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In recent weeks, New Orleanians have been singing the praises of their city’s remarkable recovery and resilience to visitors here for Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl. Signs of a robust economy are evident everywhere, from new construction to street… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Independent retailers and their local governments have a mutual interest in a thriving local economy that generates a solid tax base to adequately fund community services. By working together, they can make sure that wealth is generated and retained locally. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Because of securities law developed in the 1930’s, it has been next to impossible for an individual to invest in a local business down the street. These restrictions have led to investment patterns that are almost entirely non-local, robbing our… Read more >

Filed under: Projects

Passion. Perseverance. Presence. When the Broadmoor Improvement Association (BIA) was incorporated in 1970, Broadmoor was already a well-established, multi-racial community living in harmony. The association worked continuously to improve the neighborhood. Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures decimated Broadmoor. In… Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

Long before the internet, the daily newspaper was the virtual water cooler. Citizens from various walks of life and regions of the circulation area were brought together daily by a shared, though imperfect, vision of what was news, what was important, what was interesting. This thirst for community cannot be satisfied on a thrice-weekly basis. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

NEW ORLEANS, LA, April 19, 2012 Contact: Dana Eness, The Urban Conservancy: (504) 232-7821 Nicky McHugh, Seedco Financial: (646) 502-3532 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Plaquemines Parish Businesses Hobbled By Spill Impact Two Years Later, Study Shows NEW ORLEANS, LA, April… Read more >

Filed under: Press

Listen and watch as Jonn Hankins, Executive Director of New Orleans African American Museum, discusses the historical Treme neighborhood and the highway that bisects it, I-10. How has the I-10 affected the Treme, and where do we go from here… Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans | Transportation

New Orleans, LA - Jennifer Ruley will be recognized as The Urban Conservancy’s 2011 Urban Hero at the organization’s annual You Are Here fundraiser on Saturday, October 22, for her work to make New Orleans streets safer and more accessible… Read more >

Filed under: Press

A stroll down New Orleans’ iconic Canal Street from the Mississippi River to Rampart Street takes one past a mix of businesses catering mostly to the tourist population: chain hotels, souvenir and discount camera shops, inexpensive eateries lining the street… Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

The City Planning Commission (CPC) announces the opening of a Master Plan amendment application period. According to the City Charter “at least once every five years, but not more often than once per calendar year… the Commission shall review the Master Plan and shall determine, after one or more public hearings, whether the plan requires amendment or comprehensive revision.” This year’s application period will run through August 5, 2011. The Master Plan can be reviewed and downloaded from the CPC website or at the New Orleans Master Plan Website: http://www.nolamasterplan.org. Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

This year, 15 walkers from as far away as Toronto and France and as close as around the corner joined The Urban Conservancy’s Dana Eness for the third annual “Only on Oak Street” walk on Saturday, May 7. Other… Read more >

Filed under: Transportation

A groundbreaking new study, the Indie City Index, ranks all 363 metropolitan areas in the U. S. according to the vitality of their independent retail sectors. The Indie City Index also ranks cities within their region and within their population… Read more >

Filed under: Stay Local

On April 15 and 16 volunteers from Massey’s Professional Outfitters, the Mid-City Volleyball Group, the Rails to Trails Conservancy, and the Louisiana Himalayan Association (in the top picture, below) erected the first of many innovative kiosks along the Greenway at… Read more >

Filed under: Projects

While there is a tendency to protect people from themselves, the way to do this is not to create barriers that are potentially more dangerous, but to give citizens safe access where they can be in control of their situation. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans

If there is a leit-motif to all of the documentaries, reports, memoirs and retrospectives on New Orleans five years after Katrina, it is this: we are a city that is at once rich in excess and desperately in need. Both “The Price of Civilization” and the “New Orleans Index at Five” reports highlight a second, less headline-grabbing but equally resonant theme for residents shoring up our infrastructure, our levees and our coastline: prioritization and coordination. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Katrina

In Ysyclosky, Brad Robin, an old podnah of my fathers, watched as deckhands unloaded the last sacks of oysters from the Ms. Donna Ann. “I’m a oyster fisherman today,” he said, “but I don’t know what I’m going to be tomorrow.” Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

