E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

N.O. locals not waiting to be told what to do
In which the citizens of New Orleans take matters into their own hands. The Katrina fires will forge some mighty fine steel, in my opinion. Matt and Glenmore are of course free to tell me I am full of it.
Big green spots covering portions of flooded neighborhoods on a map of a rebuilt New Orleans might have discouraged some people. But in the densely built Broadmoor neighborhood, the symbol marking the area for possible new green space lit a fire under its neighborhood group.

"It didn't devastate us; it pissed us off," said Virginia Saussy Bairnsfather, a board member for the Broadmoor Improvement Association.

Within weeks of the map's unveiling in January by Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, membership in the neighborhood group jumped 400 percent.

The January rollout of the commission's land-use plan set a clock ticking that gave sections of the city four months to establish their viability. But weeks have passed and the city's formal process for helping about 80 neighborhoods chart a new future has yet to begin. Professional disagreements over differing visions of the city's future are one snag. Another has been a lack of money to finance the planning process, a problem that may have been alleviated Friday with members of the Louisiana Recovery Authority pledging to help find $7.5 million needed to get the process moving.

But Broadmoor residents, like grass-roots community groups all across the city, are moving ahead on their own without waiting for the expert-laced planning exercise promised by Nagin's commission. They are polling residents, creating planning committees and enlisting the help of an unnamed Ivy League university in writing a redevelopment plan.

Fearing they may lose control of what happens to their communities -- especially with some areas at risk of being declared no longer viable, and subject to clearing -- activists in Lakeview, Gentilly and eastern New Orleans are calling meetings, mulling issues, debating what kinds of changes they will favor or oppose. Much of the work is brainstorming and data-gathering. In some cases it has taken a sophisticated turn, involving architects or planners who donate their time. "There has been no direction given (from City Hall), so neighborhoods have to fend for themselves," said Latoya Cantrell, president of the Broadmoor group. "We're on our own."
Snipped the bits about FEMA and state authorities not knowing a** from elbow; we knew that already.
Posted by: Seafarious 2006-03-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=145377