I'm totally against it," he said. "New Urbanism is a concept of something we already have in New Orleans. . . . We are a very neighborhood-oriented city, loosely designed, with recognizable precincts with shops and bars within them. . . . We don't need any New Urbanism, we need protection from the water."
May I insist that folks read The Second Battle of New Orleans (Baumbach and Borah) again? One of the perpetrators of the Disneyfication of New Orleans is developer Pres Kabacoff; another is Donald Trump. What a waste of money. Far better that those guys set up a foundation to teach and use the AUTHENTIC restoration techniques our city needs to save itself.
This is what was cooking for riverfront development when Katrina hit. The City Planning Commission and the various historic and neighborhood groups had better unite against the multi-headed hydra of outside (and inside) developers bent on high-density, high-rolling ant farms with extruded faux Victorian and pseudo-Spanish Colonial facades.
Beyond aesthetics and historic preservation, the issue of cultural preservation looms largest. Slum clearance failed in the 1920s; it will fail again. It always does. See Gambit ca. early 1989 for a "Dateline" I did on just that issue. Better yet, I'll see if I can find a clip and scan it.
Mardi Gras Indians? Brass bands? Jazz? Po-boys? Where do these people think all that comes from? Kenner?
posted by nolapoet at 8:39 PM
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