disJointed: the parish system

New Orleans, both pre- and post-Katrina, has been fragmented on a number of levels, primarily due to the parish system in its metropolitan area. Each parish acted independently to become prepared for any disaster, then to become prepared for Katrina, and now to rebuild. Post-Katrina, this is causing people to move to different parishes. For example, the St. Tammany and Jefferson Parishes are more in control of the rebuilding process than the Orleans parish, and people are leaving the Orleans parish. Orleans is the central downtown parish, and it is becoming impoverished because its entire tax base is relocating.

The parish system of division is based off of the Catholic church and the strong Catholic background of the population has kept it alive. The beginnings of the settlement of Louisiana and the rest of the Mississippi Valley after the Louisiana purchase were led by missionary priests, seeking to leave the eastern seaboard where Catholicism was not necessarily acceptable, and hoping to estabish Catholic settlements. Shortly after the Mobile parish was founded, a pioneer named Bienville took fifty men with him to Tchoutchouma, an abandoned Indian village, and erected buildings, laying out the city according to chief engineer of the colony de La Tour. The first church, dedicated to St. Louis, stands in what is now the St. Louis Parish. The city was named New Orleans after the Duc d'Orleans, and thus started its urban growth.


St. Louis Cathedral (courtesy ww.AllPosters.com)

The parishes controlled all aspects of Louisiana policy. It wasn't until 1844 that new parishes were established in New Orleans, and caused a degree of separation in New Orleans. The St. Louis parish lost members of its parish, and therefore lost much of its tax base. This level of competition within the city still lives today.

While citizens of each parish no longer pay taxes to the churches, each parish still essentially governs itself in the manner of a county, but the state has little control over the tax money and therefore the rebuilding process.


a map of the parish system as it exists today
(courtesy of David Huskins, Institute for Health and Social Policy)

Holly Grove, the neighborhood in which the ddbNOLA will take place, is located in the Orleans Parish.

Sources:
Maret, Isabelle. "Washed Away by Hurricane Katrina?" Journal of Architectural Education, volume 60, issue 1.
New Advent: the Catholic Encyclopedia.