Federal Housing and Envirnomental Policies Clash in New Orleans

"The weeds were growing high in the Upper 9th Ward long before Landrieu took office-and indeed, even before the hurricane hit. For more than a decade before that disaster, a quieter one was unfolding, one that caused residents of the nearly 100 percent black, largely low-income community to live alongside a potentially lethal legacy of federal policy decisions. In the case of Horne's neighborhood, the decisions were spectacular failures. Her house, as well as the abandoned HANO development she sees from her front porch and the public elementary school where she worked and her grandchildren studied, were built atop a 95-acre municipal dump," writes author Ariella Cohen.

..."Welcome to the new normal-where entire swaths of city neighborhoods deteriorate behind fences and no one is too surprised when a child invents a story to explain why so many buildings in her community are vacant. The circumstances that brought New Orleans' neighborhoods into their current limbo are a combination of singular events and larger national trends. Many communities around the country currently confront similar fates. For evidence, look to the urban prairies of Detroit; Youngstown, Ohio; and Flint, Mich."

Thanks to Nekoro Gomes