| The Planners Network 2007 Conference took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from May 30 to June 2. This website is an archive of the conference website, and is for reference only. |
|
Community Workshops - Thursday, May 31
|
| Workshop space is limited, so register
now to reserve your slot! Click here to
register. A
hallmark of PN conferences, attendees choose from a diverse list of
workshops that will put them face-to-face with key planning issues
in New Orleans. Workshops are developed in conjunction with
community-based organizations and local activists, who act as hosts.
For more information on some of our hosts, visit the
conference sponsors page. |
|
| Race, Class and the Right of Return
Led by Survivor’s Village |
| Participants will visit the St. Bernard
public housing projects in Gentilly, led by activists who have
‘illegally’ reclaimed this fenced-off housing development to provide
affordable housing for returning, primarily African-American
residents. Participants will also assist with cleaning, painting and
other needed tasks in the housing complex to ready the apartments
for returning residents. |
| Participants: 25 Mode of
Transportation: Bus/Van Note: This community workshop
includes some light to medium labor; dress appropriately |
|
| Community-Based Design and Recovery
Hosted by CITYbuild |
| This community workshop will be hosted by
the CITYbuild consortium of design and planning schools and will
take place in the 6th, 7th and 9th wards of New Orleans. The tour
will encompass a range of built projects that showcase
university/community partnerships working towards resident
priorities for rebuilding. Two sites have been chosen: the House of
Dance and Feathers, a Mardi Gras Indian and Social Aid and Pleasure
club museum in the Lower 9th Ward, and The Porch Cultural
Organization in the 7th Ward, and more will be visited that are
currently under design and construction this Spring The workshop
will be led by CITYbuild staff and residents who worked to together
on these projects. |
| Participants: 25 Mode of
Transportation: Bus/Van |
|
| Commercial Recovery: Local Businesses
in the Lead Hosted by Stay
Local! |
| While all the chain stores wait for more
'favorable' economic conditions and are staying away, the
neighborhoods are staying local and leading the commercial recovery
of the city. Hosted by Stay Local!, a grassroots campaign to support
local businesses in New Orleans, this bike tour of lower Magazine
Street and St. Claude Avenue neighborhoods will highlight the role
that locally-owned businesses are playing in the community-based
recovery of New Orleans. The route will also take participants
through the Warehouse District, the Central Business District and
the French Quarter. |
| Participants: 20 Mode of
Transportation: Bike (expected distance: 15 miles, with breaks.
Bikes provided) |
|
| Bikes and Transportation in a Carless
City Hosted by Rails to Trails Conservancy and Metro Bicycle
Coalition |
| This bike tour, led by locals who have
doing bicycle and alternative transit activism since before the
hurricane, will explore the new Lafitte corridor bike routes while
discussing the role that bikes can play in recovery and in
low-income cities where bikes are still the most affordable transit
option. This tour will also build off of the recent ‘Planning for
the Carless’ conference in New Orleans. |
| Participants: 25 Mode of
Transportation: Bike! |
|
| Neighborhoods in the Lead: Mid-City |
| Hosted by residents and university
partners helping to plan for their own recovery, this workshop will
take participants along Canal St, N. Carrollton Ave (where the
streetcars were recently restored), Bayou St. John, City Park, and
the new Lafitte Corridor multi-modal pathway. |
| Participants: 25 Mode of
Transit: TBA |
|
| Neighborhoods in the Lead:
New Orleans East |
| New Orleans East has defied speculations
that it would not rebuild. A post-WWII suburb with slab-on-grade
housing in an area projected to have weak storm protection in the
immediate future, New Orleans East houses a Vietnamese American
community that quickly organized and returned and many middle class
African American neighborhoods that are rebuilding. The area
nonetheless faces many challenges and controversies. Despite the
high rates of homeownership and middle class incomes, prior to
Katrina, New Orleans East had minimal commercial development and
residents want better services. Many residents with Section 8
vouchers lived in the apartment building along Chef Menteur Highway
and rebuilding these apartments has been controversial. This
workshop will include a tour of New Orleans east and discussion
about its history and pre-Katrina challenges, and we will meet with
individuals involved in neighborhood organizations, housing
developers and business owners that are instrumental in New Orleans
East’s recovery. |
| Participants: 25 Mode of
Transportation: Bus/Van |
|
| Neighborhoods in the Lead: 9th and
Lower 9th Wards Hosted by
ACORN Housing-University Partnership |
| This community workshop will be hosted by
the ACORN Housing - University Partnership (ACORN Housing, Cornell
City and Regional Planning, The Earth Institute at Columbia
University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department of Urban and Regional Planning) The neighborhoods toured
will include the Lower 9th Ward, Holy Cross, Bywater, St. Claude,
St. Roch, and Desire. Each neighborhood presents unique planning and
recovery challenges, and the workshop will focus on the challenges
and rewards of community based planning across spatial, demographic,
and cultural boundaries. The ACORN Housing - University Partnership
has been engaged in participatory action research and community
planning in these neighborhoods since October of 2005, and has
produced "A Peoples' Plan for Overcoming the Hurricane Katrina
Blues," available at
www.rebuildingtheninth.org. The tour will be led by
community organizers, planning professionals, and long-time 9th Ward
residents. |
| Participants: 30 Mode of
Transportation: Bus/Van + Walking |
|
| The Marketplace of Revolution
Hosted by Crescent City Farmers Market
change |
| Richard McCarthy and Dar Wolnik of the
Crescent City Farmers Market (a project of Loyola University-based
marketumbrella.org) will give a tour of the
French Market change
and discuss how they are using the markets as a tool
of community recovery and upliftment, pioneering the use of food
stamps at farmers’ markets and connecting local farmers and
fishermen with urban markets. They will also give a talk on the role
that marketplaces have played in developing revolutionary and
democratic forms of urban economies and the role that urban farming,
food security and farmers markets is playing in the recovery of New
Orleans communities. |
| Participants: 25 Mode of
Transportation: Bus/Van |
