New Orleans Cockroach Caucus: A Prequel

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz at Counterpunch:

How ironic that the Superdome became a house of horrors for the dispossessed for five grueling days. Most of the African Americans who were herded into the Superdome came from the infamous New Orleans projects and are descendents of those evicted from their neat little homes in the working class district that was seized and bulldozed to build, with public funds, the Superdome. Their cemetery was also destroyed. Construction began in August 1971 and was completed four years later.

So the NOLA real estate developers (aka Cockroach Caucus), as described in the previous post, are just finishing the job they started thirty years ago.

This Just In. Since I made these last two posts about the local "urban growth machine" looting of New Orleans, I found this at Independent Country:

Expect in New Orleans this to take place. Evacuated homeowners who want to come back and rebuild on their own land will be prevented from doing so. The city (or the state, or even the feds) will take the land from them and give it to developers. The poor and modest homeowners, even after receiving decent-sized insurance checks and government checks, will be priced out of the city. A category-5-proof levee will be built making the city an attractive destination, but land values and rents will be too high for most people. Yet the French Quarter will return in all its glory, and the Saints will be given the most plush stadium in America. Americans will be proud of how the city "came back." And now it won't have all those poor and fearsome black people!

katrina , new orleans , superdome