Description: The devastation brought upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee system failure has forced urban theorists to revisit the fundamental question of urban geography and planning: What is a city? These essays unpack post-Katrina discourse, examining what expert and public responses tell us about current attitudes.
Review Quotes:
Steinberg and Shields have assembled a sparkling collection of theoretically provocative and conceptually innovative essays. These not only expose the distinctive social, spatial and cultural characteristics of pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans which, with delayed federal intervention, turned the hurricane's assault into a 'racially differentiated disaster, ' but extend their comments into a critique of contemporary urban theory. Addressing such wide-ranging topics as automobility, the significance of memory, creole urbanism, and New Orleans mythology, this original and interdisciplinary collection will appeal to all urbanists, whether scholars, students, or practitioners, and also to those with interests in disaster relief and climate change.
--Anthony D. King "Emeritus Professor of Art History and of Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton"