Nagin Dundee
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has announced he is going to “dissolve” his “recovery department.” This is the department that has spent almost three years coming up with plans to help New Orleans recover from hurricane Katrina. For some reason, though, Nagin also went out of his way to mention that he is trying to convince the Director of the recovery department, Ed Blakely, to stay on the City’s payroll. I’m not exactly sure in what roll because the Mayor did not say.
The only specifics were: “Nagin announced his plan to convert Blakely’s Office of Recovery and Development Administration into a Community Development Department by June. When asked how that would affect Blakely, he said the focus had shifted from recovery planning to implementation, the specialty of a new Nagin aide, Bill Crissman. The mayor then left Blakely’s future up to the longtime urban planning professor.” Apparently, Blakely calls Australia home and is contemplating a return to the land down under.
I have to confess, though, that the reason I noticed this article is because I’ve closely followed Blakely in the news. Back in 2006/2007 (I prefer to forget which), I was given the task of teaching an upper-level economics class called Local and Regional Economic Development. The most positive result from me teaching this class? We no longer offer the class at Nicholls.
Prior to teaching the class, I had virtually no knowledge of the scholarly work done in this area. Since I do take my job rather seriously, though, I immersed myself in the subject by reading papers and every and any “textbook” I could get my hands on. In general, I can quickly sum up the findings: none of this stuff works. Making my class all the more interesting is that Dr. Blakely has written several books and articles on local/regional economic development and, as far as I could tell, was supposed to be one of the most successful urban planners in the country.
So, how has the experiment worked out in New Orleans? My own opinion is something along the lines of not at all. I say this not only as an impassionate economist, but as a passionate property owner and former resident of Lakeview, the neighborhood that remained under 14 feet of water for a few months. But don’t take my word for it, just read the comments posted below the Times article. You can sort of get a sense for how many New Orleanians feel right now from my favorite comment: “Maybe he’ll take Nagin back to Australia with him … but why do that to defenseless kangaroos?”
NM
