ABSTRACT
It is not always easy to understand how property relationships are responding to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the failure of New Orleans’ levees. Every day in post-Katrina New Orleans brings a cascade of new developmentssome encouraging, others deeply troubling. One day in August of 2007, as the city prepared to commemorate the second anniversary of Katrina, demographers released a new study suggesting that the City of New Orleans had regained sixtyeight percent of its pre-storm population, that the entire metropolitan area had recovered eighty-four percent of its population, and that the pace of repopulation was quickening even in some of the city’s most damaged neighborhoods.1 But just a few days later, another report documented that thousands of New Orleans homes are still abandoned, blighted or only partially repaired, depressing not only their neighbors’ property values, but also their commitment to participating in the city’s revival.2
