St. Bernard Parish : la crise d’un territoire suburbain

Abstract

Located east of New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish is one of the most vulnerable parts of the greater New Orleans metropolitan area to storm surges. After having been devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, St. Bernard still struggles to recover from the storm, and displays the lowest recovery level of the entire Katrina-hit Gulf Coast area so far. Moreover, reconstruction is hampered by loud polemics that remind us of the worst years of racial polarization during the 1960’s. This paper explores the possible linkage between urban fragmentations and adaptive capacity to natural hazard. The St. Bernard case-study illustrates the strength of path dependency, and how long-entrenched suburb-central city mistrust hampers urban resilience.

Keywords

• resilience
• segregation
• urban fragmentation
• natural hazard
• peri-urban
• cities