Hurricane Katrina and the History of Human Geography in New Orleans

"A spatial analysis helps clarify the relationships among race, class, and susceptibility to hurricane damage and death. Throughout the metropolitan area, 40 percent of the total population of 988,182 resided in areas that were under water on September 8, 2005.[19] Blacks outnumbered whites in that flooded area by over a 2-to-1 ratio, 257,375 to 121,262, even though whites outnumbered blacks metropolis-wide, 500,672 to 429,902. People of Asian and Hispanic ancestry numbered 9,240 and 11,830 among the flooded population and 25,552 and 49,342 among the total population, respectively. Thus, while one in every four whites’ homes, one in four Hispanics’ homes, and one in three Asians’ homes flooded throughout the tri-parish metropolis of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard (24, 24, and 36 percent, respectively), close to two of every three African Americans’ homes (60 percent) were inundated."

"The reason for the nuanced nature of the residential flooding statistics and their openness to multiple interpretations, is the complex historical geography explaining how current demographic patterns fell into place. Those reports that erroneously implied a strong positive correlation between elevation and class (and by extension race)—in other words, higher elevations hosted wealthier residents—reflected a failure to understand how the perceived technological neutralization of topography originally effected a negative relationship between the two: middle-class whites in the 1910s–1950s moved enthusiastically into the lowest-lying areas and excluded African Americans with racist deed covenants. White, prosperous Lakeview lies significantly lower than the poor, black Lower Ninth Ward. Additionally, oversimplified reports revealed a misunderstanding of the role of historical economic and environmental geographies, which explain the otherwise counterintuitive settlement of working-class African Americans along some of the highest land in New Orleans—the riverfront."