The LSU/VA project has been mired in controversy since its inception in November 2007, when Mayor C. Ray Nagin signed a deal with the Veterans Administration to provide land currently occupied by homes and businesses “construction ready.” For many it feels like a done deal with no opportunity for meaningful input from property owners, urban planners, preservationists, and others opposed to the project. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

To attract new capital to New Orleans, we tend to market the city’s assets - its distinctive character, its beautiful architecture, its music. Meanwhile, the underlying deficiencies that keep investors away - crime, poverty, low literacy - continue unabated. Last… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans

When Maple Street Children’s Bookshop announced its closing after nearly thirty years in business, owner Cindy Dike pointed to three forces that conspired against her continued success: the flagging economy; the opening of Borders Books on St. Charles Avenue; and… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

A new Walgreens store is under construction on the long-derelict Robèrt Grocery site at the intersection of N. Carrollton Avenue and Canal Street. With this project, Mid-City gains a low-density, single story, single-use construction much like any of the other… Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

In a fierce struggle supported by The Urban Conservancy that lasted up through the final hours of the 2009 regular legislative session, the Business Council led a strong and diverse coalition in beating back efforts to overturn the November 2008… Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

Just weeks ago, The Urban Conservancy joined a powerful coalition of 60 other community groups to make three general demands of our municipal and state leadership. Because of our collective voices, the City Planning Commission has delivered on the request for a public hearing to present the two competing proposals for the restoration of health care institutions to New Orleans. We urge our membership to attend this critical hearing. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Chalmette native Matt Faust’s heart-wrenching 6-minute short film has made it on to New Yew York Magazine’s list of Top 5 Favorite Short Films showing at Tribeca this year. Listen to Matt tell why he made the film when he… Read more >

Filed under: Katrina

For more than a year, a debate has raged over the sites for new hospitals for Louisiana State University (LSU) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Currently, two different plans are being discussed and as recently as last… Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

Mayor Nagin seems to equate “transparent” with “unseen.” While the public clamors for transparent governance, the Mayor tries to shove as much of his administration’s process on the awarding of contracts as he can behind closed doors, out of public… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

The dust had not even settled from the demolition of 4,500 historic public housing units in New Orleans this past spring when the next major federally-funded demolition project began gathering steam and generating both questions and controversy. Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

The cost of energy, rising for years, has been one of the more vexing issues for New Orleans residents and businesses since Katrina. Entergy New Orleans has just announced that natural gas prices are set to spike once again this summer. These costs will be passed on to us in the form of higher bills, through a fuel adjustment charge for metered electricity use and metered gas. In the face of this daunting situation, we are not powerless. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

With the Council’s approval of the amendments, once finalized, New Orleans will have an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond the dysfunctional, special-interest-driven planning process that has plagued the city for decades, and to create a visionary one that all our citizens can be proud of. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

The recent uptick in big-box projects and proposals in the Crescent City, fueled by tax subsidies and other costly giveaways, has left owners of smaller home-grown businesses in related industries gritting their teeth and bracing for hard times. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Something is afoot in your neighborhood. Surveyors are walking around a defunct property taking notes. When you approach and ask questions, they are evasive; however, through persistence your neighbors piece together a puzzle. It’s another development by “surprise!” One of… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

A single opposing vote. A single vote in opposition to a broadly supported neighborhood request to the Board of Zoning Adjustments (BZA) to reconsider a decision by the Department of Safety and Permits has left the neighborhood facing the prospect… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Remember all the planning meetings we went to where we were told our ideas would shape the future of the city? When do we get to decide the budget priorities that make our ideas a reality? There are now more… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

One of the challenges of discussing zoning in urban areas, is that zoning itself is often part of the problem. Many of the aspects of New Orleans we love could not be built today under the current zoning laws. Those cool outbuilding on the property lines—need a 3’ setback now. Houses next to each other—can’t do it. Neighborhood corner stores—better know that council person. Hubigs Pie plant in the middle of the Marigny? Are you crazy?—that mixes light industrial with residential. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans

Our recovery from the levee failures of 2005 has benefitted enormously from the skill and dedication of our leaders. No, not our inept mayor and moribund City Council. Not our leading lights of big business and their developer friends. We are talking about the real leaders of the recovery—the people who didn’t even know they were leaders until the folks who were supposed to be leading ducked and ran. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans

