Dwell, September 17, 2025, Post-Katrina Gentrification in New Orleans Was a Warning
Though it never came to be, the Green Dot Map’s specter haunts post-disaster recovery and adaptation planning in New Orleans. Many of the city’s residents who once inhabited the yellow neighborhoods, including the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly, and much of New Orleans East—lower-income communities of color—never returned. Subsequent recovery endeavors have yielded what’s considered “gentrification by flood,” in which there’s been a demographic shift, broadly characterized as a whiter, wealthier New Orleans. The city was ranked fifth of 20 cities in a 2020 study of the county’s most gentrified cities by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
