Governing Affect by Roberto E. Barrios

Author:Roberto E. Barrios [Barrios, Roberto E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC002010 Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, NAT023000 Nature / Natural Disasters
ISBN: 9781496200143
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2017-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

During the two decades preceding Katrina, Tremé witnessed the arrival of a new group of residents who were attracted to the neighborhood by its affordable historic properties (Reckdahl 2007). Suburban flight and the proliferation of vacant and blighted properties lowered home values, and given the area’s proximity to the city’s tourism and business centers, buyers saw lucrative returns on real estate investments. Gaining on these real estate ventures, however, would require transforming the neighborhood to suit the sensibilities of those affluent professionals who had not previously lived in the area. Newly arrived gentrifying homeowners formed a neighborhood association dedicated to the area’s cultural transformation (Reckdahl 2007, 2008). Association organizers attempted to curtail second-line parades and opposed the opening and patronage of neighborhood bars. These efforts intensified following Hurricane Katrina, when gentrifying New Orleanians saw the disaster as an opportunity to further displace their working-class neighbors. In 2006 one of the neighborhood association’s members wrote on the online blog New Orleans Renovation:

Pre-Katrina, it [Tremé] suffered from a rash of drug violence which has been plaguing the second line scene for the past few years. Joe’s Cozy Corner [one of the neighborhood’s landmark lounges] was the site of a few murders. North Robertson Street still suffers from some bad elements who persist but we could see that the storm had created a vacuum of leadership and for a while, crime. We decided this was the time to get start [sic] a very solid and very professionally managed neighborhood organization that would welcome all residents, erasing the past bad feelings that existed between old, ineffective groups that had failed to make any real positive impact in the area. After Katrina, the blighted ghetto looks more like a slum. The Historic Faubourg Treme organization is dedicated to the smaller historic area of Treme and focused on our main problems of Crime, Blight and Grime. (New Orleans Renovation 2006)

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