City-Works
Newsletter

Transforming New
Orleans

December 2007

In This Issue

Pride Projects

AIA SDAT

Bike Trails

Focus on the Basics

While the AIA
identified needs on South
Claiborne Avenue, they also acknowledged
that without improving conditions in adjacent neighborhoods, the corridor
spine would not appreciably improve. To drive neighborhood
revitalization, we need to intervene to make residential blocks and areas
more stable and accomplish tasks that residents can understand and see.
These are

often called pride projects.

One important point is that aesthetics matter. For neighborhood
revitalization to take hold, blocks and residential areas need to look
like people are proud to be there. Houses and common spaces must show
signs of life and be maintained so that when residents see them, they feel confident that the neighborhood is
getting better. Recognizing that many homes are occupied by tenants and
that many residents have limited incomes, intervention strategies must be
modest in scope so that they can include as many people as possible. To
do this, we should target areas ready for recovery on a block by block
basis - based on criteria of homeownership, rate of return, or simply
blocks where people want to do something and will work together. We must
get started with action. Work should be collaborative, but the focus
should be making visible change.

Pride projects focus on action. They are simple, they are low cost, and
they create visible physical change. Some examples of pride projects
include:

Dumpster Days (hire a
dumpster or receive one from the city to have neighbors fill the
dumpster with items that may otherwise end up on the street.
Dumpster days can also facilitate volunteer clean-up-the-streets
efforts.)

House lighting projects

Landscaping projects

Playground building
projects

Chain Link fence removal

Common space memorials
to local heroes

Series of Block Grandmas
to provide a safe space for local kids to congregate and meet their
physical and emotional needs)

Pick your neighbor
parties (invite people whom you would like to have move next door -
friends or co-workers)

The upshot is we need to meet less, talk less, and do more. These pride
projects can help show change that will revitalize our neighborhoods
adjacent to the corridor and throughout the city.

City-Works
is a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the
transformative rebuilding of New
Orleans. For more information about our
organization, please visit us on the web:

City-Works

::

Greetings
Everyone!

City-Works hosted the
American Institute of Architects in New Orleans in November in a
collaborative effort to transform one of our urban critical corridors -
South Claiborne Avenue.
Many of the specific recommendations can be worked on immediately - and
some are transferable to other parts of the city. Read more about the
AIA recommendations for action below. On another note, City-Works, in
our efforts to support sustainability in New Orleans, sees mobility issues and
locally grown produce as cornerstones of a sustainable city. Doing what
we can to support bike paths and urban gardens makes New Orleans better for everyone. Read
below to link with some of the efforts in the city to improve our
community and make it more livable.

Here's an update:

Initial
Results from South
Claiborne Ave: AIA Sustainable Design
Assessment Team

In November, a team of
six national experts gathered by the American Institute of Architects
(AIA) Communities by Design came to New Orleans to make recommendations
for the sustainable redevelopment of South Claiborne Avenue. Invited
by Councilwoman Stacy Head's office and the Office of Recovery
Management, the team focused their analysis on S. Claiborne Avenue from Napoleon
to Earhart Blvd.
During their stay, team members participated in an in-depth tour of the
corridor, many individual meetings with residents and property owners
adjacent to the corridor, and three public meetings. City-Works
facilitated each of these activities to help team members gather input
from residents and other stakeholders.  Their initial findings
were presented at the Dryades YMCA in Central
City on their final day and are available online at www.aia.org/liv_sdat_cities.

City-Works impressed on the team
that their work had to be specific, actionable, and low cost. The team responded
with a series of recommendations, many of which are transferable to
other parts of the city. First, they suggested that S. Claiborne Avenue needs a
designated and committed champion. It needs someone who can think about
the corridor on a daily basis and make the connections necessary to
rebuild it. Second, it needs leadership, communication, and
transparency. They suggested that S. Claiborne Avenue would benefit
greatly through better branding and identity which can be done at a
relatively low cost through landscaping, wrapping busses that run on
Claiborne, and other initiatives that create corridor identity. Third,
the team suggested that the city needs to lead the market recovery
rather than reacting to market forces. In other words, city leaders
need to anticipate and plan for change. This would include gathering
market data, building acquisition funds, and providing tools and
resources for developers who will bring the positive development that
makes a difference.

What the AIA team
mentioned time and time again though was that to redevelop S. Claiborne Avenue,
it will take commitment. And it will take time. City-Works believes
that now is the time to get started. Below we highlight different
portions of the team's initial findings. The full report is due in less
than 3 months.

Levee Bike Trail

Recent news of the plans to remove the Mississippi
River bike trail seems to be thoroughly ill timed and ill
conceived. As the regional area works under the wise hand of the
Regional Planning Commission to add cycling as a legitimate alternative
mode of transportation, the thought of losing the premier bike route in
the metropolitan area is tremendously worrisome.

Planning and building
bike lanes through New Orleans
has been one of the positive signs of recovery of the city. As noted
recently in the NY Times, other cities like Portland, OR
have been able to create a small industry around their biking culture.
We need to encourage biking and other alternative modes of
transportation rather than diminish them. Not replacing the Mississippi
River levee bike trail would let all the air out of the tires of the
increased awareness and use of biking in New Orleans.

Website of
the Month

The American Institute of
Architects have been great friends of New Orleans. One
of the first national professional organizations to respond to the
disaster, they have time and time again given freely of their
expertise. Most recently, their work on S. Claiborne Avenue gives the
city specific actions we can take to make a real change on the street.

See them in detail

HERE.

American Institute of Architects