Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2008 - (Page 43) THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION N ew Orleans faced a population dilemma in the 1960s — there seemed not enough room for new population within the city limits. As a result, the Crescent City looked longingly for new places to develop and this was increasingly toward a vast area inside the city limits to “The East.” Yet, the entire area east of the Industrial Canal was largely low-lying marsh. This handicap notwithstanding, developers and civic boosters, abetted by the City Planning Commission, the Times-Picayune and the States-Item, touted the area as a “City of the Future.” Despite being well below sea-level — a fact scarcely noted — low elevation served as no impediment in the rush to development. Particularly in light of the complete submersion of New Orleans East immediately following the impact of Hurricane Katrina, it seems worthy to survey the history of this district and inquire what forces impelled its development. Rapid growth after World War II had helped fill in the city’s chief habitable area — the Mississippi to Lake Pontchartrain; Jefferson Parish to the Industrial Canal — and as a result new housing was increasingly being built in suburban Jefferson Parish. Although the city grew from 494,000 to 627,000 between 1940 and 1960, its percentage of the metropolitan area (then Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes) dropped from 90 percent to 66 percent, and this was looked on with increasing alarm by city officials who feared continued loss of position and political power. The City of New Orleans is prevented from spreading, since it is coextensive with Orleans Parish. Algiers, on the west bank of the Mississippi is part of the city, but its space is limited and it was not bridged to the rest of the city until 1958. Another option lay in a vast acreage of land covering CHERYL GERBER Lake Forest Plaza (The Plaza) opened in 1974 in rapidly-growing New Orleans East. In August 2005, flooding in the wake of Hurricane Katrina inundated the property with 7 feet of standing water for weeks, ruining the entire mall and the surrounding neighborhoods. Demolition of the site began in 2007 and plans are underway to invest $147-million in a retail complex called New Orleans Town Center. Spring 2008/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 43 twice the existing urban area to the east. Legally within the city limits, it was mostly marshland, and cut off with from the rest of town by the Industrial Canal, completed in 1923. With no physical barrier, Jefferson Parish was more easily accessible. There were other pressures on the city’s growth: the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and an accelerating national trend towards suburbanization impelled in no small part by the expansion of the Interstate system. Young white families fearing school integration were relocating away from the increasingly black city. New Orleans also had a large inventory of old double houses, which were unappealing to young families looking for modern singlefamily homes with big yards, multiple bathrooms and modern amenities. Jefferson Parish had increasing numbers of such houses being built across newly drained land.
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