Abstract

Needed: A People's Reconstruction

Offers a look at the possibility that evacuees from New Orleans will participate in the rebuilding of the Louisiana city following Hurricane Katrina. Statement made by Community Labor United, a coalition of low-income groups, that city residents will not stand by while disaster funds are used to replace poor neighborhoods with a gentrified New Orleans; Suggestion that the disaster funds belong to the victims; Possibility that the disaster relief funds will be used to give the reconstruction of the city to developers; Desire of the New Orleans Business Council to change the dynamics of the city; Suggestion that the reconstruction efforts could provide resources to a community that needed them, could create jobs, and could provide skills training; Need for evacuees to refuse to be relocated outside of their neighborhoods.