Gentilly Project

Ongoing in New Orleans

2008-01-19T13:11:00.000-06:00

For the past year and a half, the project's activities have typically been confined to less than two weeks. It's often something data collection related.

For the next seven weeks, it's going to be different. A Dartmouth undergraduate will be in New Orleans full time throughout the winter quarter.

Justine started on Monday. I flew down to New Orleans on Thursday, so we can coordinate what's going to happen with greater detail. No data collections are planned in the coming weeks.

Instead, lots of community engagement.

Coming Home

2007-11-19T16:52:00.000-06:00

Yet another trip to New Orleans was this past weekend. This time was for another visit by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism course.

After a Friday morning trip to the Lower Ninth Ward (above) and an unexpected encounter with the Lt. Governor of Louisiana , we spent most of the time in Gentilly on Friday afternoon and Saturday.

This time the group focused on video interviews, and one of the general themes emerging is how hard it is for a household to return. It has everything to do with how we as a society handle (don't handle) the aftermath of catastrophes.

The extended inteviews tended to focus on older folks. It's a similar story as with everyone else. Being ripped off by contractors. It taking forever to find a reliable and quick contractor. Having some money from insurance or Road Home, but it not being enough. But something about this seems different for an older generation of mostly African-American people who have already seen and been through so much.

When one older woman was showing us her gutted house that she is gradually bringing back a bit at a time, she was casually describing rooms that really weren't there anymore. "This was my kitchen. This was my living room. This was my bathroom and where the bathtub was..."

I almost cried right there. My eyes water now just thinking about it. Sad tears and happy tears. Sad about the loss I was bearing some witness to. Yet moved by the resilience. Her nephew commented later that as long as she was breathing, she'd be working to get back into that house. Her home.

Back from New Orleans....again

2007-11-06T14:01:00.000-06:00

I left New Orleans on Oct 23rd -- after being done with mapping the Lower Ninth Ward. Altogether with Gentilly , that's about 10 square miles of the city that's been mapped.

I was back in NOLA again last weekend to take part in a Neighborhood Leadership Forum on Data Collection and Information Systems Management. I was one of the experts on the panel and decided to add something more than talk numbers and statistics.

The most sophisticated data-collection system is a person, and the reliable and robust information system is people working together in an organized way. So for my opening presentation, I played a video. A Dartmouth graduate student (and NOLA native) Sarah G. Fischer created it from mapping photos, and she added some New Orleans songs to it.

She created it independently, and I prepared my presentation by adapting my remarks to the sequence of images and audio. I think the people side of mapping gets to the heart of what this project is attempting to do.

There's an opportunity to map more neighborhoods, and I'm now considering what can be mapped in December during winter break. It depends on the number of volunteers.

We finished on Monday afternoon

2007-10-22T18:44:00.000-05:00

The rain poured hard. Some of the streets of the Lower Ninth had lots of high water. Yet, the rain paused during the afternoon and we picked up the pace to finish mapping the Lower Ninth Ward.

I can exhale.

Mapping in the Rain

2007-10-22T12:46:00.000-05:00

The rain is coming down pretty hard, yet things are still moving. Several of the East Texas Baptist University group worked in the office this morning, keeping the data entry going and helping keep the filing system under control. I gave an impromptu 10-minute discussion about logistics. At my busiest moments here in New Orleans, I get very impatient and feel that half the government, university, and private planners should be kicked out for six months. And to replace them bring experts in operations and logistics.

Due to the rain, there's not much use for construction and yard work today. So we have greater capacity for volunteers than we otherwise would have. We also have one group of folks from a Unitarian church in New Mexico.

I've spent the day so far keeping our production line moving....dealing with and anticipating bottlenecks. Giving direction or instruction to NENA staff members and volunteers, so that they can operate independently. This is the way it has to be to build the capacity we need.

Someone has gone to pick up lunch from Chicken-in-a-Box. Five pieces for $3. And back where I'm staying, I have gumbo with okra. Yum.

I'm going to spend the next hour or so getting ready for an afternoon push. We have people out mapping the final areas of the Lower Ninth Ward, but I don't know exactly where are progress is. And the data-entry status is not as clear as I would like. By 3pm, I hope to know what it will take to finish mapping and data entry for the rest of the Lower Ninth in total.

East Texas Baptist University!

2007-10-22T01:27:00.001-05:00

I met up with the team from East Texas Baptist in the late afternoon on Sunday. We began mapping the Holy Cross neighborhood for about a hour before the rain sprinkles began and dusk approached. I didn't get out into the neighborhoods all that much on Friday and Saturday, so I enjoyed taking a walk and mapping.

It was a lot like any other neighborhood I've seen in the world, except a lot quieter. A little boy answering my question about his age by holding up three fingers. His mother smiling and asking him to come back inside. A family packed in the front room of a small house with the door wide open, sounds of a football game reaching the street from the TV. Two guys - neighbors - talking to each other outside one of their cars. Me having a conversation with them about New Hampshire and how cold it can get.

I'm meeting Nilima from NENA and the East Texas Baptist University again at 9am to continue. The weather forecast still warns of rain and severe weather. If it does rain, I figure we'll make progress elsewhere -- such as data entry.

It turns out there was an article about this Lower Ninth Ward mapping in Sunday's Times-Picayune, the citywide newspaper of New Orleans. It was a front-page article of the Metro section. Due to the article, I've already heard from someone who'd like to refer her volunteers to the project for future mapping efforts.

Where to begin...

2007-10-21T13:28:00.000-05:00

It's proving impossible for me to blog while in the thick of things. Especially a day like Saturday. And quite possibly today and tomorrow.

Saturday morning, an ear infection and other circumstances kept half of the six Washington University students from the volunteer set up.

We started with 38 people out in the field. It included a combination of residents, local college students from Loyola University and Tulane University, a team of college students from East Texas Baptist University. About a half-dozen students joined in later in the morning from St. Martin's Episcopal High School, helping with both mapping and data entry.

Kelley and Mary-Alice, some of the local college students, stayed behind in the office to help with preparing and finalizing the afternoon assignments. We had also had morning help from one of NENA design team staff, who provided the extra preparation capacity we needed.

A local resident - who is in her early seventies - seemed to take part in more mapping than anyone else. Whenever she'd return with a walking partner, she'd sit quietly at a table. When motion was gathering for another group to go out, she'd be ready to go. I walked with her at the end of the day, covering an area which turned out to be where she owned property. She knew a lot about the people who lived at addresses we covered.

The mapping and outreach covered about 60% of the Lower Ninth yesterday. In total, we've covered all but the Holy Cross area. So there's about 25% of the Lower Ninth unfinished.

Which brings me to today....

- The East Texas Baptist group's in town through Monday, and are offering to help finish.

- I've committed to stay in town another day so we have a chance to finish.

- Weather reports for Monday are indicating a chance of thunderstorms, starting this evening.

- The ETB group is now finishing other work they were scheduled to do today, and now it looks like they could help get started with the mapping in a couple hours this while there's still sunlight. If it doesn't rain. And other logistical details.

- If it rains on Monday, we're considering how we can still make progress.

Based on our mapping rate this weekend, we could finish the Lower Ninth in a half day with about two dozen people. The ETB team has 10 people. Counting me, we could get 2-3 others. I think we'd finish mapping if we had a whole day on Monday. But the most recent 600-mile doppler radar shows rain heading our way now....

Tell Me Something Good

2007-10-19T19:36:00.000-05:00

A funny thing happened this afternoon. It wasn't how much we did. We finished mapping about 12% of the Lower Ninth Ward today, with about 8-10 people in the field (on average).

Yet today felt like the beginning of something good.

The 6 law students from Washington Univerity served as the core of the field team this morning. In the afternoon, I didn't send two of them out so that they could work with me a bit. When the others did a partial afternoon a field walking, I didn't send them out again when they came back.

Fortunately, one of the Tulane students (her name is Cole) arrived with about 8 additional AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteers to help map in the afternoon.

While the VISTA volunteers were in the field, there was a 20 minute period when I was sure that the Wash U students were feeling underutilized - except for the two who had stayed back with me and helped set up a check out/check in system for mapping assignments.

I don't know what changed what I was experiencing. Looking back now, I'm trying to recall the saying about how strength comes from enduring long silences. There was a bit of surrender on my part -- I didn't want to keep the Wash U team there if there was nothing for them to do...

But then it all seemed to quietly and gradually fall together. I showed Amanda how to make assignments, and she put her Excel skills to use finishing a project that I had hoped to finish today but could not. Melissa was making some refinements to the check-out system. Andris and Brenda were within earshot of her -- was my conversation about the project useful to them or was it "too much information"? Meanwhile, I settled Brittany and Natalia in the office NENA gave me to use, and they began entering the field data collected today.

Then a new volunteer named Claudia showed up, and began helping to input data. And John, one of the NENA design team members, picked up speed after what I had been showing him in pieces throughout the day about preparing mapping assignments.

And the whole time, Nilima and other NENA staff members were there - doing whatever was needed to help and keep things moving. A resident, Ms. Tilton, arrived for transportation duty in the afternoon, although she had for a time locked herself out of the house and (thus) had an excuse not to return if she wanted one.