The good thing about Bad Ideas is that they are really easy to spot — after the fact. The problem with Bad Ideas, however, is that at the time they are proposed they appear to have a logic about them. Thoughtful people embrace the Bad Idea. In fact, they often defend the Really Bad Idea as the Only Hope. The Progressive Solution. They call it the Really Good Idea. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans | Stay Local

If the purpose of the various official planning processes — Bring New Orleans Back, Urban Land Institute, the Lambert Plan, and the Unified New Orleans Plan — was to aid the recovery of our city, we can now classify this exercise as a failure. And we can continue rebuilding our neighborhoods as we have been since the federal government graciously allowed us back into our city. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans

Never has Mother Nature been so verbally maligned as in post-diluvian New Orleans. It started with the green belts of the Urban Land Institute’s proposal and the legendary green dots of the Bring New Orleans Back plan last winter. Some New Orleanians came to see green space as a menacing blob doing the bidding of evil, scheming developers bent on violating average folks’ property rights and turning neighborhoods into golf courses for the rich. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

New Orleans’s entrepreneurs know what it means to put in 12-hour work days and 7-day work weeks. The Urban Conservancy is working just as hard to support their efforts. Please consider making a donation to The Urban Conservancy this holiday season so that we can continue our work in the New Orleans community. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

If they can do it in those other cities, then surely it can be done in New Orleans. With a reform-minded City Council at the helm, and civic involvement at an all-time high, the time is certainly ripe. City governance should be reorganized in a way that gives more control to the local community. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

This Saturday, visit your locally-owned coffee shop. Get your coffee and talk with your friends. Then go vote. Heck, take one of your friends with you! Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

If our community is to thrive, we need large-scale institutional changes to the way business is done in New Orleans. Not just a new council or a new ordinance but serious reforms that will ensure that our gains today are enshrined in law and not dependent upon the good graces of whoever happens to be in office at any given moment. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

The Urban Conservancy launches StayLocal.org — A Community Database of Locally-Owned and Operated Businesses. Just as many of New Orleans’ locally owned businesses are handed down from generation to generation, so too are business recommendations passed along, word-of-mouth, from mother… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Projects | Rebuilding New Orleans | Stay Local

When the Nagin administration finally broke its post-election silence, the news was not good for those locally-owned businesses that didn’t cut and run after Katrina. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans | Stay Local | Wal-Mart

All of the stops on this year’s tour flooded at least partially following the levee failure, and some were severely inundated and looted as well. Each stop was thus a testament to the rebirth of the city; each an example of perseverance and determination. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

The consequential year of 2005 has meant many things to those of us in New Orleans. It has brought many changes to our home and to a small non-profit organization called the Urban Conservancy. It is with greatly mixed emotions… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

It’s hot. It’s hurricane season. It’s time for some good news. On a good year, summer in New Orleans is the time we all struggle to remember why we live here. The stultifying heat makes just laying on the porch… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

We are extremely pleased to welcome Dana to The Urban Conservancy. Dana has worked with us in the past and served as a founding member of the Advisory Board of our Stay Local! project. Dana brings to The Urban Conservancy… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Projects | Stay Local

Scout Prime came to New Orleansto see first-hand how the city is doing. During her visit, she interviewed Geoff Coats. Read more >

Filed under: Press

Many UC members and supporters will recall that prior to Katrina, we launched our StayLocal! Project to support locally-owned businesses. We are happy to report that our work with local businesses continues and is evolving as we rebuild our city…. Read more >

Filed under: Projects | Rebuilding New Orleans | Stay Local

“We are about to lose New Orleans.” So said the New York Times on Sunday. All over New Orleans people read the editorial and nodded their heads. They copied it into e-mails and forwarded it to friends—both here and elsewhere…. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans | Transportation

Conferences, meetings, strategy sessions. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Atlanta. Urban planning, public health, affordable housing, small business retention, and green building. Since September, Urban Conservancy staff have participated in countless discussions focused on rebuilding the city we love. Throughout the… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans

We think the first step in the recovery is acknowledging the hard facts and then speaking and acting as one community. Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Katrina | Rebuilding New Orleans

