Draft:Gentrification in New Orleans

In the 2000s, New Orleans began experiencing trends of gentrification in many of its historic, inner-city neighborhoods. These trends were either initiated or severely exacerbated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Background
New Orleans was already seeing preliminary signs of gentrification before Katrina, including an affordable housing crisis. In 2000, 67% of extremely low-income households in the city experienced housing costs which exceeded 30% of household income. Homeownership rates were also relatively low, with 47% of residents owning their homes compared to 67% nationally at the time. The privatization of public housing in the 1990s as a result of HOPE VI also impacted New Orleans. HOPE VI provided funding for the revitalization of some public housing sites, but it also led to a significant reduction in public housing units: in the late 1990s, there were about 6,000 public housing units in Orleans parish, down from 14,000 in the early 1980s. However, public resistance limited further demolition of public housing shortly before Katrina.

High housing costs made it more desirable for homeowners in working class neighborhoods to avoid purchasing homeowners or flood insurance, and FEMA had deemed many working-class neighborhoods to be at a low risk of flooding, further discouraging the purchasing of flood insurance and making working-class neighborhoods more vulnerable to gentrification in the case of a disaster.