Neighborhood Recovery Rates

Five years after Katrina, 66 of New Orleans’ 73 neighborhoods have recovered well over half of the population they had before the levees failed, as indicated by households receiving mail in the Valassis Residential and Business database.

In September 2005, the world could barely imagine that the flooded neighborhoods of New Orleans would recover so significantly. Beyond private insurance and investments, much of this recovery was fueled by federal funding in the form of rebuilding grants to underinsured homeowners and tax credits to low–income housing developers.

But arguably more critical to the recovery effort were individual New Orleanians who, with the support of nonprofits and thousands of volunteers, resolved to rebuild their homes and help their neighbors do the same. Neighbors have come together and organized in ways undreamed of before the storm, and neighborhood organizations have rightfully been hailed as the heart and soul of the city’s recovery.

Of the seven neighborhoods with less than half the population they had prior to Katrina, three are public housing sites that have been demolished to make way for new mixed–income housing.

Eight neighborhoods now have a larger number of active households than they did prior to the levee breaches. Seven of these neighborhoods largely did not flood because they are on the West Bank or in the “sliver by the river.” Gert Town did experience severe flooding, but has more active households than before the storm due to the revitalization of several multi–unit buildings that were vacant when Katrina struck.

However, over the last two years, as residents moved back into their rehabilitated homes or into new or rehabbed apartment buildings in flooded parts of New Orleans’ east bank, the consolidation of the city’s population in areas that did not flood has started to reverse itself. Twenty–one neighborhoods lost active households from June 2008 to June 2010. Many of these are in parts of the city that did not flood such as the west bank and the “sliver by the river.”

Neighborhoods vary greatly as to their resources and capacity for organizing, and it will be important for City Hall to provide neighborhoods with the tools they need to participate in land use decisions going forward. In addition, market conditions vary neighborhood by neighborhood. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and the state’s Office of Community Development should not apply a one–size–fits–all approach to deploying Road Home properties. Remaining blight will not be easily remedied by putting Road Home properties on the market. In neighborhoods with weak market conditions, such properties could be scooped up by speculators with no intention of revitalizing them.

In the long or medium term, the oil disaster may have a dampening impact on housing markets in New Orleans. Decisionmakers should begin to develop policies that guard against the potential for absentee owners to acquire and “sit on” New Orleans’ historic housing stock. Disaster Community Development Block Grants still held by the state as well as federal funds received and applied for by the City should be used to further revitalize New Orleans neighborhoods by reducing blight and building a public transportation system that connects neighborhoods to work centers.

Table 1: Households Actively Receiving Mail by Neighborhood in New Orleans

Source: GNO Community Data Center analysis of Valassis Residential and Business Database.
Note: The USPS database underlying this data set is maintained for the purpose of delivering mail and determining letter carrier workload‚ not tracking repopulation post–disaster. On a regular basis‚ the USPS audits the addresses on every route‚ changing the status of addresses to reflect whether the households are actively receiving mail‚ or are vacant/unoccupied. As such‚ caution should be used analyzing changes over time. See our research note from 2007 on Using U.S. Postal Service Delivery Statistics To Track the Repopulation of New Orleans & the Metropolitan Area and our technical documentation Valassis Lists Data as an Indicator of Population Recovery in the New Orleans Area for more details.

Figure 1: Percent Recovery by Neighborhood in New Orleans, June 2010

Source: GNO Community Data Center analysis of Valassis Residential and Business Database.
View repopulation data by census block at www.gnocdc.org/repopulation/.

Figure 2: Change in Number of Active Addresses by Neighborhood in New Orleans, June 2008 to June 2010

Source: GNO Community Data Center analysis of Valassis Residential and Business Database.
View repopulation data by census block at www.gnocdc.org/repopulation/.

About Greater New Orleans Community Data Center

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center gathers‚ analyzes and disseminates data to help nonprofit and civic leaders work smarter and more strategically. Operating since 1997‚ the GNOCDC is New Orleans’ sustainable data source – before the storm‚ throughout recovery and in the years to come.