During the 1980s, Vladimir Posner explained the policies, actions, and culture of the Soviet Union to the American Public. He was the spokesperson for Russia and Americans loved him; he spoke flawless American English and was charming and funny. Nevertheless,… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Katrina | Rebuilding New Orleans

Interviewed for _The Christian Science Monitor_, The Urban Conservancy argues for an inclusive and community-based approach to difficult land-use issues in the rebuilding after hurricane Katrina. Read more >

Filed under: Press

On Wednesday Marc Rosenblum, Tim Ruppert, and Geoff Coats — three residents of New Orleans — spent a day in Washington, DC talking with our representatives and their staffs about the rebuilding of our city. Our primary goal was to… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials | Katrina | Rebuilding New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina has dealt a blow deep in the heart of our city, deeper than any today can remember. Even as residents have evacuated to nearby cities and states, setting up in hotels or finding families and friends who have… Read more >

Filed under: Rebuilding New Orleans

As the new program coordinator for the Urban Conservancy, I thought I might take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Forest Bradley-Wright. A native of Eugene, Oregon, I was raised believing that community self-determination is a fundamental right,… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Urban Conservancy Readers, I’d like to introduce myself to the Urban Conservancy community as the new Stay Local! program coordinator and tell you a little about our plans for the program in the near future. As many of you know,… Read more >

Filed under: Projects | Stay Local

A big thank you is in order to all the folks who made the Urban Conservancy’s first-ever benefit a rousing success—on a school night, no less. Over 150 people attended the screening of the film Unbroken Line of History:… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

We would like to extend a special invitation to the readers of the Urban Conservancy’s e-mail list and website to the UC’s first-ever benefit concert and film premiere at the Dragon’s Den, 435 Esplanade Avenue on January 20, beginning at… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

In poker, there comes a time when the betting is done and everyone has to show his or her hand. In the case of beloved New Orleans’ radio station WWOZ and their proposal to expand their offices on city-owned Armstrong… Read more >

Filed under: Projects

A message from the Metro Bicycle Coalition Ask Mayor Nagin to Dedicate 5% of Bond Funds to Bikes We have a unique opportunity during the next week to win funding for bicycle transportation improvements in New Orleans. On August 5,… Read more >

Filed under: Transportation

The last time I saw Richard, it was in late December, one evening as I was riding down Camp Street. I stopped to talk to him and his companion Pat for a little while. I found out Richard had been… Read more >

Filed under: Transportation

Like politics in general, land use decisions are a contact sport in New Orleans. A limited supply of available land, combined with our bewildering system of zoning codes and a political system that rewards back door deals pretty much ensures… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Three months ago, the city changed the way it does planning, again. Collette Crepell, the executive director of the city’s Planning Commission resigned and at the same time it was revealed that many seats on the Historic District Landmarks Commission… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

As we turn our attention to the New Year, the Urban Conservancy has set an agenda for action, with the new year bringing new issues, as well as some old favorites, to the fore. Here are a few issues on… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Many people in New Orleans, especially our younger readers, are at least acquainted with the Artist Resource Kollective, or the ARK. This Faubourg Marigny institution serves as one of the city’s few venues for alternative music, art and theater. Stage… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

In the Urban Conservancy’s attempts to be “fair and balanced,” we have a tendency to fix our sights firmly on issues that are important, and sometimes those issues are, well, a bummer. There are some bright spots in the political… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

With all the talk these days about promoting business in New Orleans, we’d like to take a moment and recognize a local business that is garnering national recognition for its leadership and innovation. Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, an architecture and planning firm located… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

At times it can seem overwhelming to live in the city with its many challenges. Where to start first? Public schools? Crime? Corruption? Housing? Take your pick. Maybe there are subtler parts to the solution. Here’s an idea for an… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

Supporters of a resolution to allow the City Planning Commission to review plans for changes to Audubon Park suffered a severe blow last Thursday as Councilmember Jay Batt withdrew the resolution that would have enabled it. Citing an apparent duplication… Read more >

Filed under: Editorials

For Release 9 a.m. CST April 1, 2002 Water-Mart to Help Taxpayers Address The Urban Conservancy’s Budget Shortfall Council Apparently Moved By Testimony April 1, 2002 In dramatic testimony before the New Orleans City Council today, The Urban Conservancy rallied… Read more >

Filed under: Wal-Mart