A crisis is a moment of reckoning. By altering or destroying the status quo, a crisis opens things up, making visible what is often submerged, making possible what is usually thought otherwise. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina laid bare the deep inequalities in the city of New Orleans, while clearing paths for reform and change. In her new book, Roberta Brandes Gratz tracks efforts to reshape the city in the wake of the storm.
Gratz is a self-proclaimed urbanist in the tradition of Jane Jacobs, and here, as in her previous books, she scours the city for stories of grassroots activism. She ably describes multiple frames of reference'historic preservation, infrastructure, crime, sustainability, public health, education, and planning'in order to outline a constellation of interconnected issues, showing how the physical shape of the city reflects its politics and policies.
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