Something feels good about all this, and I look forward to tomorrow.

Friday Morning

2007-10-19T10:37:00.000-05:00

It turns out there's a third way to the Lower Ninth that I didn't know about. Nilima let me about the Florida Avenue bridge that just re-opened. Nice.

As I was driving in to NENA, I became easy and relaxed about whatever wasn't ready. "It's already in the batter, so it don't matter." Where did that thought come from?!

The Lower Ninth is broken up into 7 areas. We had about a dozen volunteers this morning. About half were law students from University of Washington at St. Louis. We also had a couple volunteers from Common Ground, as well as residents.

Onward...

Thursday

2007-10-18T18:58:00.000-05:00

Thursday was my first time on the ground in the Lower Ninth in a few months. Because I'll be mapping there in the morning, I'm looking at everything now with a different eye.

The photo above shows what the NENA office looked like early this year. Today, there are more desks, and it feels more crowded. Will there be enough space for a lot of volunteers here?

Nilima the community liason showed me an area to use as an office. I didn't recall that space being there before. Guess the wall wasn't finished being put yet.

The Claiborne bridge, one of the most travelled routes to the Lower Ninth, is out. Not good. That means only one bridge goes over the Industrial Street Canal and connects the Lower Ninth to other areas of the city. That means heavy traffic. Sure enough, it was stop and go trying to get over the St. Claude Avenue bridge.

Patricia Jones, NENA's director, was on TV earlier this week, talking about the Friday and Saturday mapping. Nilima was filmed this afternoon for the local 10 o'clock news.

We were initially expecting 8 volunteers tomorrow (Friday). It appeared that we'd get another 15 on Friday afternoon. And we are now expecting as many as 40 volunteers on Sunday.

We're expecting enough volunteers for me to start thinking about organization. I don't think we can do this unless we have more office volunteers -- those who can help with finalizing and printing the mapping assignments, as well as keep track of what we have done (and haven't done) and handle the data entry process.

In fact, I could use those office volunteers tonight. I expect a late preparing...

Will it go easy or hard?

2007-10-18T09:09:00.000-05:00

I arrived in New Orleans last night to rain. A full but gentle shower covered me getting to the car, as I drove to UNO to pick up some of my mapping materials and props. Weather is one of those variables that trip things up, especially if we're looking to map a large area over a short period of time.

I think the Lower Ninth Ward is at least 2 square miles. It will take a long time to map if we don't have enough volunteers. Much longer than the weekend. And even having too many volunteers has its problems, if we're not ready for them or we don't adapt to the differences in having a much larger group.

My goal is to make it feasible to map the entire Lower Ninth this weekend. I'm heading to the Lower Ninth Ward soon to meet with Nilima, community liason for NENA (the Lower 9th Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association).

Mapping is tomorrow, so whether it goes easy and hard will depend on what we do today.

Plans to Map Recovery in the Lower Ninth Ward

2007-10-17T08:06:00.000-05:00

"The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." It must seem curious to others that I can be an organization theorist, yet don't put all my trust in plans. Even for my planning with NENA to map the Lower Ninth Ward this weekend.

I have my reasons - including in academic training and my religious beliefs - but there's also my experience mapping in New Orleans. Although I always plan as much as I can, I feel I never have enough time. And, inevitably, something happens I don't expect once the plan goes into motion.

I first mapped portions of the Lower Ninth Ward last February. Jeffrey Robinson , a NYU professor and colleague from my academic field, was working with me to prepare, with help from a couple of his student assistants. However, once mapping started, I discovered problems with the assignments we had created. Some information we'd received to create the assignments was incorrect, so I had to scrap the effort.

Or so I thought. By the next morning, facing a few volunteers who had come ready to map, I figured out another way to use the information we had. It was much less efficient than what I do in Gentilly, and subject to more error. But we mapped over 50% of the Lower Ninth Ward that weekend, with the help of about dozen student volunteers I didn't expect.

So when the mapping is about the start, my adrenaline runs up. Once reality meets the plan, I know there'll be a need to modify or reinvent how we're mapping. And I know I'll be dependent on someone else to help me do it. Or do it for me. And it's a good chance the help will come from someone I've never met before. Or from the last person I'd expect. Or from someone who suddenly reveals knowledge, skill, or a relationship that I didn't know they had. That's what the "open organizing" experience feels like.

It's a different way of relating to formal plans. It's a little bit of that saying: "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." It also has similarities to the Strategy as Structured Chaos view proposed by Shona Brown and Kathy Eisenhardt, from my years at Stanford.

I'm preparing, but afraid and hopeful at the same time.

Rapidly Scaling a Project

2007-10-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

A year ago, an entire house-to-house mapping of Gentilly seemed like a year long thing. Now it can be done by residents and volutneers within weeks, provided the right setup is in place.

These days, I'm preoccupied with how to replicate what we've done in Gentilly. I'm working with a growing number of residents to replicate within Gentilly, as well as expand to new parts of New Orleans.

This can be done within two years with the proper allocation of resources. The project must be rebuilt to scale rapidly through use of professional talent and financial capital. Some aspects of the plan are more developed than others. I'm looking for ~ $60K to start.

If I have access to the relevant talent and equipment, I can grow the project's capacity through volunteers and others. It would bring down the project cost estimates from $1 million per year to $300,000 per year.

Community Radio - A Great Idea

2007-08-27T09:10:00.000-05:00

I spoke Friday with someone in New Orleans who's looking to organize a community radio station in New Orleans that'd be focused on the happenings of specific neighborhoods.

This idea is very complementary towards this project's goal of accelerating local recovery by drawing attention to the different kinds and levels of recovery needed in particular areas.

I wonder if the Dan Gillmor, director of the Center for Citizen Media, would be interested in this? He and I have discussing how our spring collaboration (which includes Bill Gannon of Lucasfilm, Inc.) will continue through Dan & Bill's UC Berkeley graduate journalism course and a shared venture that involves having Gentilly residents becoming journalists themselves.

Maps are very democractic. A properly-organized map can communicate information in a form we can all understand. I think radio can function similarly. Imagine the project's local recovery results could be radio broadcast on both the NOLA airwaves and on the Internet! We could cross the digital divide quite well with such an effort.

Do Less to Achieve More?

2007-08-21T07:48:00.000-05:00

There was a point in June when I had to slow the project's operational aspects (data collection, community engagement, data management) for a couple weeks, in order to reconfigure the project to achieve more during the summer.

Now feels like a similar time. In July and August, I came back to NOLA with Ingrid and Sam for two separate extended weekends of mapping. The heat was pretty brutal. Especially two weeks ago in August.

Altogether during those weekends, the three of us with Gentilly residents and other volunteers finished remapping 9 of 21 neighborhoods. Together the particular neighborhoods correspond to about 30% of Gentilly properties.

It would have been great to update more. This week I'm having to think ahead to the fall. Sponsors. External Partners. Core team members.

I'm weighing a trip to NOLA next week, so that I can map with some volunteers on Labor Day weekend. And the two years since Katrina is being recognized there too. But time is becoming critical to reconfigure the project, and I need to check to see if a third trip is in budget.

Should I return to NOLA next week?

Blogging Our Progress

2007-08-18T04:55:00.000-05:00

I need to "let go" about blogging. Sometimes I just stop blogging about the project, because so much is happening around me with it and I haven't fully processed it yet. But by not blogging about the developments, I know I'm missing a key aspect of blogging : )

Within the last week:

- I was in NOLA again with Sam and Ingrid. We mapped three more neighborhoods: St. Roch Bend, Filmore Gardens, Mirabeau Gardens. We also finished mapping the other half of the Sugar Hill neighborhood. About 1/3 of Gentilly has been remapped this summer. The cool thing is the resident participation. Most of the mapping is done by the residents who join us - like Claire, K.C., and Kathi.

Within the past few days:

- The project is going to be integrated with one - possibly two - courses at the University of New Orleans.

- I'm exploring some synergies with my colleague Andy King at the Tuck School. In interesting and productive ways, both of our projects will benefit from increased coordination and sharing of resources.

- A potential partnership with the OneTorch organization is moving very rapidly ahead, based on some developments on Wednesday night.

I welcome comments on the blog. Honestly, your posts remind me that I should be telling you more : )

Eminent Domain

2007-08-16T10:17:00.000-05:00

Demolition lists and the seizing of properties. I understand it needs to happen. Just on Monday, I was back in New Orleans talking to someone living next to a blighted house. It's a health hazard. If an owner doesn't take action, the legal wheels must turn for the health and safety of people living next door.

But then, how do you know if you have the right house on the list? Especially on such a large scale? It's a manageable problem, but even small errors (i.e., a house inaccurately placed on a demolition list) will have a devasting effect.... And the time required to error check what's on these lists....I can imagine the bottlenecks in city departments...

No Progress? Hold on...

2007-07-26T10:14:00.000-05:00

We started comparing the March 07 observations with the observations made this past weekend in several neighborhoods. That includes pictures of this neighborhood: Burbank Gardens.

Burbank Gardens sits near where there was a breach in the London Avenue Canal. There was a lot of damage. After comparing the new data with March 07, I think my conclusion about "no progress" here was premature...

