New Orleans Proposes to Invest in 17 Areas

New Orleans unveiled its latest redevelopment plan Thursday, choosing 17 zones where the city has decided to concentrate resources in order to stimulate investment and renewal.

The 17 development zones, each about a half-mile in diameter, are scattered throughout New Orleans. They vary from a devastated shopping plaza in the eastern section of the city, to blocks in the ruined Lower Ninth Ward and to areas not hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina but still in need of renewal, as officials put it, including the old St. Roch Market in the Bywater area.

The plan is at least the fourth such effort since the storm, and at about $1.1 billion, notably more modest than its predecessors.

Its modesty provided some hope that, unlike the other plans that have been shelved or are in limbo, the outline presented at City Hall by Mayor C. Ray Nagin and his recovery chief, Edward J. Blakely, may come to fruition in some form.

Indeed, Mr. Blakely, an academic and a recognized expert in disaster recovery, promised “cranes on the skyline” by September. But where exactly they will be, and what they will be doing, was unclear from Thursday’s summary presentation.

from the NY Times