Plandemonium in New Orleans

After Katrina, the entire city of New Orleans had an opinion on how planning should move forward. With many groups intervening and making recommendations, is there too much planning going on?

1 minute read

April 5, 2010, 10:00 AM PDT

By Tim Halbur


Richard Campanella documents how waves of groups including ULI have come through and made recommendations only to be followed by more groups with their own public participation processes. In late 2006, Mayor Nagin followed with his own community engagement.

"Once again, citizens convened to discuss and debate this latest proposal and how it may or may not relate to the earlier plans. . . . Some wags described the parallel, overlapping and sometimes competing planning efforts as "plandemonium." Citizens grew cynical, not because of lack of commitment, but because too many soft promises and uncoordinated efforts chased too few of the hard resources and inspired leaders needed for genuine problem solving."

Sunday, April 4, 2010 in The Design Observer

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