Photos

2007-07-25T13:24:00.000-05:00

I didn't have time to post photos while in New Orleans. So I'll include them as part of a series of "retrospective" blogs this week. That's life for you. A few days of action, followed by days of routine to revisit the action.

This is a photo taken the day we started (and finished) mapping Indian Village. That's Sam coming towards the camera. This was the first neighborhood we finished this visit. It's a pretty self-contained neighborhood, with small blocks. While mapping with three residents, we met a guy who goes by the name Gumbo.

Sam's looking at the data for this neighborhood now, but I don't recall there being much difference in recovery from what I saw in March. To the extent that there is a difference, I'm not sure that we'll necessarily be able to pick it up with this data instrument.

The Power of Mapping

2007-07-24T12:55:00.000-05:00

Ingrid, Sam, and I arrived back in Hanover (New Hampshire) around 2am this morning.

While we were preparing for the return travel yesterday, there was a MSNBC news item released online that talks about the project.

Its focus is the power of mapping, and it talks about the citizen-journalism project what we started last April with Dan Gillmor, director of the Center for Citizen Media, and Bill Gannon, head of Web operations at LucasFilm. Gillmor and Gannon. Both Dan and Bill were co-teaching a class at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, and Gentilly was the setting for all their interviews and photos.

Dan and Bill are sticking with the project in order to help residents tell their own story as citizen journalists. I clearly see the need for that. Even those who want to help people in the New Orleans can fall into oversimplified stereotypes. I know my own look at things keeps getting more subtle.

There's a lot of diversity at life when you look up close. I believe the power of mapping is illustrating that diversity in a visual form that non-experts can see and appreciate.

For "time travel" back to the visit by Dan, Bill, and their students in late April - visit the blog entry here.

Work, Play, Work, Play on Sunday

2007-07-23T09:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday - Sunday - Sam and Ingrid finished mapping the Vascoville neighborhood and started the Gentilly Heights neighborhood next door. Both neighborhoods are next to Dillard University.

Then we met with an alumnus Jim Hutchinson (Dartmouth '69, Tuck School '71), whom I met at a conference here last fall. He took us to the Sassafras Restaurant in New Orleans East, and showed us how the damage varied in different parts of the region.

Then in the early afternoon: Ingrid, Sam, and I met up with about 4 volunteers. Two residents from Vascoville, a political science professor from the University of New Orleans (UNO) who studies urban politics, and Harvard student Tom Wooten who's studying the recovery strategies in NOLA neighborhoods.

Late in the afternoon, we were invited to the home of a Dartmouth parent. She was hosting a barbecue and pool party for young volunteers, and we were invited to join in. There were about 20 students there from a variety of schools, like Kenyon, UW Madison, NYU, and more...

This morning - Monday - we are tying up some loose ends. Finishing up some work from the College of Science at UNO, then finishing up some mapping, then home to pack for the airport.

Let the Sun Shine

2007-07-21T15:25:00.000-05:00

No rain. Not a drop. It's been hot under bright blue skies with some clouds.

This morning around 8am in the Burbank Gardens neighborhood, there were six residents. With Sam and Ingrid taking part, the neighborhood was finished this morning.

Around 9am at Vascoville, there were 4 residents and a couple visitors. The neighborhood is now almost done, and we might be heading back this evening for a crab boil.

Then midday, we finished nearly half of the Sugar Hill neighborhood with three residents.

In a few minutes, we're heading to the Pontilly neighborhood. It's me, Ingrid, Sam, and Tom (who's from Harvard U.), and several residents are scheduled to meet us.

What a day. And it's not over yet!

Mandina's Feast*

2007-07-21T07:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we finished a little early (not much - only an hour early) and went to dinner at Mandina's, a great neighborhood restaurant for New Orleans food. Then we spend a couple hours in the evening in preparation for this morning.

We're scheduled to be in 4 neighborhoods today. It's cooler today, because it's cloudy, and a chance of thunderstorms as the day progresses. That's the thing about mapping. You just never know what's going to happen...

* I had originally posted an incorrect restaurant name, and I've now made the correction. We went to Madina's at 3800 Canal Street. Unable to find a website for Mandina's, I've included a link to a review. QJ 7-24-07

Changing the Game

2007-07-20T12:38:00.000-05:00

Something's going on here that feels positive. A shift from yesterday.

We came back to the importance of having a mapping key while walking Indian Village, and we are getting a few unexpected volunteer offers.

I decided to adjust the definition of our block-team roles. I'm giving it a verbal test drive as we prepare to map tomorrow. With about 200 residents, this project can map all 8-square miles of Gentilly sustainably. It's amazing sometimes what knowledge of organizations can do in field settings : )

Since last night, I've been thinking openly about (i.e., discussing back and forth with Ingrid and Sam) our weekend goals with respect to Vascoville, Gentilly Heights East, and Sugar Hill neighborhoods. Now, I'm expecting us to focus most on "teaching to fish" rather than "how many fish" we're catching.

More residents learning the system is taking precedence for me now. It's time to move beyond the how-much-we-have-mapped game. Been there and done that. And it's time to make a deliberate trial on empowering many more residents with geography.

It could likely mean producing less this weekend than what I initially promised myself and others. But at heart, I am an academic. I won't be consistent if emerging evidence and understanding implies a new perspective or direction.

I see greater potential in giving more authority to residents rather focusing too narrowly on mapping area covered in the immediate term.

Friday morning quickness

2007-07-20T09:09:00.001-05:00

We're on the move again this morning. Starting two neighborhoods this morning - Gentilly Heights East and Vista Park. Just scheduled Sugar Hill for Saturday afternoon.

There's more going on than I can keep up with here....including my dad's visit with us yesterday to the Lower Ninth Ward.

I'll blog again once we get back.

One neighborhood done!

2007-07-19T18:38:00.000-05:00

But it's not the one we initially planned. Indian Village is a pretty self-contained Gentilly neighborhood, often forgotten because it's off to itself geographically.

Ingrid, Sam, and I met Brady, a neighborhood resident at 4pm. He had called to other residents, Rory and Ms. Mary. We were short of the neighborhood maps that would make things easier, but the resident's knowledge of which streets were where got us through.

We finished the neighborhood in about two hours.

Ingrid, Sam, and I are off to dinner now...

We've Landed...and We Need Help! : )

2007-07-19T10:44:00.000-05:00

Sam, Ingrid, and I arrived yesterday afternoon. Within hours, we were at the Burbank Gardens neighborhood association meeting -- after a brief stop at Pizza Milano (Gentilly's red truck pizzeria!) for a quick bite to eat.

We collected the contact information from about dozen residents. Becky, one of the resident who mapped with us in March, wants to get started right away! And a number of them wanted to get started mapping this weekend. So we're helping them get started this weekend on Saturday at 9am.

We're set up now to enable any resident or volunteer help us map in Gentilly -- now that I think we got some printing issues resolved this morning. We're working again at UNO once again, thanks to generosity of the College of Sciences!

If you have a couple hours to walk and map with us this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday - please email gentilly@dartmouth.edu

Those who aren't in New Orleans can still do a lot by simply sharing what we are doing here.
This has always been a significant grassroots-recovery effort here in this city, and in the project we're found a way to give this recovery a boost....

More later.

Start and Get Out of the Way

2007-07-17T15:37:00.000-05:00

In the area of "Pontilly" (the combined neighborhoods of Pontchartrain Park and Gentilly Woods), a recovery center has opened. The dedicated person began working there within the past couple weeks. She asked residents to volunteer to help with this mapping effort.

She was expecting about 5 people to sign up. Instead she received 10.

In several other neighborhoods, there've been neighborhood meetings and we continue to get interest and offers to help from residents.

How can I get them all started, and then get out of their way?

Driving the Train

2007-07-16T20:25:00.000-05:00

A lot of the day was contacting residents in specific neighborhoods, sharing what we'd like to do and discussing the immediate steps to take.

While I was doing my part in that, one of our block coordinators said something pretty funny. He had just suggested a neighbor as a great potential contributor to the project. He said he would talk to her, explaining "Quintus, you're driving the train... I'll gather people up."

Maybe. I just want everybody to get where they want to go. This recovery is taking much too long, and there are concrete ways to speed it up. So let's speed it up.

Who else is coming aboard?

Restless. Breathless.

2007-07-14T22:26:00.000-05:00

I can't help it. Whenever I'm preparing to head down to work in the neighborhoods of New Orleans, my mind is in a state of motion...weighing the options and pulling the levers to bring about what I intend. I do this knowing it never turns out like I intend.

In the end, unexpected constraints and opportunities arise, and I devise a way to make it work as I go. And the way tends to come out-of-the-blue and on-the-spot. Usually during a time that seems unlikely for great breakthroughs. Like when a volunteer provides me with an inspiration during a walk. Or when I'm resigning myself to not having the solution I need in time. That's usually when my mind suddenly opens up and I see the way.

If more people knew of the struggles the people of New Orleans have gone through to return home, I think there'd be more restless people like me. Whenever I'm about to stop thinking about what to do in New Orleans, my heart starts to take over.

