US Travel Diary – New Orleans

This is the fifth of a series of posts by economist Peter Nunns from his travels earlier this year in the US

I often argue that Auckland can learn the most not from long-established, highly livable European cities but from North American cities. In particular, we should look to cities along the American West Coast, as they were founded at around the same time, shortly before the advent of the streetcar and the automobile, and have since dealt with similar opportunities and dysfunctions. In the short term, cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver may offer some lessons for Auckland. And, as Joel Kotkin would recommend, we should consider whether there is anything to be learned from Houston.

 There is no reason why we shouldn’t aspire to adopt the best urban trends, whether they come from America, Europe, Africa, or even New Zealand itself. But transforming Auckland to be more like Amsterdam or Paris (for example) may be a generations-long project. The West Coast cities offer a few lessons about what can – and can’t – be accomplished in a generation.

 I spent several weeks in February and March travelling throughout this vast territory to see friends and family. I spent a week in the San Francisco Bay Area; a day in Los Angeles; a long Amtrak ride through the desert with my youngest brother; and another week in Houston, where my middle brother lives, and New Orleans. Here are a few of my observations about how each city functions and how it is changing, with a focus on transport and urban development.

New Orleans

After a few days in Houston, we drove to New Orleans to experience one of the continent’s best outdoor festivals / piss-ups – Mardi Gras. It’s the city’s annual chance to showcase its unique culture – blending French Creole influences with African, Caribbean, and Southern cultures – for thousands of visitors. New Orleans is, in many respects, an elegant city that’s preserved its built heritage quite well. Its main streets are lined with mixed-use, low-rise buildings – shops or bars on lower levels, apartments above – and surrounded by Victorian-era villas and duplex houses. In addition, it’s largely preserved its historic downtown, the French Quarter, which becomes Party Central for Mardi Gras. New Orleans is a fairly walkable city – and, apparently, cycle-able, judging by the number of people I saw biking around the parade routes and downtown parties.

The houses are nice, at least when they’ve been preserved

Like Christchurch, New Orleans is also a city that is slowly dealing with the aftermath of a cataclysmic natural disaster. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina broke through the city’s poorly-maintained levies, allowing water from nearby Lake Pontchartrain to flood most of the city. Some cafes now feature markers showing the high-water mark – as the picture below shows, everything got extremely wet. (For reference, I’m 6’2”.) Eight years on, things are still quite dilapidated – a fair number of houses are abandoned or in need of serious repair. While we didn’t visit it, the impoverished Ninth Ward is apparently being abandoned and reverting back to a natural state.

Many shops have signs commemorating the Katrina flooding. For comparison, I’m 6’2”

According to one of the people we were staying with, the slow pace of reconstruction is due in part to land ownership and state law issues. The city has a relatively high home ownership rate due to a historical quirk. After the Civil War, New Orleans was generally willing to allow freed slaves and black migrants to purchase land, unlike other cities in the Jim Crow South. Today, many of these houses are still owned by third- or fourth-generation descendants of the original purchasers – people who are less likely to have the financial resources (or experience in dealing with builders and contract law) required to rebuild. It is likely to take years to unwind these issues.

This is more or less what Mardi Gras feels like

New Orleans seems to have been relatively conservative when it comes to reimagining the city centre in the wake of Katrina. The central areas of town – the French Quarter and CBD – were less affected than residential areas. They’ve been restored with few changes to either major facilities, such as the city’s extensive convention centre and neighbouring sports stadium, or to transport networks. New Orleans has probably missed a few opportunities to redevelop underused areas of the city or to shake up its seemingly perverse transport system.

For example, on my first morning in the city, I went to take a run along the Mississippi River waterfront – and had trouble finding it. The riverfront is monopolised by industry, warehouses, and commercial docks, a legacy of the Mississippi’s role as a major shipping route, along with the convention centre. The only public space is a small park near the French Quarter. New Orleans could probably stand to take a few lessons from Wellington, which has transformed unused port space into a busy urban park.

In order to get to the centre of town, I had to pass under a truly Pharaonic piece of civil engineering – the I-10/Claibourne Overpass, a freeway interchange that rises ten stories above street level. It severs downtown from the vibrant neighbourhoods to the southwest. Before visiting New Orleans, I read the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)’s annual “Freeways Without Futures” report, which identifies the best opportunities to revitalise cities by tearing down dysfunctional urban freeways. [http://www.cnu.org/highways/freewayswithoutfutures2014] CNU listed the I-10/Claiborne Overpass near downtown New Orleans as one of the most endangered freeways. I was inclined to agree that a plan to remove the interchange and restore links with the riverfront could transform the city. The city is currently studying options for turning the elevated highway into an at-grade boulevard and restoring dozens of city blocks.

Louisiana has made pharaonic attempts to beautify the swamps

In terms of public transport – the city has preserved a heritage streetcar system that links neighbourhoods to the north and west to a historical downtown with narrow streets and many shared spaces. However, this streetcar system doesn’t seem particularly well designed for modern road conditions – although streetcars have separated rights-of-ways in road medians on arterial roads like Canal Street and St Charles Avenue, they mix with car traffic within the city centre. In addition, it was not particularly clear how the city’s bus system worked for cross-town trips, or how it integrated with the streetcars. There seemed to be room for improvement when it comes to PT.

Overall, New Orleans offers some lessons for Christchurch. On the one hand, it displays the resilience of cities after natural disasters – life seems to have returned to normal, albeit with a bit more disrepair, and the city’s hosting big parties with the same enthusiasm. On the other hand, it shows how difficult it can be to fully rebuild, let alone to grasp opportunities to transform urban form and urban function, after a major disaster.

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