I'm glad to hear that Eric led you through today's charette and it went off well. This is the first time I can honestly report that I slept through my own class - in bed, with the Nyquil and the tissues on hand. Next year, I'm getting a flu shot.
Here's your assignment for next week:
So far, in our case studies, we have read about some of the substantive tasks planners have had: making cities more functional and beautiful, spurring job growth, fighting poverty, and more. The next three weeks will give us the chance to learn about an important ongoing case of helping a major city recover from natural disaster—and, some would say, from a variety of man-made disasters as well. Disaster experts typically distinguish two phases: relief action (which meets immediate needs of the victims, such as for clean water, food, and shelter); and recovery and reconstruction, which restores the longer-term bases of people’s lives, from economic livelihoods to housing to valued cultural heritage and more. Our work over the next three weeks will focus on planning in the second phase. This week introduces New Orleans, its politics, the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and then the recovery planning efforts that followed. Rob Olshansky, a planning professor who specializes in post-disaster recovery planning, will be joining us in class to help us begin to think about this enormous planning challenge . He is also the author of this week's readings, from his book entitled "Clear As Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans" - the title should give you some sense of his judgment of efforts there! His visit will prepare us to examine specific New Orleans planning efforts during the following two weeks.
Your discussion question for this week, a simple one, was suggested by Rob, who tells me it is the first question he usually is asked when he presents his findings on the Crescent City:
Why should we rebuild New Orleans?
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