Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Character, Leadership, And Community: A Case Study Of A New Orleans Youth Program, Candace Colbert

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Youth outreach programs use innovative and community-based activities to fill in gaps of education, provide creative outlets, create access to opportunities, and empower youth.¹ This research investigates, records, and compares the ways in which staff and youth participants perceive the experience at a New Orleans youth program. The purpose of the research is to provide insight towards potential program improvement. The participants of this study are from Compassion Outreach of America’s summer program Project Reach NOLA in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana. There are twenty-nine participants, between the ages of fourteen and fifty years old. The …

Using Digital Mapping Techniques To Rapidly Document Vulnerable Historical Landscapes In Coastal Louisiana: Holt Cemetery Case Study, Alahna Moore

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis outlines a technique for rapid documentation of historic sites in volatile cultural landscapes. Using Holt Cemetery as an exemplary case study, a workflow was developed incorporating RTK terrain survey, UAS aerial imagery, photogrammetry, GIS, and smartphone data collection in order to create a multifaceted database of the material and spatial conditions, as well as the patterns of use, that exist at the cemetery.

The purpose of this research is to create a framework for improving the speed of data creation and increasing the accessibility of information regarding threatened cultural resources. It is intended that these processes can be …

Inequity In Rebuilding After Disasters, Sara Brown

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

Natural disasters are becoming more and more frequent. Policies that help rebuild residential areas after disasters need to be equitable. The five residential programs researched are The Road Home Homeowner Assistance Program, The Road Home Small Rental Property Program, LIHTC Piggyback Program, Hazard Mitigation Gram Program, and Non- Profit Rebuilding Pilot Program. Through a case study of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans this research reviews five residential rebuilding programs to see if its goals were written equitably. This research then compares the Lower Ninth Ward with the entire City of New Orleans as well as two other planning …

Advocacy Coalition Formation, Mobilization, Sustainment, And Fragmentation: A Case Study Of The New Orleans Federal Alliance (Nofa) And The Federal City Project, Gerald J. Ormerod

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

U.S. military bases and installations represent trillions of dollars of capital investment towards the nation’s defense infrastructure. The Department of Defense, in its response to the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, sought to reorganize and optimize this basing infrastructure to meet the emerging threats of the 21^st century. A series of nationwide Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) efforts were chartered by Congress to facilitate this task, identifying hundreds of obsolete or unneeded military installations. During the last BRAC effort in 2005, the Naval Support Activity New Orleans was targeted for closure, with …

The Manifestation Of Blight: Examining The Effects Of Inner City Decline On Populations In The Bronx, New York And New Orleans, Louisiana, Bianca R. Stewart

Honors Theses

Urban decline, and the developments that trigger a collapse among formerly prosperous cities, is a phenomenon that is capable of leaving a lasting mark on any urban system. The collapse and disintegration of the urban landscape carries a variety of facilitators, and with that, this research sought to examine two distinct representations of urban decline and the populations that shifted in tandem with blight: the New York City fiscal crisis of the 1970s and post-Katrina conditions in New Orleans, Louisiana. Through New York City’s fiscal crisis and the act of condensing a city in hopes of rectifying urban decline, known …

Here I Am And Here I’M Not: Queer Women’S Use Of Temporary Urban Spaces In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Vigdís María Hermannsdóttir

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis builds on previous work on the relationship between queer identities and urban space. Drawing from an analysis of two recurring New Orleans-based queer women’s events, I examine how lesbians and queer women not only use but also actively produce social spaces of their own through participation in events organized specifically for lesbians and queer women. Using qualitative methods, I examine the ephemeral and transient quality of lesbian and queer women’s social spaces in post-Katrina New Orleans and the processes through which such spaces come into being. I argue that lesbian and queer women’s production of ephemeral social spaces …

Swamp Surburbia And Rebellion Against A Culture Of Crime: The Birth Of Black Skateboarding In The Big Easy, Aubrey Edwards

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research addresses a significant gap in previous work on the formation of urban and suburban black skateboarding subcultures. By using data generated through oral histories, photographs, mapping, and literature review, this study explores why black youth initially began skateboarding in New Orleans in the mid-2000s. In contrast to the scholarly literature and local popular perception, this visual anthropological study aims to provide an alternative origin story of black skateboarding in Post-Katrina New Orleans, and to examine the continuing popularity of the sport within the young black community.

