Ten years ago today, New Orleans hit bottom: most of the city was flooded, systems and safety nets had snapped, and citizens lacked food, water, and security. The city has since come back, but unevenly: tourist spots are hopping and there's new investment, but social and racial inequalities have deepened.
Immediately after the event, I wrote a piece about Hurricane Katrina for Alternatives Journal. I stressed a few points: that this disaster had been predicted well in advance, and owed much of its severity to earlier decisions and environmental transformations. I also predicted that if powerful institutional and economic interests remained unreformed, New Orleans would experience, at best, only a partial and unequal recovery. And so it has been.
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