Privatization and Gentrification of the New Orleans - Essay Example

Question Privatization and Gentrification of the New Orleans: Winners and Losers Gentrification refers to the process,as well as the aftermath of entry of new and wealthier people in an urban settlement. New Orleans experienced such an event in French Quarter, with its effects including an increase in value of the property as well as rent. There is a resultant change in culture due to the interaction between two different cultures, where both learn new ideas from each other. Gentrification can be viewed either as positive or negative, depending on who is viewing it. From the natives of the neighborhood’s point of view, they are the big losers in gentrification process. This is because when newcomers arrive, as aforementioned, many changes take place that negatively affect majority of the original residents of the area. However, for the newcomers, this is a new chance at getting cheaper and better services than they previously exposed. Gentrification was not all bad in New Orleans. This is because the newcomers brought with them a lot of knowledge and expertise that was useful in the reconstruction and recovery of New Orleans after the hurricane Katrina. Most of them helped in developing the area, thus boosting the economic situation of the area. The newcomers took up different roles in New Orleans ranging from education, entertainment and media as well as entrepreneurship. Public Housing as a hard struggle The public housing program in New Orleans was created in 1937 and sought to improve the lives of working class and the poor in the society. However, this program was impeded by institutional racism (Arena 100). To illustrate this is the racial segregation of different projects in the public housing projects, neglect of the blacks’ project as well as the eventual demolition of such projects. The most controversial attacks that marred this housing project occurred when tenants were padlocked. Most of these tenants were poor and black. The housing projects favored the white citizens who were given first priority. In fact, it was not until 1996 that a single black man was allowed to represent others in the housing authority of New Orleans, HANO. HANO further decided that some part of the land be sold to HRI, which subsequently sold to Wal-Mart. The latter was a private development group in the land. This raised a lot of negative reaction and criticism, especially from the progressive urban planners, white activists, and conservationists. In the end, privatization emerged and most public projects ceased to exist. Hurricane Katrina and Corporate Development Hurricane Katrina has gained its infamous popularity in the world from its destructive and devastating nature in different states; New Orleans included (Arena 90). It caused a lot of havoc in the state, submerging about eighty percent of New Orleans, thus destroying homes and infrastructure. In general, hurricane Katrina tops the list of the most costly natural disasters in the United States of America. With these destructions, the economic stability of New Orleans was interrupted, a fact that saw dire need for reconstruction in order to bring back its previous stature. Many developers, entrepreneurs, and politicians came together for this purpose. Economic instability is attributed to the adverse effects of hurricane Katrina. The first reason why this is so is the poor response to a disaster as well as inadequate disaster management strategies in the city. This, coupled with the shortages of Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, led to the need for a localized approach to handling such calamities. New Orleans’ leaders, together with the local government were forced to take up the task of mitigating the effects of hurricane Katrina, as well as other natural calamities (Arena 67). This occurred in all senses, from emotional to financial support. Before hurricane Katrina, high unemployment issues characterized the city of New Orleans, and those who were lucky enough to get jobs were paid low wages. This was attributed to a number of factors, including the presence of a few businesses that were not knowledge based. Examples of such industries include shipping, shipbuilding, oil and gas, as well as food manufacturing industries. Because of these factors, there were also few entrepreneurs in New Orleans since its market strategies were not attractive enough to lure investors. As a result, New Orleans leaders sought for corporate development to enhance their economic stability as well as improving people’s livelihood. Question 2 Joan Acker Joan Acker looks at inequality regimes in order to explore the business of gendered and racialized practices. According to her, inequality regimes represent certain historical patterns of class, gender, and race in organizations. She, however, deviates from the perspective of other authors who focused on gender regimes and instead focuses on inequality within organizations. Inequality regimes lead to organizational processes that result in gendered and racially prejudiced class relations. Inequality is characterized by disparities between groups in an organization. Acker (110) adds that the inequality exists in all companies that have leadership and power levels, authority, gender, racial segregation and huge pay differences. The extent of inequality varies from one company to the other. Inequality regimes tend to exist in organizations that perpetuate egalitarianism. Even with variations in inequality regimes, bureaucratic organizations in wealthy industrial countries have similar patterns. Bureaucracies have experienced restructuring from the early 1980’. It, therefore, cannot be assumed that all companies follow a static hierarchical model. To this end, it is not easy to determine how common or fundamental these changes have been. Besides, when change shifts towards or away from participation it makes it hard to determine. The pace of change in inequality regimes may vary, but inequality regimes are also not fixed. The variations of inequality regimes are; the reasons for inequality, organizational processes that reproduce and perpetuate inequality, visible inequality, legitimacy of inequalities and beliefs and images which form the basis of inequality and control and conformity. Examples of inequality regimes can be found in the work of Hancock (20) where she argues that the public identities are made up of stereotypical and moral judgments of multiple group identities associated with people who are subjected to legislative policies. This can be based on either race, gender or class. The stereotypes serve as ideological justifications for particular policy agendas. Hancock particularly concentrates on the public identity of the welfare queen in the time between 1995 and 1996; the time when debates about welfare reforms took place. She states that these debates directed the political process towards a harmful direction. According to Hancock (34), the characteristics of the politics of disgust are; the perversion of the democratic attention, inequality in a communicative context, failed representative thinking and absence of unity from traditional allies. These as she puts it led to the no recognition of the target population. Acker also adds that such regimes, create, perpetuate, and maintain inequalities. In her book, Hancock gives the historical account of the identity of the queen of welfare. She emphasizes the political voice that the National Welfare Rights organization of the 1970’s gave its beneficiaries. She then connects the public identity to the welfare policy and shows how public discourse and welfare policy options are linked. She performs a random analysis of documents taken from the floor of welfare reform debate. She discovers that the public label welfare recipients as lazy, hyperfertile and black. This limits the extent to which policy prescriptions are conceived. Hancock stated that, during the debates, some republicans said that extra cash encourage women to have more babies than before (Hancock 73). She adds that the welfare debate did not represent the needs of poor women and only addressed the needs of welfare children. Her analysis brought forth the race, gender, and class as multiplicative. She states that rich white people did not only do the welfare discussions that failed to address the issues of poor women. People who were thought to be traditional allies of these women particularly African American politicians and both white and black feminists failed to stand up for the welfare queen. She concludes by talking to the welfare recipients who state that child support enforcement is problematic, and the lack of support makes their situation dire. This is a perfect example of inequality on the basis of class, gender and race. The welfare woman is profiled as black, last and hyperfertile. In Acker’s description of the components of inequality regimes and some of their variations, the welfare policy discussion would be considered as a process that creates, perpetuates, and maintains inequality. This is because it failed to address the needs of the poor women who desperately needed welfare support. It would also be an example of an inequality regime that that legitimizes inequality and ideologies and images on which legitimacy is based. This is seen when the poor women are classified as lazy, black and hyperfertile yet its not only black women that need welfare support. There are white poor women who also need welfare support. It is also in line with Acker’s inequality variation of competing interest. In the welfare debate, the interests of women and children were in competition and those of children won. Works Cited Acker, Joan. Class Questions: Feminist Answers. AltaMira Press, 2013. Print Arena, John. Driven From New Orleans: How Nonprofits the Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Print Hancock, Angie-Marie. The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen NYU Press, 2004.Print Read More