We're Still Here Ya Bastards

April 13, 2015
Gratz’s love for New Orleans, her home since 2007, is evident in the pages of this challenging but rewarding exploration of the city, 10 years post-Katrina. Gratz (The Battle for Gotham) clearly did her homework, judging by the book’s seven-page bibliography. Early on, a quote from a resident perfectly sets the tone for the book, for New Orleans in the days following
the levees’ collapse, and for the 10 years
of rebuilding: “There is no other cavalry coming... We are the cavalry.” Gratz covers a wide range of topics: the city’s still ongoing recovery; the new, sustainable “Brad Pitt Houses”; and gentrification, “the biggest fear in some New Orleans neighborhoods.” She also strives to give context to the city’s current struggles by explaining historical elements such as the role often played by women
in urban renewal projects. Readers will wish she had expanded and deepened the stories from residents that she uses to make transitions to new topics. Though Gratz is at pains to characterize New Orleans as “resilient” and “irrepressible,” the book’s mood—like the success of the city’s rebuilding efforts—comes across
as mixed at best, leaving readers with the impression that a “lost generation” continues to struggle.

May 1, 2015

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many residents worried that the city of New Orleans as they knew it would never return. Early proposals suggested condemning and redeveloping entire neighborhoods. But New Orleans came back, and it did so not through the efforts of developers and politicians but through grassroots contributions by citizens who fought to reclaim and rebuild their city, street by street. Gratz (The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs) looks at the progress of the recovery in New Orleans nearly ten years after Katrina. While other books have addressed the storm and its immediate aftermath in detail (see Jed Horne's Breach of Faith), Gratz examines the post-Katrina city primarily through the lens of urban planning and community involvement. Accounts of heavy-handed redevelopment efforts are interspersed with compelling stories of individual homeowners and their fights to reclaim and rebuild their lives. Gratz writes with clear affection for the people, neighborhoods, and unique culture of New Orleans. VERDICT Recommended for any reader interested in New Orleans and also for those looking for an intelligent and readable book about urban planning or community activism. [See "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/15, p. 33.]--Nicholas Graham, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2015
Given the blank canvas New Orleans presented after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, would this particularly distinctive American city survive the ambitious plans of developers set on gentrification and inept government officials determined to fix its ills with plans for urban renewal? Award-winning urban writer Gratz explores the organic regeneration that has occurred in New Orleans, thanks to the people who live there. Despite predictions that they would not return, more than 80 percent of those pushed out by the flooding returned by 2012. Gratz chronicles the lives of New Orleanians, from the Lower Ninth Ward, hardest hit by the flooding, to the famed French Quarter. She details predatory disaster recovery, senseless government bureaucracy, and a spirit that has driven many to return and rebuild despite the obstacles they faced as they struggled to maintain long family and community ties. Gratz also examines ongoing challenges in the corrupt prison system and troubled school system. This is a passionate and insightful look at how citizens of a great city fought to revive it and how New Orleans' story fits into the larger national picture of urban planning.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)