My heart doesn't let my mind rest, until I have a new idea (or option) that turns (what seems to be) an impossible task into a manageable problem.

Targeted Recovery Zones

2007-07-14T11:13:00.000-05:00

The area we're remapping next weekend is near a targeted recovery zone of the City of New Orleans: "These zones will be built around public assets in business corridors in an effort to generate further private investment from developers."

I know where the two official targeted zones are in Gentilly, but I hadn't looked at our priority area for next week in that way.

There were a bunch of factors that went into my decision of where to prioritize for the trip. A lot of it was finding a clustering of neighborhoods that were feasible to attempt -- due to their manageable size, our ability to reach residents who could potentially help, and ongoing interest from neighborhood association leaders. This time I only have two other dedicated people to help (summer interns Ingrid and Sam), so our achievements come from the on-the-ground resources we can cultivate and depend on...

While the city's recovery zones are spurring redevelopment and accelerating recovery from the top down through its Office of Recovery, this project - and numerous others throughout the city - are doing the same from the bottom up.

I'm glad there's some potential for convergence next weekend.

Destination: Vascoville

2007-07-12T08:27:00.000-05:00

I've decided we'll target the Vascoville neighborhood when we're in New Orleans late next week. Then focus on the surrounding areas of Gentily Heights East and parts of Sugar Hill.

These are all neighborhoods in the proximity of Dillard Univesity. The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC) has a good description and pre-Katrina statistics of this general area.

We're coming to the 3308!

Building a pipeline

2007-07-11T11:47:00.000-05:00

Planning for travel to NOLA next week is getting pretty serious. We're starting to set up a pipeline.

From (1) verifying our residential contacts, to (2) sending residents and local business owners are mapping results from last March, to (3) accepting volunteers and making assignments for a residential mapping day in Gentilly on Saturday July 21.

I see long days ahead...

Summer Session

2007-07-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

We began the summer session of the project two weeks ago. Ingrid and Sam, two of the Dartmouth students who mapped Gentilly during spring break, are back as full-time interns. Jenica, a recent Dartmouth science PhD, started with the project part-time. Also, we've been getting some help from Genevieve at the Center for Digital Strategies, which is where I work from in Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.

Currently, we are taking the Gentilly results from last spring (which were covered by front-page articles in the Times-Picayune and last Monday's New York Times) and breaking them down into more local detail. Where before we reported results by multiple-neighborhood sections (see report here, page 2), we are now reporting results within sections of particular neighborhoods. Ingrid and Sam, with the help of Kolleen (also a Dartmouth student volunteer from spring break), have been begun sharing these local-recovery reports with Gentilly residents.

Ingrid, Sam, and I are coming to New Orleans in less than two weeks.

"The Battle Is Not Yours"

2007-07-01T22:50:00.001-05:00

A couple days ago, Sheron unexpectedly sent a youtube video for me and Gentilly Project. And its message zapped me: "The Battle Is Not Yours."

Pam, who I know from an entirely different context, had this same message for me last November. Back then, I was a bit shaken about plans to go to Gentilly and spend two weeks mapping during Dartmouth's winter break. That trip became a turning point for the project, so it was a good thing I went. Feeling that you are not fighting alone can make all the difference.

As we start July, I'm reminded again that the battle isn't mine. It feels good to be back. This project to going to another level.

End of Term

2007-06-03T11:52:00.000-05:00

I'm not teaching at Dartmouth this spring quarter, but I'm running intensely towards the end of academic year like everyone else.

Final budget for the project's summer activities. Getting two full-time student interns for the summer. Collaboration needs with Gentilly residents, UNC Chapel Hill, and now with the City of New Orleans which have started and will be growing throughout the summer.

I'll come up for air again a week from tomorrow : )

Residential Block Teams

2007-05-05T14:31:00.000-05:00

Through this project, volunteers have mapped Gentilly house-to-house. Twice within the past six months. Doing it within 5 weeks the first time and in 10 days the second time demonstrates that wipespread public mapping can be done. But we are not ending there.

In the coming weeks, we'll be recruiting local block teams. We are asking them to:

1. Keep the house-to-house status record up to date
2. Maintain this record on the Internet
3. Form a network of local teams that can map all of Gentilly very rapidly

We're providing the process and tools. I'm focused on Gentilly residents on the ground, since I've been coming to NOLA a lot for over a year. My colleague Dr. Xun Shi and his research assistant Ben Wilson are working on what residents do on the 'virtual Gentilly' that's online.

And my broader concerns about resource mobilization in the rest of flood-damaged New Orleans, as well as for my focus on methods for responding to future disasters, has me looking to other areas in the city beyond Gentilly's borders.

Yet now I'm back from New Orleans, looking to continue from about a thousand miles away.

Newsmakers

2007-05-02T10:03:00.000-05:00

While the project was making the news (Front page of last Friday's Times-Picayune!), I was with a class from the Cal-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The instructors - Dan Gillmor, director of the Center for Citizen Media, and Bill Gannon, director of online operations for Lucasfilm Ltd - brought 6 students.

They have audio/video of individual interviews with about 36 Gentilly residents, and they took photos of blocks throughout Gentilly. Their intention is to post all the content on a Google map, working in concert with this project to show what's happening in New Orleans and how the progress can vary house-to-house and block-to-block.

And this is just the first step. The next is finding people in Gentilly to serve as citizen journalists!

Faith and Misery

2007-04-26T19:21:00.000-05:00

I'm back in New Orleans again. I can't believe I let several weeks go by without blogging. Then again, most of my life doesn't happen on the Internet. Showing evidence of the city's local recovery varies has been on my mind on the whole time, and I've been working to share with Gentilly residents the evidence of recovery that I have. Sometimes progress is happening even if you personally can't see it. FAITH.

I had two tours of New Orleans last weekend. In some ways, they were very different. One tour did not bring us into contact with residents, for instance. The other made a point of having residents tell their story before the tour began. The tours became alike in the Lower Ninth Ward. Both tours took us through the same section, right next to the Industrial Canal breech. Empty plots where homes once stood. Very devasted homes in the blocks moving away from the canal. MISERY.

I've seen the entire Lower Ninth Ward though. Most of it isn't as bad as what was shown us. There's the school being opened. There's the historic Holy Cross neighborhood within the Lower Ninth, and the beautiful houses that one can see there. Why is it that many NOLA residents don't seem to know there's a lot of the Lower Ninth Ward above sea level?

I've been here enough to know there's real misery in New Orleans. And there's real faith here too. In a way, there's a lot of spiritual warfare going on in the city. Most of what I do here is provide evidence that it's not all misery. There's evidence for faith and misery all round the city, and each of us makes a choice. What are we going to do about it?

The group from the Cal-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism has arrived today. Tomorrow, they're going to start interviewing Gentilly residents as part of a citizen journalist project. I'm delighted, and can't wait to get started. On the other hand, there's a part of me inside that's miserable. I heard Jill Scott is here for Jazzfest, and I think I'm going to be missing her. There might be volunteers to map Gert Town on Sunday.

Community Lines

2007-03-31T12:02:00.000-05:00

Marred roof. Peeling clapboards. Skeletons of wood visible through dark windows. Each house on this block resembled hundreds of others we had walked past. We coded them yellow on our address sheets and kept walking. Overgrown vegetation flanked the litter-strewn street, which was easier to walk on than the remains of the sidewalk. With a few paces, a gentle grade brought us to a blue house, one marked by an immaculate facade and a manicured lawn. We turned the corner and realized that most houses on both sides of the street were evidently part of a well-maintained neighborhood. The next house had been razed, leaving behind a yard of sand. We stood in front of the flawless third house, trying to figure out the address of the bare property between it and its corner neighbor, when a woman appeared, apparently the owner. I said we were part of the Gentilly Project, which was collecting information about the state of repair of houses throughout the Gentilly district of New Orleans. The information would be posted online using color codes and given to neighborhood associations to help organize and channel resources more effectively. She nodded in understanding, and I asked if she knew the address of what was next door. She made some suggestions, nothing definitive. Then she ambled back into her home.

It was common for residents to call out to us with their inquisitive looks or voices. And we were encouraged to approach them and explain why a pair of us was traipsing around their neighborhood with a clipboard. After a little explanation, they were often effusive with thoughts and information. They’d share their frustrations, their blessings. We’d write down any needs they mentioned. Without prompting, they’d usually point to the forlorn houses around their home: “He’s in Atlanta and ain’t sure if he’s comin’ back.” “She’s in her eighties and livin’ with her daughter now.” “They’re starting to rebuild but livin’ in another part of the city.”

I specifically recall talking with a married couple who was temporarily living in a more affluent area outside New Orleans while they rebuilt their home of over twenty years. The people there, they said, are cordial, but they conspicuously stay on their property and the most they ever say is a friendly greeting. Another man I spoke with had permanently moved his wife and young son to a comparable neighborhood after the storm. His neighbors there are friendly but never chat at length or want to come over for dinner despite their casual invitations. He said he missed the vibrancy of his old neighborhood, where he could stop and pull up a chair at a neighbor’s place anytime.

