Virgil Henry Storr

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE NEW ORLEANS : SENSE OF PLACE AND COMMUNITY RECOVERY IN THE NINTH WARD AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA

ABSTRACT: This study contributes to the literature on the strength of place attachment, identity, and dependence in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. It also engages the literature concerning the role of sense of place in community engagement and the disruption in place attachment, identity, and dependence that natural disasters can cause. By drawing on interview data collected from residents who returned to New Orleans after the storm and from former New Orleanians who evacuated to Houston but did not return, this article investigates the “sense of place” that residents in Ninth Ward New Orleans neighborhoods identify in their narratives about their pre- and post-Hurricane Katrina experiences. The data considered here suggest that returning residents believe that New Orleans in general (and their Ninth Ward neighborhoods in particular) possess a unique bundle of characteristics that, when taken together, cannot be found or replicated elsewhere. While sense of place is an important motivator for returning residents, the data also suggest that complementary factors must be in place if the full potential of this social resource is to be realized.

Social Capital as Collective Narratives and Post-Disaster Community Recovery

This paper examines how social capital aids in post-disaster community recovery and redevelopment. While previous studies on social capital and post-disaster recovery have tended to focus on social networks as a source of necessary assistance, the primary focus of this study is on how social capital in the form of collective narratives affects post-disaster recovery. We argue that collective narratives can shape the recovery strategies that individuals adopt. To illustrate this we examine the post-Katrina recovery efforts in St. Bernard Parish, an area devastated by flooding and significant environmental damage. In particular, we focus on the shared narrative that dominated qualitative interview data collected in St. Bernard, namely, its shared identity as a close-knit, family-oriented community comprised of hard workers. This narrative led community members to adopt a strategy that emphasized self-reliance.

Club Goods and Post-Disaster Community Return

Hurricane Katrina caused over one hundred billion dollars in property damage in the Greater New Orleans region. Although much attention has been paid to why particular communities have begun to recover and others have failed to rebound, very little attention has been paid to how the communities that have recovered actually went about doing so. This paper attempts to close that gap by examining how the church provision of club goods can foster social cooperation and community redevelopment in the wake of a disaster. In particular, we investigate the swift return of the community surrounding the Mary Queen of Vietnam (MQVN) Catholic Church in New Orleans East after Hurricane Katrina. Utilizing a unique bundle of club goods provided by the MQVN Catholic Church, residents in the New Orleans East Vietnamese-American community (a) rebuilt their distinct ethnic— religious—language community, (b) overcame the social coordination difficulties created by Katrina, and (c) engaged in successful political action to protect their community.

Complexity, Governance and Constitutional Craftsmanship

This paper explores the relationship of Max Webers social economics to the work of the Austrian School of Economics, and in particular the writings of Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek. We argue that the Austrian school scholars complement and extend the work of Weber. The sophisticated form of methodological individualism found in Weber, Mises and Hayek overcomes the shortcomings of traditional economic and sociological analysis and could provide the analytical structure for a post-classical political economy. Copyright 2002 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology.

Post-­Disaster Community Recovery in Heterogeneous, Loosely-Connected Communities

Abstract Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on 29 August 2005, leaving a great deal of destruction, pain, and uncertainty in its wake. Post-disaster community rebound is a collective action problem where every individuals decision to rebuild is impacted by the likelihood that others in the community will rebuild. The literature on post-disaster recovery suggests that homogenous, tight-knit communities will have an advantage over more diverse, less-connected communities in solving this collective action problem and bringing about community rebound and redevelopment. Consequently, these studies have tended to underappreciate the capacity of loosely knit, heterogeneous communities to overcome the challenges associated with community recovery after a disaster. This article hopes to fill this gap in the literature by examining how loosely knit, heterogeneous communities can facilitate post-disaster community recovery and redevelopment. To examine this, we highlight the importance of community-based organizations and focus on the recovery efforts of Broadmoor after Hurricane Katrina.

Subalternity and Entrepreneurship: Tales of Marginalized But Enterprising Characters, Oppressive Settings and Haunting Plots

Entrepreneurs are cultural creatures and culture affects how they conceive their opportunities and how they determine and pursue their interests. Understanding entrepreneurship in any particular context thus requires attention to be paid to prevailing cultural beliefs as well as the formal and informal institutions that affect economic behaviour. This paper adopts the important but seldom used approach of focusing upon the tales of entrepreneurship prevalent in a given culture. The authors argue that to get a sense of the economic culture in a particular context, it is crucial to focus on what a cultures success and failure stories tell about how to get ahead. Arguably, this approach is particularly important if the goal is to understand entrepreneurship amongst subaltern/marginalized groups. Using fiction from the former Soviet bloc, where a one-dimensional form of entrepreneurship flourished even within the command economy, and literature from anglophone Africa and the British Caribbean where black entrepreneurship had to contend with brutal colonial rule and post-colonial corruption, this paper highlights how entrepreneurs were influenced by culture in these contexts, and explores the origins of these cultural factors.

The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Post-Katrina Community Recovery

This article explores the role of social entrepreneurship in post-Katrina community recovery. Relying on interviews with a wide variety of stakeholders, including residents, business owners and managers, church pastors, non-profit directors and employees and rental property owners, we conclude that social entrepreneurs perform several key factors after a disaster. These include Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Chamlee-Wright, E. and Storr, V.H. (2010) The role of social entrepreneurship in post-Katrina community recovery, Int. J. Innovation and Regional Development, Vol. 2, Nos. 1/2, pp.149-164.

The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina posed an unprecedented set of challenges to formal and informal systems of disaster response and recovery. Informed by the Virginia School of Political Economy, the contributors to this study critically examine the public policy environment that led to both successes and failures in the post-Katrina disaster response and long-term recovery. Building from this perspective, this book lends critical insight into the nature of the social coordination problems disasters present, the potential for public policy to play a positive role, and the inherent limitations policymakers face in overcoming the myriad challenges that are a product of catastrophic disaster.

Communicative action and the radical constitution: the Habermasian challenge to Hayek, Mises and their descendents

This paper evaluates Jurgen Habermass typology of action and his recent call for a radically democratic rule of law. The theory of action that Habermas develops, however, differs significantly from the science of action (praxeology) of the Austrian school. As such, it represents a methodological challenge to Austrian praxeology. Additionally, Habermass criticism of the welfare state is shown to be somewhat consistent with Hayeks criticisms, but his alternative to the welfare state challenges the political vision of many Austrian economists. This paper attempts to demonstrate that both Habermass and the Austrian schools efforts suffer from similar weaknesses and epistemological pretences. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.

The Facts of the Social Sciences are what People Believe and Think

This Handbook looks through the lens of the latest generation of scholars at the main propositions believed by so-called ‘Austrians’. Each contributing author addresses key tenets of the school of thought, and outlines its ongoing contribution to economics and to the social sciences.