Resilience and Opportunity: Lessons from the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center and University of New Orleans hosted a forum to introduce Resilience and Opportunity: Lessons from the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita, an edited volume from the Brookings Institution Press, and to discuss its implications. 

This book presents the complex lessons of the 2005 storms and their aftermath. It offers the first comprehensive look at how the Gulf Coast communities are reemerging from the disasters with resilience and determination. Resilience and Opportunity, featuring many New Orleans researchers, documents the unprecedented civic revival that has breathed energy and accountability into reforms and has the potential to make the region more resilient to future catastrophes.  It also assesses the state of current reforms in education and land use planning, as well as lesser publicized reforms such as in evacuation planning and criminal justice.

This forum recognized those achievements perhaps overlooked, examined where we are today according to the numbers with a briefing on The New Orleans Index at Six, and honestly assessed the business undone and what New Orleanians, its leaders, and many partners must do to make greater New Orleans a model of growth and resilience. 

The event consisted of:

• Welcome by Susan Krantz, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, University of New Orleans
• Introduction by Amy Liu, Senior Fellow and Co- Director of Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution
• Presentation of The New Orleans Index at Six by Allison Plyer, Deputy Director, Greater New Orleans Community Data Center
• Panel Discussion: State and Future of Policy Reforms with the authors
• Panel Discussion: State and Future of Civil Society and Community Engagement with the authors
• Moderated Conversation with the Mayor Mitch Landrieu