His old neighborhood may not look the same now, but its spirit has returned, perhaps amplified. Although many of its homes have trailers on their front lawns, the residents there look after each other. They watch each other’s children. They labor together to restore their homes. They share lawnmowers to keep the grass at a respectable length.
It’s a similar story elsewhere in Gentilly. I talked with several residents who said that since the storm, neighbors have been doubly ready to assist others in any way possible. Dormant neighborhood associations have been rejuvenated and are poised to reach out to neighbors on streets with few trailers or refurbished homes. It is the hope of the Gentilly Project to further encourage neighborhood associations in accounting for neighbors and organizing to better direct the assistance they still need from others outside their neighborhoods.

Yet, that sense of community isn’t everywhere. Accounting for neighbors tends to evaporate in importance as the burden of property rises. More to own demands more attention to sustain, and property lines begin to divide neighbors, leaving them with a vacant knowledge of each other.

Start To Finish in 10 Days

2007-03-26T09:43:00.000-05:00

I didn't have a timetable for mapping this spring break. I just wanted to complete any of the 22 Gentilly neighborhoods we started. Instead, all of the neighborhoods were mapped. That's over 14,000 addresses and 8 square miles. All in 10 days.

It took 30 days when the area was first mapped in December. That included time off because it was holiday season, but it also included a greater availability of residents to help. And the membership of the December mapping group doesn't overlap with the March group.

UNO's College of Sciences let the project use office space again, and the team was there until 8pm last night finishing up. Already this morning, the students have risen and are on their way to the airport. Spring break ends tonight, and classes start again tomorrow!

Haven't been able to upload my weekend photos yet, so the photos are from last week. The top one was taken at UNO. The bottom one was taken in Pontchartrain Park. Jeanne Huang, a Tuck School alum who is part of the Post-Katrina summit planning with me, was in New Orleans, and she wanted to see what the mapping was about. Kolleen, one of the student team members, is explaining how the mapping system works.

Some photos from today

2007-03-24T11:27:00.000-05:00

Could you believe these two houses are around the corner from each other? One blighted (code RED) and the other well renovated (code BLUE). Photos taken about an hour ago.

A Difference A Day Makes

2007-03-24T11:00:00.000-05:00

I just realized that I hadn't blogged since Monday. Where have I been?! Working with my Dartmouth team to map, of course : )

Sometime yesterday afternoon that I began to believe we could finish mapping Gentilly again. About 65% was completed as of Friday pm. I began to estimate how many more volunteers we might need. But most importantly, Rashmi began to contact other Dartmouth Katrina Help teams in the area.

This morning, we had a van of 7 Dartmouth students arrive from Gulf Port, Mississipi. And another team of 15 Dartmouth students that's also performing service in New Orleans.

With 35 Dartmouth students on the job today, we can get a lot of done...

Crawfish Boil

2007-03-19T07:19:00.000-05:00

When I woke up Sunday morning, I never anticipated we'd be invited to a Crawfish Boil that afternoon. It was a great way to end the first 3 days of (re)mapping Gentilly neighborhoods. Much thanks to Gwen H. and family!

Last Friday through Sunday were just the learning-curve days for the student team, yet they mapped 20% of Gentilly (an area that I think is about 8 square miles wide). For the most part, they did it themselves and with the help of residents Becky R. on Saturday morning and Claire S. all day Saturday and on Sunday morning. Four neighborhoods were completed - Virgil Park, Burbank Gardens, Fillmore Gardens, Edgewood Park - and a fifth started - Lower Gentilly.

There was an emerging emphasis this weekend on documenting the needs for particular individuals we encountered while mapping, and performing followups to find and direct assistance.

I don't know if we are going to remap all of Gentilly again, or if that is necessarily the most relevant goal at this point. More importantly, I see us laying the groundwork for more efficient and sustained aggregation and communication of local needs. In many ways, simply remapping Gentilly in the next 7 days would be a much easier goal.

The students get the day off while I'm shifting gears today towards the Post-Katrina Economic Development Summit. We'll be back on the streets on Tuesday.

No Winter Thank You

2007-03-17T16:42:00.000-05:00

I lent Sheli my camera yesterday to take photos, so I think she took these. Need to ask her about them...

My guess this was in Virgil Park, a Gentilly neighborhood we started and completed yesterday morning. Today, we finished two more neighborhoods. Burbank Gardens in the morning. Fillmore Gardens is being finished as I write.

Today, we started an "advance team" that would work ahead to prepare mapping assignments and perform any followup associated with mapping (e.g., data entry, office errands, getting snacks and lunch, and follow up contact with residents in need).

This afternoon, Nicole and I performed an advance-team assignment of following up on a lead provided by Jackie, a Gentilly resident. Although living out of town, she had a fairly recent record of rebuilding status for her entire block. She recommended that we meet a couple of her neighbors, including Mr. Fortenberry. We're going to work with him by giving him a list of addresses from our master address file, and doing a small local census with him. I've called ahead to some neighborhood presidents so we can do something similar in other areas too.

I heard that lots of snow fell in NH the past 24 hours. New Orleans is getting California perfect weather today, and it's been great to see how much we're getting done in just a second day.

First Day of Work

2007-03-16T16:11:00.001-05:00

So here we are at the UNO library, trying to take every free moment we can to check up on blitz. about 75 new messages and counting since I left Hanover. Three of us are doing the data entry for the Virgil Park neighborhood we visited this morning on our first day of work. Me, being a good trip leader, sent 8 members of the team to go fend for themselves and map another neighborhood this afternoon.
We ate a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly and it seemed like every group had met someone cool, friendly, or at the very least, interesting. Blondie and her bed and breakfast, Charlie the fisherman, Mr. Willard the retired teacher and de facto neighborhood governor, and Chuck, 50 year veteran of the area who stayed 9 days into the hurricane, before he had to be rescued, and mentioned "I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Now THAT was amazing."
Sheli and I talked to Charlie, who is 86 with white wispy hair and a beard. He's rebuilding his entire first floor by himself, and except for the gaping hole in his living room, conveniently covered by a stiff plank of wood.

"I love life. Love it. Heck, I couldn't live without it."
-Chuck

Off we go!

2007-03-16T10:15:00.000-05:00

We're all headed to the Virgil Park neighborhood as I write. Gotta go!!

Don't Worry About A Thing

2007-03-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

When your volunteers are policy-minded social workers, don't you worry about a thing.

I met Janet, Selene, Jennifer, and Moira yesterday afternoon -- literally after checking my cell phone message at the airport and learning of volunteers from Columbia's School of Social Work. Pictured above, sandwiched between NENA Director Jones and me, these volunteers came through today.

I had spent about an hour with Jennifer yesterday showing her how to assign a list of addresses to their associated census block, while the others were catching up on some mapping data-entry work that was needed.

I was going to stop by NENA this morning to see how the team was doing. But when I called ahead they sounded already on top of the whole thing. So I stayed away. By the late afternoon when I arrived with the Dartmouth team, they had figured out how to assign hundreds of street addresses to their associated census block. Everything was handled - from map printouts from the census to the block assigning and physical inspections of some blocks to clear up unusual observations in the mapping data. And they flagged some unusual (very likely faulty) observations in other Lower Ninth Ward mapping data. They finished an entire census tract of addresses in the heart of the Lower Ninth, which sets things up pretty well for NENA to start recruiting residential mappers in those blocks.

Janet, Selene, and Jennifer, and Moira are definitely my first and finest volunteers on this trip.

They're Here

2007-03-15T22:09:00.000-05:00

Here they are. By bus, plane, and rental car(s). From Hanover NH to the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, LA in 15 hours. I present Dartmouth's Gentilly Project spring team. In an order having nothing to do with this photograph, I introduce: Mike, Dave, Amy, Kolleen, Noah, Rashmi, Adi, Connor, Louis, Ingrid, Nicole, Sam, and Sheli. With me, wearing blue, squeezed in the corner.

More Students About Town

2007-03-14T22:16:00.000-05:00

I arrived in New Orleans midday, and already I've encountered more students from distant places than usual.

J.R. picked me up from the airport, and we proceeded to Xavier University before lunch. There I met several NYU students who were skilled in interactive media and had come to NOLA to both teach and apply what they know.

After lunch, we stopped by the headquarters of the Lower Ninth Ward's NENA (Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association). Waiting for J.R. at the airport a few hours earlier, I had spoken with Linda, a student from Columbia's School of Social Work. She and four others from the school would be at NENA today and tomorrow to help with the mapping work. I had given some direction over the phone, but then was able to elaborate more in person once J.R. and I got there.

Trying not to get into all the details, I'll summarize by saying that Jen was the Columbia graduate student working between the U.S. Census website and the Lower Ninth Ward street addresses. She and I worked together, walking between printouts of census maps and google maps of the blocks surrounding our location and walking outside to perform physical inspections of nearby addresses. There was a small group of Duke students across the street helping to clean out a house.

I need to remember to take pictures tomorrow. Today it all happened so fast. What I just described to you happened in just 5 hours. As I write this, I think the Dartmouth team is boarding their bus in New Hampshire. They should be touching down in NOLA within about 13 hours.

More Drama!

