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RedditIn the spirit of top-down government, talk abounds about the appointment of a czar, kaiser or gauleiter to run the reconstruction of the Gulf communities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The name of Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO, is mentioned. He'd be perfect, famous, as he is, for his considerate treatment of subordinates.
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Movin' On Down
Patricia J. Williams: Loan-sharking has resurged with global force, cutting across class, race and regions: we're all in the ghetto now.
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An Unmonumental Grimace
Barry Schwabsky: Taking stock of the new New Museum.
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Lawyers for the Poor Muzzled in Subprime Mess
Laura K. Abel: Civil legal aid attorneys could have sounded the alarm years before the subprime scandal began destroying the lives of urban poor--but Congress wouldn't let them.
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Tilted Ash
Arthur C. Danto: A retrospective exhibition of Martin Puryear's sculptures reinvents MoMA's signature atrium space as a site for spiritual longing.
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Art Matters
Benjamin Tiven: Michael Rakowitz talks about his art, the possibility of public space and the Iraq War.
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The Lower Ninth Battles Back
Rebecca Solnit: Community members and outside organizations are working together to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward.
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Goodbye, St. Thomas
Billy Sothern: In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans's ruling class is demolishing public housing to make way for private businesses and expensive condos.
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Talking Points for an Energy Crisis
Nicholas von Hoffman: Now that rising gas prices and plummeting sales of gas hog vehicles has gotten everyone's attention, let's talk about a long-term plan.
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Oil Change
Nicholas von Hoffman: Forget change you can believe in and start dealing with the changes coming at you as fast as the price of fuel makes its way skyward.
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Bernanke's Big Bet
Nicholas von Hoffman: The Fed Chief believes if he pumps enough money into the economy, he can stop the slide of house prices and thus stave off financial disaster. How's he doing? So far, not so good.
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A Devil's Dictionary of Finance
Nicholas von Hoffman: An irreverent lexicon of terms that paved the way to the subprime mortgage meltdown.
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Federal Reserve Freakout
Nicholas von Hoffman: The Fed scrambles for solutions to the mortgage meltdown--but saving prudent homeowners also involves bailing out a huge number of wealthy speculators. What good is that?
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The Candidates Pump Gas
Nicholas von Hoffman: As Clinton and McCain pander to frustrated voters with tax cuts, the real remedies to rising gas prices go unexplored.
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Bitter? You Should Be! Why Obama Is Right
Nicholas von Hoffman: If you had to choose between Hillary or God for economic assistance, who would you cling to?
These people could be organized to have a voice in their own destinies. The Industrial Areas Foundation, which has organized scores of low- and moderate-income communities across the country, including in Texas and Mississippi, has the organizers with the skills and experience to mobilize marooned and powerless people. With organization comes democratic decision-making.
The rebuilt communities do not have to resemble penitentiaries or other forms of government housing. There are architects and developers who have made it a specialty to work with limited-income communities to design and build what people want. Among them are Telesis Corporation of Washington, DC, the brainchild of Marilyn Melkonian, with many low-income home developments to her credit. In Chicago, there is Archeworks, founded by architect Stanley Tigerman, who, with his wife, Margaret McCurry, a gifted architect also, has a long history of working with community groups. The National Organization of Minority Architects is assembling resources and expertise to devote to the rebuilding effort.
Among the architects and designers qualified by experience and prizewinning results to collaborate with grassroots organizations are: Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh; Calthorpe Associates in Berkeley; Pyatok Architects in Oakland; Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists in Pasadena; and, in Boston, Goody Clancy.
Grandiose talk aside, in the practical realm the skill, talent and experience is available to take this catastrophe and turn it into a political, social and design marvel. This thing doesn't have to be another hack politician, crony boy, bureaucratic morass that produces more excuses than homes. If a couple of the big foundations, for once in their cunctatious lives, got on this fast, instead of a top-down disaster we could have a bottoms-up triumph.
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