Disaster, Inc.: Privatization and Post-Katrina Rebuilding in New Orleans

Kevin Fox Gotham’s “Disaster, Inc.” documented the mechanisms of disaster gentrification in post-Katrina New Orleans. Land clearance, deregulation, public subsidy of private development, and the structural exclusion of renters from compensation programs produced a recovery that displaced the population it claimed to serve. The Road Home program compensated homeowners at pre-flood values while reconstruction costs exceeded those values by 30-50 percent; renters received no equivalent program. The thesis identifies Lahaina’s 80-percent renter population as facing identical structural disadvantage. Gotham’s analysis provides the vocabulary — disaster capitalism, speculative accumulation, recovery capture — that name what is already visible in Lahaina’s post-fire land market.

The thesis also draws on Gotham’s analysis of the Lower Ninth Ward, which lost 5,000 structures; fifteen years later, less than 40 percent of pre-storm residents had returned. Road Home grants calculated compensation at pre-flood assessed value while reconstruction costs exceeded those values by 30-50 percent. Homeowners with resources bridged the gap; those without sold to investors or abandoned claims. Renters — 60 percent of the city’s displaced — received nothing equivalent. The neighborhood that rebuilt became a different neighborhood.