Reforming New Orleans

The Contentious Politics of Change in the Big Easy

Peter F. Burns, Matthew O. Thomas

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English

Cornell University Press
18 December 2015

Social impact of disasters; Regional government policies; Political economy

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, but in the subsequent ten years, the city has demonstrated both remarkable resilience and frustrating stagnation. In Reforming New Orleans, Peter F. Burns and Matthew O. Thomas chart the city's recovery and assess how successfully officials at the local, state, and federal levels transformed the Big Easy in the wake of disaster. Focusing on reforms in four key sectors of urban governance-economic development, education, housing, and law enforcement-both before and after Katrina, they find lessons for cities hit by sudden shocks, such as natural disasters or large-scale financial crises.

One of their key insights is that post-disaster recovery tends to limit local control. State and federal officials, national foundations, and local actors excluded by pre-Katrina politics used their resources and authority to displace entrenched local interests and implement a public agenda focused on institutional and governmental change. Burns and Thomas also make clear reform in New Orleans was already underway before Katrina hit, but that it had focused largely on upper- and middle-class residents, a trend that accelerated after the storm. The market-centered nature of the reforms have ensured that they largely benefited city and regional elites while not significantly aiding the city's working-class and impoverished populations. Thus reform has come at a cost and that cost, in the long term, could undermine the political gains of the post-Katrina era.

By: Peter F. Burns, Matthew O. Thomas
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780801453854
ISBN 10: 0801453852
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 18 December 2015
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Peter F. Burns is Professor of Political Science at Soka University of America and was previously Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Loyola University New Orleans. He is the author most recently of Electoral Politics Is Not Enough: Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Urban Politics. Matthew O. Thomas is Professor of Political Science at California State University, Chico.

Reviews for Reforming New Orleans: The Contentious Politics of Change in the Big Easy

In Reforming New Orleans, Peter F. Burns and Matthew O. Thomas open for full view what many paid very little attention to before August 2005: New Orleans has long been a poor, dangerous, racially divided, and struggling city. Burns and Thomas provide a rich description of policy implementation in New Orleans before and after the storm and of what happened to education, public housing, and public safety after Katrina. This book breaks new ground. -Marion Orr, Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies, Brown University, author of Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore, 1986-1999