Mike Davis On Katrina: Disaster As A Tool For Gentrification

Will Hurricane Katrina prove to be "the biggest, most brutal urban-renewal project Black America has ever seen?"

1 minute read

October 27, 2005, 11:00 AM PDT

"In the weeks since Bush's Jackson Square speech, FEMA has alarmingly failed to advance any plan for the return of evacuees to temporary housing within the city or to connect displaced locals with reconstruction jobs.

...With Davis-Bacon and affirmative-action requirements suspended by executive order, immigrant workers -- housed in tents and working under appalling conditions -- have flocked to jobs sites in the city, largely unaware that tens of thousands of blue-collar evacuees who would relish these jobs are unable to return for lack of family housing and federal support. Ethnic tensions are artificially inflamed by speculations about a "population swap" and impending 'Latinization" of the workforce."

Thanks to Jeremy Fenton

FULL STORY: Gentrifying Disaster

Thursday, October 27, 2005 in ZNet / Mother Jones

Community / Economic Development Louisiana

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