2007-03-12T05:43:00.000-05:00

It's the good kind. Stick with me : )

I plan to start a process later this week of pairing student volunteers and assigning them to particular Gentilly neighborhoods. In addition to mapping responsibilities, the student volunteers are reaching out to help residents take further ownership of the mapping process.

We're also starting to get more feedback by email from residents, including updates on the rebuilding status of their houses and feedback on how to make the Gentilly GIS more effective.

However, for the GIS to be effective in showing what's truly happening on the ground, there needs to be observations at either the neighborhood (or census block level) that are all collected within a week's time.

It's important not just for residents, but for others around the country, to see what the needs and progress really are in New Orleans at the most local level. This is pretty exciting!

Countdown to Spring Break

2007-03-10T08:21:00.000-06:00

The project's first step was collection and display of house-to-house rebuilding data throughout Gentilly. The second step is auditing and updating what we have, in collaboration with additional residents and volunteers.

The team of 15 Dartmouth students are arriving on March 15. A team of 25 Tufts University students are arriving a couple days later, and everyone begins to depart from March 24-26. For their service within this project, the teams will be volunteering within neighborhoods to (1) verify/updating rebuilding progress and (2) recruit/train residents in conducting their own local census.

I'm meeting with Sarah and Abbey, the co-leaders from Dartmouth's winter-break student team , this weekend. There are all kinds of preparations to do, and they are helping me.

Small Armies

2007-03-06T19:36:00.000-06:00

I'm getting that feeling of anticipation, the one I get when I'm about to go to New Orleans.

I had a short to trip to UNC-Chapel Hill last week. We're exploring ways to collaborate with the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, because they're starting their own projects in Gentilly too. Graduate students Nathan and Chava helped me enter some data on Friday. Couldn't knock the weather. It was beautiful.

Last night, I met with a group of students here at Dartmouth who'll be participating in the project during spring break (March 15 - 26). Our trip down to NOLA isn't coming soon enough. We have frigid temperatures right now. No joke. It was 10-20 below zero wind chill this morning.

There's a group of students from Tufts who may be joining us for spring break too. I'm headed down to Boston to visit with them on Thursday.

Next week, ahead of our spring break, is the break for NYU. I'm meeting J.R. in NOLA, and his students might be partipating too.

I'm hoping for lots more resident engagement and mapping this trip. There's definitely a return to Gentilly and the Lower Ninth Ward in the works. Maybe other parts of the city too.

Spring Break Volunteerism

2007-02-26T11:38:00.000-06:00

Students from around the country are heading for New Orleans or elsewhere in the Gulf Coast for spring break in March. What many will find in NOLA is a city that's running out of structurally-sound houses to gut and many neighborhoods already been cleared of debris.

I like to remind people when I give presentations about New Orleans: "The government is going to gut your house." The many tens of thousands of houses gutted around the city with private resources, volunteerism, and neighbor helping neighbor is a great story that deserves more celebration than what it gets.

Anyway, it looks to me like the Age of Gutting has passed its peak. I think instead we're entering an Age of Materials. Lots of debris was taken out of the city. Now there's a growing need to bring in lots more tools and materials for rebuilding.

In the rebuilding, we're also entering an Age of Training and Knowledge. There's a growing need for skilled labor (lots of it!) to perform the physical rebuilding, as well as the organizational skills to manage rebuilding at the most local level. There's also a growing need for volunteers who can help connect tangible rebuilding to the intangible. Like someone who can talk in plain language about the design of a house or the mortgage/insurance issues of a house, in addition to the actual physical rebuilding of a house.

I see a growing need for teachable people, even it's only on a temporary basis, because they're so much work to do and such a variety of skills required.

I see a need for novices who have limited experience with construction and manual labor, but know how to listen, read, learn by doing, ask questions, and generally be resourceful in finding the people and information they need to get the job done.

Or people who can take their general knowledge of standard computer software (e.g., Word, Excel) and apply them to enhance the group efforts of volunteers.

Or people who are comfortable setting up and/or using new technology-driven devices and services that didn't exist 10 years ago.

For New Orleans, the arrival of students is happening at just the right time.

No, I Wasn't at Mardi Gras

2007-02-22T11:14:00.000-06:00

Yes, I have poor timing. If I'm going to spend over 5 weeks altogether in New Orleans - from 6 or 7 trips - within the past 3 months, you'd think that I'd be there for the culmination of Mardi Gras on Tuesday.

Well, I did talk briefly that morning with Gwen Hawkins, the president of the Gentilly Heights Vascoville neighborhood in Gentilly. We are exploring how to take mapping to the next level in a way that's even more impact to neighborhoods and puts additional power and information in the hands of residents. I may be back in New Hampshire (for now), but a portion of my spirit's still in Nawlins : )

Today as I write, there's a group of over two dozen people from a United Unitarian volunteer group mapping the Holy Cross neighborhood in the Lower Ninth Ward. Jo is managing the mapping and data entry of the volunteers from the NENA office on St. Claude Avenue.

There's more stuff building up - the conference, potential project collaborations with NYU and UNC Chapel Hill, and another extended visit to New Orleans in March. I'll leave more of that for future blogs...

Lower Ninth Ward: Over Half Way There

2007-02-05T02:02:00.000-06:00

Over 50% of the Lower Ninth Ward is now color coded. How it happened was pretty unexpected.

FRIDAY
Jeffrey Robinson and I start mapping with Patricia Jones, executive director of NANA (Lower 9th Neighborhood Network Empowerment Association), and two volunteers staying at Common Ground Relief named Rashida and Nick. Unfortunately, the census-block codes given to us for the street addresses aren't really census blocks. Our mapping assignments are consequently pretty cumbersome to use, and mapping is limited. I'm feeling disappointed.

When J.R. takes his scheduled flight home later in the day, I'm pulling back significantly on my expectations for the weekend. After talking it over with J.R, I knew I'd have to significantly rework the address lists we had. So why not wait until Spring Break in March? There would be plenty of visiting students around then. Why push it if we weren't ready yet.

I begin to anticipate a weekend where I might get to lounge around, catch up on projects with a less hurried pace, get more sleep, and perhaps enjoy the city's entertainment without the mapping responsibilities hanging over me for the next day. However, as J.R. would put it later, God had other plans for me this weekend.

SATURDAY
I arrive at NANA at 10am (a half hour late) for what I think will be a casual meeting with John, one of the staff members. But in addition to John, three volunteers are waiting for me: Jo, Nicole, and Renee.

I suddenly find myself explaining the significance of mapping and reorganizing the address lists on the spot with Excel. Shortly after 11am, we hit the streets to try out a new mapping assignment system. We are joined by two volunteers from the 7th Ward - Ato and Kendall. Five minutes into the mapping, I am color coding the house of Fats Domino (the classic R&B and Rock & Roll musician who was falsely rumored dead after the flooding of the Lower Ninth Ward where he lived).

Jo goes out to look for lunch for the group, while I prepare additional assignments for 5-6 expected volunteers from Common Ground Relief.

The Lower Ninth Ward is composed of 7 census tracts, and we complete one by the end of the day. I get a brief nap in on Saturday night, but get only 2.5 hours of sleep. I'm up preparing new mapping assignments for a Sunday morning start. I try to finish all the mapping assignments for the Lower Ninth Ward, but discover that I'm missing addresses for the Holy Cross section of the distict. So I can prepare assignments for all but 2 census tracts.

SUNDAY
I hope to get at least one census tract done. It all depends really on who shows up to volunteer. Sunday's haven't usually good days to map. Too many competing activities happening with residents, e.g., their (and/or my) attending religious services and football. And the Superbowl was today.

This morning we have 10 volunteers. Jo becomes a field coordinator, developing more detailed assignments for the afternoon and staying behind at today's base (a community-kitchen camp) to meet arriving volunteers and be a source of communication for walkers in the field.

Some volunteers can only map in the morning and leave. We gain a couple volunteers midday. Then a wave of 6 new volunteers arrive in the early afternoon. So today, we finish 3 census tracts rather than 1 that I was hoping for. Four of the seven tracts are done. Of the three remaining, Jo has prepared detailed assignments for the one remaining tract we have addresses for.

It's Sunday night, and I'm staying up late (again) so that I can prepare the address lists that we are missing from the Holy Cross area. This afternoon I brainstormed with James, a volunteer from Minnesota who just arrived in New Orleans yesterday while riding his bike around the country. I was talking about the lack of address lists for one area while James and I were mapping together. He had some ideas and convinced me that indeed I could generate the address lists we need overnight. However, I have a flight out on Monday morning...and won't be back until next weekend.

Fortunately, Jo has stepped up to help manage the mapping process in my absence. There are lots of issues to figure out, but she knows what to do. Particularly after her experiences today. I succeeded in preparing the address lists for the Holy Cross area tonight, so we are positioned to finish the Lower Ninth Ward.

We've already crossed 50%, and I'll be in town next weekend to help finish if I'm needed.

Color Codes - Meaning

2007-02-05T01:58:00.000-06:00

For those who have emailed/posted to ask. We are documenting rebuilding of each street address/property by one of the following colors:

RED - blighted
YELLOW - gutted
GREEN - demolished, vacant lot
BLUE - significant renovation, or occupation

So when you view the Gentilly Map, this is what the colors mean.

"Oh, you're back..."

