Katrina, Opportunity and America

Alan Jenkins

Katrina, Opportunity and America

It's hard to compete for news in a week that includes the start of the Olympics and a huge East Coast snowstorm, not to mention the realization that Dick Cheney holding a gun to Americans' heads is no longer just a metaphor.

Thank goodness for the blogosphere, where we can discuss more mundane matters, like the way our leaders abandoned our own people in the botched Hurricane Katrina relief effort and what the future holds for Gulf Coast residents.

On Wednesday, House Republicans plan to release a report that says the Bush administration delayed the evacuation of thousands of New Orleans residents by failing to act on reports that the levees had failed. The report also levels blame at Gov. Blanco of Louisiana and Mayor Nagin of New Orleans.

As the six-month anniversary of Katrina approaches, the bigger question is whether the rebuilding effort will live up to our highest national values or simply replicate the vastly unequal opportunity that typified the Gulf Coast region long before the storm hit.

As one element of an Opportunity Plan for the Gulf Coast, The Opportunity Agenda is proposing an Opportunity Impact Statement as a condition on all publicly funded or authorized projects.

In distributing public funds for clean-up, rebuilding, and relocation, government agencies should require a formal statement, based on available data, explaining how a proposed project will expand or contract opportunity along specific dimensions. Who will benefit, and who will be burdened, by a proposed highway, bus line, or light rail system? Will hospitals be rebuilt and equipped based on community health needs, or just in proximity to affluent, well-insured populations? Will health and other services properly accommodate the needs of the 37000 New Orleans residents who speak a language other than English? Will a construction contract offer employment and subcontracting opportunities to women and men of diverse backgrounds? Experience shows that, unless we constantly ask and answer these questions, old patterns of inequality and exclusion will quickly reappear.

The Opportunity Impact Statement should capture the six opportunity values that I mentioned in Monday's post: equality, security, mobility, voice, redemption and community. Opportunity mapping technology developed by Professor John Powell of Ohio State University is an important tool, already in use in the region. That's an important step in the right direction.