In this article from Metropolis Magazine, architect and planner Andrés Duany looks at New Orleans through a new lens to find the city's true character -- and to redefine how the city can restore itself.
"New Orleans is one of the best places to learn architecture and urbanism in the United States."
"Apart from the misconceptions of the tourist, I had also been predisposed by the media to think of New Orleans as a charming but lackadaisical and fundamentally mismanaged place that had been subjected to unwarranted devastation, with a great deal of anger and resentment as a result. That is indeed what I found at first. But as I engaged in the planning process I came to realize that the anger I witnessed was relative. It was much less, for example, than the bitterness one encounters in the typical California city plagued with traffic."
"New Orleans is not really an American city, but rather a Caribbean one. I understood that, when seen through the lens of the Caribbean, New Orleans is not among the most haphazard, poorest, or misgoverned American cities, but rather the most organized, wealthiest, cleanest, and competently governed of the Caribbean cities."
Read the full story: Restoring the Real New Orleans
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