Thousands of New Orleanians Develop Unified Plan For Community Congress II

In early December, the AmericaSpeaks (www.americaspeaks.org )method of large, complex public deliberations was used by over 2,500 residents of New Orleans to help develop the Unified New Orleans Plan.  However, in this use of its 21st Century Town Meeting format, the participants were not together in one room.  

In fact, they were communicating and planning together from 5 major American cities to which they had fled Katrina and its aftermath: Atlanta, Houston, Baton Rouge, and Dallas.  Another large group was in New Orleans itself.  Plus, there were groups from 16 other community sites that participated as well…united by modern telecommunications technologies. 

Dubbed Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) Community Congress II, the organizers sought input on many of the most difficult issues that are dogging the more official local, state, regional and national planners and reconstruction experts up to this very minute. 

But the citizens who participated waded in and tackled such issues as .how to balance social welfare and development against the city’s infrastructure needs, and how much emphasis to place on protecting and restoring the environment. 

According to Lars Torres, an AmericaSpeaks spokesperson, “Among the surprising findings of the day was overwhelming support for construction of the strongest possible levees (Category 5) in the city and concentrating recovery dollars in the parts of the city with the greatest need, those most devastated by Hurricane Katrina.” 

To what extent this prioritization influences the professional and governmental views remains to be seen.  However, the experiment proved how well this method can be used to gain citizen participation in planning and prioritization even when the citizenry has deserted an area devastated by some natural or other calamity.