New Orleans must look back to move ahead

New Orleans — BY almost any measure, the rebuilding effort here stands in disarray. With a new hurricane season set to begin in June, the levees ringing the city have barely been restored to half their shaky pre-Katrina strength. The neighborhood planning sessions that were supposed to start Feb. 20 have been postponed while the city figures out how to pay for them. And 10 days ago the embattled mayor, C. Ray Nagin, officially endorsed the controversial idea that residents will be allowed to rebuild -- at their own risk, as he put it -- even in the most perennially flood-prone parts of town.

That continuing uncertainty suggests that the recovery, even with Congress having earmarked an additional $4.2 billion in housing aid, will be driven more by private initiative than coordinated public support. Lawrence Powell, a professor of history at Tulane University and a frequent commentator on civic life here, calls the emerging process "bootstrap redevelopment." It's one that inevitably will favor families with means over the poor -- which in New Orleans generally means whites over blacks -- and well-connected developers over planners.

Strictly from an architectural perspective, though, the larger confusion may yield a surprising benefit. Without Category 5 levees, wetlands restoration along the Gulf Coast or a forward-thinking planning strategy in place, homeowners who choose to rebuild will have to acknowledge the possibility of future flooding in every design decision. And if they approach the reconstruction process with that level of wariness -- with their eyes wide open -- they will be tapping into a rich architectural tradition in this city, odd as that may sound.

It's no coincidence that the most distinctive neighborhoods in New Orleans date from the decades when residents, architects and planners were most keenly aware of the city's vulnerability. Repairing that close connection between the natural and the built environments -- which was replaced in the 20th century by a blind, ultimately catastrophic faith in modern infrastructure -- may be the most direct way to recapture the vitality that once made residential neighborhoods in New Orleans among the most admired in the world. It also may help change how Americans in other cities threatened by natural disasters, Los Angeles chief among them, think about the relationship between architecture and risk.

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Respecting nature