Our research team just published the findings of our socioecological surveys of post-Katrina New Orleans neighborhoods!
In a subtropical city with unlimited sun and rain, if something stands still, something will grow on it. Our work takes a closer look at how flooding, human interactions, socioeconomic hierarchies, and public policy contribute to shaping the assembly and maintenance of greenspaces in New Orleans.
I have worked on the urban forestry assessments and planning for this project since 2011, experiencing the wild variation of urban landscapes across a city where very slight changes in elevation can equate to huge differences in the resulting vegetative profile, as well as public policies and resource investments that affect human communities. Our sites range from pristine, manicured Uptown gardens, to jungles strewn with rotting children's toys and bullet casings, growing through abandoned houses, to the quiet lawns of the Chalmette battlefield where Fazendeville once stood. The patterns revealed in this study illustrate the undeniably intertwined relationships between ecology, historical geography, economics, discrimination, and human rights.
In a subtropical city with unlimited sun and rain, if something stands still, something will grow on it. Our work takes a closer look at how flooding, human interactions, socioeconomic hierarchies, and public policy contribute to shaping the assembly and maintenance of greenspaces in New Orleans.
I have worked on the urban forestry assessments and planning for this project since 2011, experiencing the wild variation of urban landscapes across a city where very slight changes in elevation can equate to huge differences in the resulting vegetative profile, as well as public policies and resource investments that affect human communities. Our sites range from pristine, manicured Uptown gardens, to jungles strewn with rotting children's toys and bullet casings, growing through abandoned houses, to the quiet lawns of the Chalmette battlefield where Fazendeville once stood. The patterns revealed in this study illustrate the undeniably intertwined relationships between ecology, historical geography, economics, discrimination, and human rights.