by Douglas L Steidl, FAIA
AIA President

As the region affected by Katrina struggles to recover, tough questions must be asked: What’s the vision? What’s the goal?

Meeting the immediate needs of those affected—safety, food, water, shelter—may turn out to be the easy part. The aftermath of the storm could ultimately be more devastating than the storm itself if we do not rebuild with forethought and purpose. What is being trumpeted as the largest rebuilding effort in history (currently approaching $200 billion) could turn out to be the most expensive failure of the imagination in our lifetime.

Business as usual?
This much seems certain: If the challenge confronting the residents of New Orleans and the Gulf coast is conceived narrowly as simply a matter of cleaning up, restoring essential services, and recreating the region as it was before the hurricane, the result will be to put back in place many of the same problems uncovered by the storm.:

• A system of levees that divert the silt that historically built and replenished the delta, exposing the people of Louisiana to even greater risk as the seas rise
• The dredging and maintaining of shipping channels that hasten the process of erosion
• Tightly constricted commercial arteries vulnerable to massive disruption
• A national economy no less dependent on Gulf and imported oil, the extraction and use of which expose the environment to continued degradation
• The federal government providing flood insurance to disproportionately wealthy and politically influential developers eager to build on barrier islands, compromising at taxpayer expense the natural defenses against catastrophic ocean flooding
• The poor living in low-lying, flood-prone neighborhoods, without access to public transportation, but close to industrial sites where a natural or man-made disaster has its gravest impact on those least able to protect themselves.

We can do better
That’s the likely shape of business as usual. Surely we can do better.

Hurricane Katrina ripped a curtain of complacency from problems that long ago should have been addressed. Katrina did not create the inadequate system of levees, channels carved through the fragile ecosystem, exploitation of the land, inappropriate development, destruction of natural habitats, pollution, political patronage, ineffective disaster preparation, and disorganized response. Katrina did not create the poor, the elderly crowded into nursing homes, or the economic and physical segregation of black Americans. What Katrina did was bring it all to the light of television cameras and into our living rooms.

If we believe the physical and spiritual devastation we’ve seen are unique to New Orleans, Biloxi, and Gulfport, imagine a disaster of similar magnitude hitting New York, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, or Los Angeles. Are we comfortably certain the consequences would be any less horrific?

A hopeful start
I am neither so presumptuous nor so naïve as to suggest that architects alone can set aright years of poor decision making and social injustice. But our training and creative gifts together with those of our colleagues in the related design professions are surely an essential part of any credible and truly bold visionary reconstruction process. But that’s not the only pressing challenge. I also believe that we as citizens must passionately engage issues of social justice, equity, opportunity, and inclusiveness.

How many of those in New Orleans who sought shelter in the Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center ever thought they could become an architect or an engineer or a contractor? A thousand? A hundred? Ten? The perceived and real lack of access to the design and construction industry of those disadvantaged by race, gender, and poverty is not someone else’s problem; it’s ours. Our industry cannot hope to keep its competitive edge or, for that matter, its values if we continue to represent only a segment of our population. Surely we must do better.

As a profession, we’ve made a hopeful start. We’ve pulled together through the AIA, reaching out from every corner of the country to affected architects, AIA members and non members alike. In reaffirming our shared professional identity, we are not simply providing disaster assistance; we are reaffirming our common humanity.

By continuing to draw on an awareness of what binds us to one another and extending that awareness to those we serve, we could be shaping with our fellow citizens a vision for the land and its people that would be transformational. For in the end, rebuilding more livable communities is not simply a matter of bricks and mortar. It’s also a commitment to provide hope of a better life to the people who live there. As architects and as citizens within our communities, we have been challenged as never before in our lifetime. The grim reality revealed by Katrina has uncovered an opportunity, indeed an obligation to contribute to both.

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