its just new orleans...

or is it just Bourbon Street? or is it just St. Charles avenue? The fact is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. No one neighborhood in this city can successfully define it, just as no one street can define a neighborhood. After hearing a tourist utter the words "its ok, but its just New Orleans." after visiting, almost exclusively, Bourbon Street, I couldnt help but agree. If you're going to visit one street in one neighborhood of a major city and attempt to make assumptions about the city based on that one experience, it is going to be "just New Orleans". If I stayed in a hotel in the quarter and never ventured out to experience the rest of the city I would probably walk away saying the same thing. The fact is that while certain neighborhoods are certainly more scenic than others, and certain neighborhoods have more history and significant architecture than others, the value of all areas of the city is ascribed in their human connection. In order to experience a city fully, some understanding of the method in which the parts of this place are assembled is necessary. While it may not be practical or imperative that one visit every district within a city, it quickly becomes evident in a conversation if a person has any real interest in a city through the extent they go to understand and explore all that it has to offer. While New Orleans may be best experienced as the sum of all its collective parts, the fact that the city is a collective is not to be overlooked or ignored. Each neighborhood within the city has a very distinct feel about it, complete with its own unique individuals, architecture and food.
Equality does not equal sameness. Whether the city is experienced at the speed of a car or the speed of an individual, what one notices as they travel through its neighborhoods, the things that distinguish them, are the subtleties only made apparent when the effort is devoted to notice changes in atmosphere and attitude from place to place within a city. While no one area of New Orleans can claim supremacy over the others, certain neighborhoods imply certain associations. Uptown is rich, the third ward is poor, the french quarter is crazy, the bywayter is artsy. All of these connotations, associated with place in this city, lend themselves to the development of an understanding of a greater whole. The fact that these assumptions exist is what I found so interesting about many of these places. The ability to sum up an area, with all of its history and culture in one word I found fascinating. Further more what defines these areas physically, the means and methods that people use to separate themselves from other communities with different values became the point of departure from just driving and observing. With these connotations in mind I set out to experience some of these communities with which such strong associations have been laid out.
I live in uptown a couple blocks off of St. Charles avenue, in an area considered by most people to be a rich area, but as I explore the area, I begin to wonder what it is about the quality of life provided, the sense of relative security that this place provides that continues to lure the affluent to its streets. In many other cities, areas close to downtown that were wealthy hundreds of years ago have since turned into slums. No denying that white flight to Jefferson Parrish has occured, but not nearly at the scale of other large american cities. Generically, uptown, and St. Charles Avenue in particular, are characterized by stately Victorian and Ante Bellum homes situated on berns shrouded by live oaks and magnolia trees. There is a sense of security about this area that is not felt in many other inner city neighborhoods. Many of the houses are secluded, placed far from the street, behind brick and rod iron gates, standing as observers of life in this neighborhood, allowing the years to pass without engaging time as a factor in their existance. There is a saying in uptown among people that I have talked to, that you could spend your entire life living in New Orleans and never see a black person except when you are at a restaurant or when you leave uptown. I find this statement incredibly telling about the mindset of a neighborhood, that exists in relative isolation in a city that is around 60 percent black. Uptown boasts its own grocery stores, parks, schools and restaurants, all some of the finest in the city, and by no accident. In an area that was not severly damaged by the storm, with a relatively high standard of living, when the money returned, the businesses returned; as a result, life here seems to be operating pretty much as it had before the september 2005 with few exceptions. travel five or six blocks north of this area and you will get a different understanding.
My journey was not north however, it was east toward the bywater. I strayed from St. Charles avenue down to Magazine street, and transitioned pretty seamlessly into the garden district. houses moved closer to the street, became closer together, offstreet parking became nonexistant and businesses became denser. It was not this destination that interested me. Bordered by I-10 and the twin spans to the west, downtown to the east, the river to the south and the superdome district to the north, the warehouse district is one of the most easily recognizable and distinguishable neighborhoods in the city. In contrast to its uptown counterparts, this neighborhood has reinvented itself only recently. It has adapted to the changing needs of the city. Once an industrial shipping and storage center, its name describes it perfectly, the warehouse district. Characterized 3 to 6 story buildings closely hugging the streets, serving as the "foothills" to downtown, this area has become a haven of the young and hip, with a thriving arts and nightlife scene. Drawn in by the appeal of city living, young professionals have consistently bought up converted loft space in this district. While its identity has been reinvented, there are still traces of its past everywhere, operational warehouses still dot the map of this once abandoned district. Being as the population is so new, life here seems to be pretty transparent, not really rooted in any deep tradition. It is strange then that such a significant presence is felt when driving through its streets. It is undeniable that you are in the warehouse district, the architecture, the lack of trees and the people all signify a departure from its uptown counterparts, yet it is not wholly separable from downtown. Given this places unique location, however, within only a matter of years this enclave will become one of the most unique locations in New Orleans.
Through downtown, the french quarter and the bywater, all unique, all with an extremely strong sense of self, I found myself crossing into the lower ninth ward. There is a very interesting condition which often influences how people settle, and where they settle. This conditin is called "information overload.... When people are faced with more information in the environment than they can understand and interpret, they either become very distressed or they solve the problem by ignoring it". This condition posed a very curious question to me as I explored the areas of Holy Cross and the Lower Ninth. Areas of the city that were devastated as a result of the flooding in 2005 such as the lower ninth still lay in ruin, not necessarily due to the lack of will to rebuilt among the residents, there are a variety of factors influencing the lack of rebuilding in this area, however the way this event defined the neighborhood and defined the neighborhoods boundaries and people are extremely interesting. saying the "lower ninth ward" anywhere in America, and it is understood what you are talking about. The name of this neighborhood has become a symbol of this information overload. Among the people of the ninth, the information presented led them to a form of the depression associated with information overload. Among others in the city and country, this overload has led them to ignoring the problem all together. Within the culture of the ninth ward a paranoia exists, fed in part by the depression from the flood, fed in part by a distrust of outsiders. This paranoia exists to define the people from the area. For a community completely washed away there is a strong presence of people and culture in the area that is longing to come back. Pre-flood it was characterized by one of the highest rates of black home ownership in the country. The small town feel of the place was characterized by a set of people with similar values and opportunities in life, they fed off of eachother and supported eachother, and will hopefully return to this place which now exists with a strong history. Its sense of place has been skewed since the flood and now it floats in limbo, not really so much a neighborhood as a remnant.
My journey along the Mississippi river from uptown all the way to the lower ninth led me through a city with many diverse populations all intertwined and collected under the common umbrella and culture of New Orleans, yet somehow distinct in their own traditions and community makeup. The architecture carries certain overtones all across the city, and these tones serve to establish a understandble datum and a continuity not commonly felt in the midwestern cities I am from. Equality does not mean sameness, and it is in this respect that all of New Orleans is dependent upon the sum of its parts to continue to reinforce its reputation is one of the most diverse and distinct american cities

