ddb NOLA: post-Katrina NOLA: the damage assessment

Is New Orleans a catastrophic wasteland, or a blank canvas for innovation and improvement?

Throughout the semester I will be focusing research on devastating conditions surrounding post-Katrina New Orleans and its potential to grow and develop. I will be examining case studies of cities that have been rebuilt after disaster, whether it be human disaster (such as war) or natural disaster (earthquakes, tsunamis, or hurricanes).

According to the Urban Institute, New Orleans had already fallen victim to a failing infrastructure when Katrina simply seemed to "finish things off." An important consideration that governments and organizations who are attempting to rebuild the culture-rich city is that it must be rebuilt better than it was before in order to survive and flourish.

To start things off, let's get an overview of some basic statistics surrounding New Orleans to date:

As of August, 2006 there were 100 metro area hotels and motels in operation with 27,000 rooms in inventory. Prior to Katrina, There were 265 hotels with an inventory of 38,338.
As of August, 2006, out of 81,000 local businesses in 10 parishes, 42,168 were currently open and another 20,268 have partially resumed operations.
Pre-Katrina there were 20 general acute care hospitals in operation in the metro area. Currently there are 12.
Nearly 228,000 homes and apartments were flooded in the metropolitan area.
FEMA estimated 450,000 to 600,000 families were displaced outside of the city as of January, 2006. The U.S. Census Bureau has been unable to tally the population as far as how much of it has returned to NOLA, but they are working on a system now.

Here is an interesting image comparing a NOLA highway interchange pre- and post-Katrina, images courtesy of globalSecurity.org.