2007-02-02T07:57:00.000-06:00

After I arrived in New Orleans and stepped into the hotel yesterday, the woman behind the front desk casually looked up at me and said: "Oh, you're back..."

The blog has been silent, but I've been up to a bit. In addition to fighting a lingering cold.

Jeffrey Robinson and I coincided our trips down to New Orleans, and he is helping me kick off mapping in the Lower Ninth Ward this morning. About a week ago, his research assistants at New York University (Ndidi, Mike, and Rich) went to work preparing the mapping assignments that we will use this weekend.

Back at Dartmouth on Wednesday night, we had a data entry party for the Gentilly mapping. We finished inputting several more neighborhoods. Lots of the graduate student crew from December was there: Sarah, Abbey, Nick, Owyn, Zsuzsa, Harsha, and Nate.

I saw Amanda Soprano sing at Dominic's last night. She has a new band. They're UNO students. It was a good time.

Now, Jeff and I are off to breakfast and mapping.

New Hampshire: Culture Shock?

2007-01-18T21:26:00.000-06:00

New Hampshire feels a bit different after several weeks in New Orleans. And it's more than my need to shovel snow from the path to my front door (above)...

After waking up every day with making progress immediately ("how much can we map in Gentilly today?"), now I have to wait. I spend time each day explaining what we did and preparing for the next steps.

The server is back up, and the recent mapping we did from December 7 -21 is visible again. It's good news that we didn't lose any data. So what we mapped in "Pontilly" (Pontchartrain Park & Gentilly Woods) is up, as well as the recent mapping in Lower Gentilly, Edgewood Park, and St. Roch Bend. Everything else is either listed as "missing", or it's months old.

We have everything else (about 66% of Gentilly) that we mapped from December 28-January 9, but we're looking for ways to make the inputting go faster and easier. I've joked with some of the graduate students who came down with me about having a data-input party, and they seem up for it.

Also, I'm working out how to replicate this more easily in other parts of the city.

The biggest challenge will be shifting the conversation a bit about our mapping. Mapping all of Gentilly was quite a feat unto itself, but the point never was to just map it once. Before we even started mapping, I knew a significant challenge would be changes in the most local level of rebuilding. The point of the project is the model (or process) for updating the map in a fairly quick, accurate, and sustainable way. Until then, the map will just be a snapshot of December 7, 2006 - January 9, 2007. And there'll be a certain percentage of Gentilly properties that need a color-code update each day that passes.

Unfortunately, New Orleans seems far away to many people here, relative to how I experience it. I'm hungry for a faster pace, but right now I must slow down. I'm back in a world where fewer people know how long residents in New Orleans have been waiting. And I have to convey that immediacy and lead the next steps from here, so we can move swiftly in New Orleans in the coming weeks.

I Want To Map The City

2007-01-14T22:47:00.000-06:00

Most of it, anyway... Will you help me?

--------

Albertha in Louisiana called me this time last year, and our conversation went something like this:

- "Happy New Year, Dr. Jett. What's the plan for 2006?"

- "Gentilly," I said.

- "What about the Lower Ninth Ward?" she responded.

- "We'll get to it," I answered.

I meant it sincerely. I didn't really allow myself to think about it while there was an unfulfilled vision - mapping the progress within a subsection of New Orleans (Gentilly being the pilot) . Now we have come a long way, especially in recent weeks, and things are different.

As of last week, we have help mapped all of the ~ 14,000 street addresses in Gentilly. First, it took us about 5 months to map less than 10% of Gentilly addresses. Then, I came up with how we could take a fresh approach - applying what I know from researching organizations and teaching operations management. In less than 5 weeks, we mapped 100% of Gentilly addresses with this approach.

There remains a lot more planned with Gentilly: (1) Uploading the most recent data collection from the past several weeks, (2) Developing a real process for local residents to audit the color codes of properties and update them as rebuilding occurs, (3) Collaborating with residents to build the capacity for civic participation in their neighborhoods.

In various ways, other parts of New Orleans are already coming up as places to map. I'm looking closely at the Lower Ninth Ward, due to a residential contact I was given last Tuesday. I also have a couple leads to pursue in Lakeview. Last week, I briefly spoke to a guy working on his brother's roof in Gentilly. After I explained what we were doing, he asked when we would get to St. Bernard's Parish, which isn't technically in Orleans Parish (a.k.a. "the City of New Orleans") but could be included in the mapping.

Then last Friday, an opportunity came up to possibly map the Mid-City area of New Orleans. There is some justice to mapping that area. The New Orleans resident who came up with the color code that we use.... She lives there.

Within the project, I always try to stay focused on what we can feasibly do. However, I'm also pretty clear about what my personal aspirations are. I want the rest of the city's flood-damaged areas mapped like Gentilly.

To Map Again?

2007-01-09T17:01:00.000-06:00

I understand that in certain respects, I am rare and walk in circles of other rare people. I'm an African-American with a Ph.D. in Management. The past few weeks, I haven't had personal contact with people who share these attributes with me. That changed during the past 24 hours.

Dr. Vanessa Hill drove up from Lafayette, LA to see the project yesterday afternoon. We know each other from conferences, and she had been reading my emails describing the project. So she came up yesterday, and helped me walk and map a chunck of the remaining Gentilly blocks that had been missed. She also immortalized the final mapped house, convincing me in a moment of weakness to pose for a picture (above).

Meanwhile, Dr. Jeffrey Robinson wanted to connect me with Patricia Jones, Executive Director of the Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association. He sent me her number this morning, and I met with her mid-day. It turns out she's been interested in mapping the Lower 9th Ward for a few months. She already has her fellow residents sticking push pins on a map to indicate whether or not they will return to their home. She has been looking for help setting up a mapping process. Apparently, when she said that yesterday in the forum where she met J.R., he said "What a lucky day this could be for you...." That's when he first text-messaged me about her.

The Lower Ninth Ward is smaller than Gentilly. If we could think of a way to generate quickly the census-block maps and the associated address lists, we could map the entire Lower Ninth Ward in one weekend with about 50 volunteers.

I get myself in trouble with ideas like this...

Final Neighborhoods and Next Steps

2007-01-08T20:00:00.000-06:00

I slept a lot on Sunday, the lack of sleep for many days catching up with me.

Mapping about 15,000 street addresses based on a spontaneously-organized collection of volunteers was quite ambitious, given how I was thinking most of 2006. I almost can't believe that it happened. What was beyond our greatest expectation became feasible and then a reality within several weeks.

There are too many people than I can name to thank for this. From the residents here in Gentilly to the student teams from Dartmouth and UMass/Boston...

Today, I've already been asked a few times what's next. Some of that is already becoming more clear:

1. We're going to get the collected data displayed as soon as we can, when our existing server (or new server) comes online. One of the UMass students asked me Saturday if a person would have to pay to get access to the data. My answer was no. The point is to display it on our "web-based Gentilly map" (i.e., a public GIS - geographic information system).

2. We're going to develop a system with residents to keep the data updated or refreshed. For instance, Gentilly resident K.C. King is helping complete the mapping of the two neighborhoods on Lake Pontchartrain that didn't receive much flooding damage. K.C. has volunteered extensively the past week, and he has already offered to help keep particular areas updated.

3. There were three business owners from Tuck's Executive Program who were with the project in December. As a result of their being here, each of them - John Wilkerson, Pam Dessaso, and Bob Oakley - is already developing their own independent contributions to the recovery of New Orleans. For instance, I've been speaking with Pam about the Post-Katrina Economic Development summit she's organizing for this year.

4. I'll be turning to my academic colleagues a bit more in the coming two months to process these past several weeks. I may be presenting at Stanford University later this month, in the department where I received my doctorate. There's a community of scholars there that I'd think be very helpful in moving the ideas of this project forward.

There's still lots going on and much to do.

Snapshots of a Great Day

2007-01-06T19:58:00.000-06:00

The chartered bus of the UMass Boston students arrived, and they were eager to get something done. And they did.

I started sending off 25 pairs of UMass teams, even before Gentilly residents began to join us at 9am. Some of the final student teams mixed with residents. Through the mid-morning, teams spread out on foot into the Milneburg and Seabrook Place neighborhoods. As teams with shorter assignments began to return, they received new assignments. The students were eager to walk to their assignments, but resident vehicles and my own carried them out when we could. Before noon, all of these two neighborhoods were done or in progress. Teams had been sent out to complete Fillmore Gardens and further out to complete Virgil Park.

The afternoon turned to Gentilly Terrace. There were so many pairs going there that the UMass charter bus was used for the transport.

Lots of mapping, and residents who were inspired by the presence and conversation of so many students. Towards the end of the day, I was driving up and down and around Gentilly -- dropping off and picking up students who were helping fill up gaps remaining in the assignments.

The UMass students were dynamic, self-reliant, worked well together, and got a lot done. They shrugged off the raindrops which, at the time, suggested to me an approaching downpours.

The instructional handouts designed in December by the Dartmouth graduate team (for their Katrina Help signature project) were quite effective, and the UMass students were very quick to figure out further issues on their own.

Really, only Lake Oaks and Lake Terrace remain. There are isolated assigments within the neighborhoods we covered today.

