An Evolving Residential Landscape in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Abstract

Residential landscapes across the United States have been significantly altered in recent years by the increased racial and ethnic diversity evident within urban areas. In New Orleans, Louisiana, residential landscapes were particularly impacted by the disruptive influences associated with Hurricane Katrina, a storm that ultimately transformed the demographic make-up of this urban area. This research investigates the impacts that increased diversity has had on the levels of residential segregation among racial and/or ethnic groups in New Orleans from 2000 to 2010. Empirical analysis entailed the measurement of two dimensions of segregation evident among Non-Hispanic whites, African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians. Measures of residential exposure were decomposed in order to investigate the relative impacts of metropolitan-wide compositional change and intra-urban redistributive change on segregation among the four groups. During the 2000s, New Orleans exhibited very modest forms of residential integration. Results suggest that Non-Hispanic whites, Asians, and Hispanics exhibited some degree of “ethnic (or racial) self-selectivity” that functioned to concentrate these groups residentially, although these forces were partially overwhelmed by other forces operating at both the neighborhood and metropolitan scales. The evidence further suggests that the residential experiences among minorities were strongly impacted by the redistributive behavior of whites.