The post-Katrina cityscape is rapidly being reshaped by developers and real estate speculators in ways that favor affluent homebuyers, the tourist industry, and downtown property owners.

(intro, M.Black/ article, Jose Torres Tama) After a year of brazen wheelin’-n-’dealin’ by Government, Corporate and non-Profiteers, New Orleans harbors a grief that continues to compound and reverberate through the soul of this fragile metropolis. With the majority of the city’s former housing still uninhabitable, triple rents and increased utilities on what is left, and the drastic reduction or outright elimination of public services, including hospitals, schools, public housing, legal services for the poor & public transportation, New Orleans runs the risk of becoming an architectural minstral to one of the richest treasures of the United States’ own culturally complex cities.

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It’s unclear just how much the various planning firms that are selected in this process will truly incorporate the needs and desires of the residents represented. But the biggest problem of all with the process thus far is its lack of true democratic participation. With almost half of the city’s population still missing, with renters, public housing residents, and residents of the worst hit neighborhoods distracted by more mundane concerns like returning home, securing employment, a roof over their heads, or cleaning up property that Mayor Nagin will otherwise deem blighted within a month, it would appear that most resident of the Big Easy simply don’t have the resources to participate.