A Minute with Rob Olshansky

Rob Olshansky is a professor and the associate head of the department of urban and regional planning. His teaching and research focus on land use and environmental planning, with an emphasis on planning for natural hazards. He has written extensively on post-disaster recovery planning, and studied the topic during a recent sabbatical year at Kyoto University's Disaster Prevention Research Institute. He was interviewed by News Bureau writer Melissa Mitchell.

Some view the Bush administration’s recently announced plans to seek an additional $4.5 billion from Congress – on top of last year’s $6.2 billion – for repairs, reconstruction or buy-outs of Louisiana homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina as a major turning point in the state’s redevelopment efforts, particularly in New Orleans. Is the move toward replacing the housing stock central to moving the recovery process forward?

This is a major turning point. All the reconstruction planning efforts in New Orleans have been waiting for this federal funding commitment. The city's “Bring Back New Orleans” plan assumed that such money would be available for repairs, buyouts or relocations. The commitment of funds is crucial to help owners rebuild housing as well as to provide them with the opportunity to relocate out of the lowest-lying areas. It provides funding to partially compensate owners for their losses, as well as to rebuild in a better and safer manner than before.

That said, I also find the announcement a bit disappointing. First, it has taken six months for the administration to propose a way to fund permanent housing solutions. This should have been a priority issue back in September. Second, although numbers are hard to come by, many have estimated that New Orleans' permanent housing assistance should be about $12 billion. The creative bill proposed by Rep. Richard Baker promised even more, as well as the possibility of the government recouping much of the cost by redeveloping voluntarily sold properties; this bill had strong bipartisan support, but was rejected by the White House. So I am delighted that this commitment has arrived, and it allows New Orleans to finally move forward; but I wish it would have happened sooner and been even more substantial.

Your research and analysis of how other major metropolitan areas – notably, Kobe, Japan; Los Angeles; and San Francisco – have handled planning and redevelopment initiatives following natural disasters indicates that success depends on residents’ participation in the planning process. To what extent have New Orleanians been involved in such efforts?

From what I can tell, citizen involvement has been minimal up to this point. The “Bring New Orleans Back Committee” includes a large number of stakeholders, but its decision processes have not been completely open, and it over-represents wealthier areas of the city. To its credit, the BNOBC held public hearings in several diaspora cities, such as Houston and Atlanta. But the process has not been systematic and transparent. That said, an important step is about to begin: a neighborhood-based planning process throughout New Orleans. This process has a great deal of promise, so long as it is well-funded, systematic, information- and data-rich, has frequent meetings at a fine scale throughout neighborhoods, involves sincere listening to residents' concerns, and effectively involves diaspora populations.

How long will it take before the city fully recovers from the effects of Katrina? Is that even possible?

It will never return to its pre-Katrina population, and some neighborhoods will never regain the sense of community they had before. But I am convinced that New Orleans will once again be a viable, functioning, large city, with perhaps a population of 300,000 to 350,000. I think it will take five to 10 years to attain this.

A Minute with… is provided by the News Bureau | Public Affairs as a venue for Illinois faculty experts to comment on current topics in the news. Faculty experts on a wide range of socially important topics are available to news media through the News Bureau, (217) 333-1085.

An index of previous A Minute with… features is here.