ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical and structural context that transformed New Orleans from a relatively poor but otherwise diverse and vibrant city to an impoverished black-majority one, and how race has driven and shaped exclusionary public policies that have created concentrated racialized poverty in New Orleans. It provides an analysis of structural barriers to opportunity and demonstrates why race needs to be explicit and embedded in both the planning and policy frameworks for rebuilding. The chapter looks forward and points to hopeful directions in public policies and strategic community-based planning that have the potential to create vibrant communities and a better quality of life for all, and raises additional questions that need to be explored. The New Orleans metro region needs to have adequate investment in social, economic, and physical infrastructure along with the right set of policies and governance mechanisms in order to become the great city and region it should be.