theres a rainbow in my title at least.

In a city below sea level, where does the rainwater go? with a water table just inches below ground, if not above it, what happens to the runoff of the almost daily downpours? Floods happen. As rainwater chokes the overcrowded sewer system in uptown and the CBD the streets routinely fill with 6 to 10 inches of water, almost instantly. The only reason the city is again able to emerge from this water are the canals that lead out from its interior to Lake Ponchartrain. These canals, with water levels usually above the surrounding elevations, are separated from the rest of the city by levees. The same levees that failed 2 years ago and caused the city to flood, are responsible for keeping the city water-free during normal rains where the excess water from these downpours is often times forced to be pumped up to reach the levels of the canals.
The view that cities are supposed to be the "marriage of heaven, earth and water" is understood here in a most peculiar way. The inability to use water as a reference point when navigating the city, makes the crossing of water at any of the eight or nine opportunities within city limits extremely confusing. Without a reference to the lake or the river, crossing into Gentily or Lakeview, or the Lower Ninth is like entering a new world, completely separate from the context of New Orleans proper. The canals are layed out in order to provide maximum benefit to the inhabitants of the city, while making a minimal interruption. Without ever being seen, the presence of water is felt constantly in this city.
the paranoia of the citizens, their attitude toward water is extremely confusing for a new-comer to the city. For a place, an economy, and a culture that is reliant on the water for its existance (New Orleans is one of the largest sea-ports in the United States, and the last major port before the Mississippi enters the gulf) the people try to keep the water out of sight, and out of mind. Among the ways the city reacts to water, the canal system is most intriguing. These canals strive to reach into the city, through dried out marsh and swamp-land, to maintain a city that is in constant conflict with itself over the importance of its own double edged sword, water. If the city is truly supposed to be the marriage of heaven, and water, then in New Orleans the marriage is arranged. The people and the land relate to water as a necessary evil, and seek to control it on all levels, yet they thoroughly recognize its importance as life sustaining and as the provider of a past, present and future of the city.

sweaty trees

I never knew what heat was until New Orleans. I've never been to a place where my eyes burn at the end of the day, for no other reason than the sun is so incredibly bright. I couldnt come to grips with how people cope with living in this kind of environment, until I remembered my drive into New Orleans. My first observation of this city was that of a city where buildings were pulled down and trees were pushed up over their roofs. I had always wondered what it would be like to visit a city in the middle of the jungle, city enguled and overgown by nature. This ironic twist on a city that has been at odds with nature for virtually all of its existance. The view from the interstate was that of a city in ruin. Tangled in a web of giant trees, a subtle haze rises shallowly above the treeline. As I exited the Interstate and dipped from my birds eye perch above the city and onto the streets I could feel that I was entering a place alltogether alien. Wherever you're from, trees play a large role in daily life, but here the relationship between trees and their surroundings seems completely different. Scraggly Live Oak trees rise through the sidewalks creating a canopy over the streets. Trees that would be cut down to make way for power lines in almost any other city in the country, here are allowed to take their toll on city infrastructure. Roads are built around trees that have overgrown their lots, sidewalks crack and bend over and around the root system of these giants. At first i could not understand why the city would allow this to happen, but after my first run through the streets of uptown and Audubon Park, I realized how precious these co-inhabitants of the city really are to this place. In a city that should have a welcoming natural breeze off of a major river and lake bordering most of the city, it is instead surrounded by levees, shielding most of the city from any sort of cool air that could be moving through the city. Shade then becomes New Orleanians only reprive from the sometimes unbearable heat and humidity. Without them the city would fry. Their natural shade becomes a spot of social interraction, people meet to eat lunch, rest and play. In this, people form a bond with the trees, willing to leverage public infrastructure in order to retain the benefits of these ancient oaks and beautiful magnolias. In the aftermath of the Hurricanes and the flooding of the city, trees were listed right alongside homes and businesses in describing the destruction. This somewhat uncanny relationship permeates indiscriminantly throughout neighborhoods, races and any other socio-economic divider that people would like to put up. New Orleans depends on trees to keep itself livable. the sweat is manageable because there is no place in this city that is more than a couple yards from a tree.