The Croatian Community Of Southeastern Louisiana: Immigration, Assimilation And The Retention Of Ethnic Identity, Renee Danielle Bourgogne

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This work is a study of a community of Croatian immigrants to Southeast Louisiana in the twentieth century. Drawn from a multidisciplinary approach that included spatial analysis of settlement patterns, quantitative analysis of seafood industry data, the records of voluntary associations, and guided by the oral histories of men and women of Croatia who immigrated to Louisiana, this work reveals a community that has managed to maintain close ties despite its distribution both in urban New Orleans and rural coastal Louisiana through links created by and supportive of the state’s seafood and restaurant industries. The study points out how the …

The Streets Are Talking: The Aesthetics Of Gentrification In Two Downriver New Orleans Neighborhoods, Tara E. Foster

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1970s, when neoliberal policies and changing consumer patterns began remaking cities, scholars have conducted research about gentrification. In New Orleans, these studies have helped explain the demographic and economic shifts in some neighborhoods. However, there has been limited focus on the built environment aspects of gentrification in New Orleans, specifically the interpretation of the external aesthetic shifts in streetscapes as part of the gentrification process. This thesis examines the relationship between these aesthetics, primarily graffiti and street art, and the gentrification process, as perceived by various stakeholders in two New Orleans neighborhoods: St. Roch and Bywater. Using empirical, …

A Gateway For Everyone To Believe: Identity, Disaster, And Football In New Orleans, Brandon D. Haynes

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to analyze the dynamic processes of collective identity by examining the relationship between New Orleans and its professional football team, the Saints, after Hurricane Katrina. Much of the discourse written on American professional sports focuses on economic transactions between player and franchise or franchise and city. This study explores sports from a cultural perspective to understand the perceived social values provided to the host community. This case study spans the years from 2006 to 2013 and discusses several major events, including the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the reopening of the Superdome, the Saints winning a …

Cycling In The Crescent City: An Exploration Of The Spatial Variation In Bicycle Commuting In New Orleans, Emilie S. Bahr

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the spatial variation in bicycle commuting across New Orleans. It identifies where in the city bicycle commuting is most and least prevalent. It also explores factors that are promoting and discouraging utilitarian bicycling. A review of existing literature on variables found to influence transportation bicycling is conducted, and a survey is disseminated to residents across the city to determine some of the motivations for and obstacles to transportation bicycling locally. Additionally, case studies are compiled pertaining to two neighborhoods falling on opposite ends of the bike-commute spectrum. These include analysis of socio-economic and demographic data; an evaluation …

They Took My Bedroom: A Case Study Of Eminent Domain In New Orleans, Jared E. Munster

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Of the many powers granted to federal, state, and local governments through the Constitution of theUnited States, eminent domain is possibly the strongest and most imposing, at least as it relates to citizens’ property rights. This dissertation explores several large-scale public undertakings inNew Orleansduring the period from 1929 to 2011 in which the application of eminent domain was necessary to accomplish the government’s goals. This research window will allow the analysis of eminent domain applications from the construction of the Municipal Auditorium through the new medical center projects spurred by the flooding associated with Hurricane Katrina. This timeframe also allows …

The Closure Of New Orleans' Charity Hospital After Hurricane Katrina: A Case Of Disaster Capitalism, Kenneth Brad Ott

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Amidst the worst disaster to impact a major U.S. city in one hundred years, New Orleans’ main trauma and safety net medical center, the Reverend Avery C. Alexander Charity Hospital, was permanently closed. Charity’s administrative operator, Louisiana State University (LSU), ordered an end to its attempted reopening by its workers and U.S. military personnel in the weeks following the August 29, 2005 storm. Drawing upon rigorous review of literature and an exhaustive analysis of primary and secondary data, this case study found that Charity Hospital was closed as a result of disaster capitalism. LSU, backed by Louisiana state officials, …

Remembering North Claiborne: Community And Place In Downtown New Orleans, Daniel Robert Samuels

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The construction of Interstate 10 on North Claiborne Avenue in the mid-1960s is seen by many in the historic downtown New Orleans neighborhoods of Treme and the Seventh Ward as a pivotal event in the life of their community. For many years, North Claiborne, with its broad, oak-lined median, had served as an anchor for the social, economic, and cultural life of this predominantly Creole and African American community.

The construction of Interstate 10 radically altered the physical character of North Claiborne. Many of the homes and businesses that lined the street were demolished to accommodate a series of access …