We have now finished 95% of Gentilly since December 7.

Expect The Unexpected

2007-01-06T07:54:00.000-06:00

In minutes, I'm meeting with a group of 50 students from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Their existing service plans in New Orleans didn't work out, so they'll be volunteering on the project this weekend.

I discovered this yesterday evening, and went down to where they were staying. What was originally a meeting with about 7-8 team leaders turned into a gathering of more than double that number. This is a very bright and energetic group of students. When I explained the project and what the status of it is, they were eager and confident that they could help finish the project.

Maybe even by the end of today.

Volunteers

2007-01-05T14:27:00.000-06:00

When we needed housing December 16-21, we were welcomed by a camp run by Lutheran Disaster Response. Some of the volunteers sounded like they would have liked to map, if they had heard about it. We spoke with Daryl and Chuck, who ran the camp, about asking for volunteers when we returned for this most recent trip.

This morning several volunteers from the camp mapped with me. Contrary to earlier weather reports predicting lots of rain, today has been a bright, sunny, and warm day in New Orleans. I picked the volunteers up up, and we were off to Virgil Park and got about a third of the neighborhood done. They also raised some ideas that could help the project, and I fielded some questions about New Orleans and my research. Meaghan suggested that maybe Dartmouth could do something like a study abroad, but in New Orleans, that would focus on the community development issues that we were all talking about.

The photos are from the Lower Ninth Ward, where I dropped the group off after lunch. I'm back at the office now, focusing on tomorrow. We have about 68 assignments, about 75 minutes each, to finish Gentilly. Only 1/3 of the area left to go.

What Would I Do Without You?

2007-01-04T11:20:00.000-06:00

About 65% of Gentilly will be done by the early afternoon, and 15 of Gentilly's 22 neighborhoods will be finished. Nick (top photo far left, standing) and Zsuzsa (top photo far right, on the hood smiling at you) went back to Dartmouth yesterday for the start of classes. Sarah and Owyn are leaving tomorrow.

As this project has progressed the past few weeks, it's been interesting to watch how the participation of Gentilly residents and other volunteers determined what we accomplished each day. Now that will be evidently clear starting tomorrow when I'm the last person from Dartmouth here to finish this round of mapping.

In mid-December, there were about 11-13 Dartmouth people in the field on any given day. That number fell to 6 the past week. Meanwhile, from mid-December onward, we've changed from a resident walking with us occasionally to having a list of residents we can call and a smaller list of people we can really count on. The past week we've had 4-6 volunteers walking with the Dartmouth team members, on average, with a high of 25.

I can't finish mapping Gentilly very soon all by myself, but I know I'm surrounded by people who are willing to help if I ask. The looming uncertainty that's beyond my control is the weather, both real and anticipated.

If there are enough people who can map this Saturday and Sunday, we might be done.

"We Must Stand Up"

2007-01-03T15:34:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I met Angela, a Gentilly business owner who is preparing to reopen.

We talked briefly about all the services that small businesses (and residents) need to come back. The machinests. The plumbers. The electricians. There are too few in the city to accomodate the needs, so the waits for these services can be long. And then there are money issues. How do you pay for this work to get done? Hurricane insurance doesn't do much for you if when the damage is flooding from a levee, as opposed to wind damage.

As we were talking, Angela summarized my own feelings about this. "We must stand up," she said. The resources may not be here in the moment, but we must find a way when we can see the future value. Angela's definitely a real entrepreneur...

I relate to what she's saying. I'm having to change my return flight home for a second time -- on this unexpectedly organized after-Christmas trip -- to keep our progress moving. Honestly, a part of me doesn't want to spend the money, because I know there may be up to $6,000 extra on my personal credit card waiting for me when I get back because of this trip. And I don't really know yet how I will pay for it. This project is moving faster than any foundation or institutional grant than I have access too, and I didn't expect this to unfold quite in this way so fast.

But what we are doing here makes sense and must be done. From a scientific and practical point of view, we need to have a complete color coding of Gentilly within a relatively short period of time. Within a month's time span will be good as a start. The longer the period, the higher the errors associated with changes that happen locally in the meantime.

I must stand up here now. It's easier than it'd otherwise be, because I know I'm not alone. Residents of Gentilly and New Orleans have been standing for months now.

Striking Distance

2007-01-02T12:07:00.000-06:00

The end is in sight for the first phase of mapping. What's listed above (in blue) is what we've done.

Click here for a map of the neighborhoods. Click here for a table of how many volunteers we need where to finish.

January 2 is back to work for a lot of people, so I'd like to supplement residents with groups of 4-12 volunteers from faith-based and other sources.

There are less than 100 assignments left to finish Gentilly. One mapping assignment, performed in pairs, generally takes 60-75 minutes.

Leaders

2007-01-01T10:33:00.000-06:00

Three weeks ago today, Sarah Fischer (above in orange) mapped houses in Gentilly for the first time. These photos taken this morning of Sarah leading residents in how to map. Within the team, she owns the process for creating walking assignments.

Sarah is a student in Dartmouth's Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program. She has become our team specialist who's on top of the geography of what we have and have not covered in Gentilly. Having become our specialist in these matters, she recommends where all of us need to map next in order be most effective. Once she and I confirm that our base assumptions are aligned, I go with exactly what she recommends.

Other team members Nick, Zsuzsa, and Owyn are leaders in their own right too. Each of us has to be for this to work.

Among the Gentilly residents there are leaders too. There are different kinds of leaders, and they vary in age, gender, and race. Most of the residents I'm referring to as leaders don't hold formal titles as they are volunteering in their communities, but leaders they are.

We had several residents volunteer this morning. I think only one was someone we hadn't called to schedule. At 1pm today, we expect more than several of the volunteers who have walked with us before. And this morning I've heard from 3 new people who will volunteer.

Get On The Good Foot

2006-12-31T16:14:00.000-06:00

Today, the Burbank Gardens neighborhood was completed, and 3/4 of the Sugar Hill neighborhood was completed. Without my list, I can't remember anymore how many neighborhoods we've completed....

Just checked. Completed 10 neighborhoods out of the 22.

All of us have coded about 45% of Gentilly properties since December 8. By very rough guess, that would be the properties for about 15,000-20,000 people.

107 assignments to finish Gentilly. Lately each assignment seems to take about 60-90 minutes.

Have a Happy New Year. As we enter 2007, enjoy a bit of "Get on the Good Foot" by James Brown.

Where To?

2006-12-31T09:49:00.000-06:00

Take a closer look. Click here. This is how we keep track of what we have done. We update this sheet once or twice a day, and we use this when deciding where to map next. This sheet also provides an estimate of the volunteers we need to finish coding each neighborhood within about 2 hours.

We began this morning with a small group of four in Burbank Gardens, in order to finish what was remaining there. In the afternoon, we are headed to Fillmore Gardens and/or Sugar Hill.

I know many people reading this, including some residents, don't know where exactly these Gentilly neighborhoods are. Here's where Gentilly is. Here's the map we use, courtesy of the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association (GCIA). This other map is even better.

Faith, Community, and Common Sense

2006-12-30T18:43:00.000-06:00

I am so grateful that the rain held...

There was hardly a drop most of the morning as we coded the Gentilly Heights Vascoville neighborhood. The weather reports were for storms all morning, culminating in severe weather in the afternoon. Fortunately, we prepared as if it would not rain on us...and I trusted that we'd see the signs to stop before the rain came down strong.

I'm glad we exhibited that kind of faith and common sense. We finished 69 blocks of houses in Gentilly this morning, across three different neighborhoods. We began with Gentilly Heights Vascoville and that neighborhood is now complete. Burbank Gardens is now about 75% done. Mirabeau Gardens is now about 50% done.

There were 25 Gentilly residents volunteering with the five of us from Dartmouth. Much more than I had reason to expect. More than I imagined. More than I recall seeing. It took reviewing the walk list to reveal how many volunteers we had this morning.

For the first time, we had groups from one Gentilly neighborhood helping code neighborhoods that were not their own. A group from Burbank Gardens and two people from Sugar Hill came to assist the coding in Vascoville. After we were all done with their neighborhood, a group of residents from Vascoville then travelled to Bancroft Park to help code that area.

As most of the group moved to map Bancroft Park, a resident from that neighborhood (Clarie) drove me to Mirabeau Gardens. With the storms expected within a couple hours, Claire and I found 9 residents ready to map that neighborhood. That was twice what we expected. That meant shorter assignments for everyone, and we all made quick work of about 12 blocks (250-350 houses) in about an hour or so.

At first, we were making plans to press on even farther. But then about ten minutes later, I felt the wind began to pick up. I decided to call off the additional mapping plans, and begin closing down with what we had done. The skies finally opened up about an hour later, bringing rain as the night came. I began the morning with faith that it would not rain on us, so we could achieve our plans. But it didn't make sense to keep pushing the limits, just because our hopes had been answered.

I think faith and common sense helped build community today. I believed we could finish mapping what we targeted, and with the weather holding we succeeded. Yet we knew when to stop without getting drenched. There were clearly things that I didn't expect, and I was delighted by them.

We had more people than I anticipated on a day that threatened rain And we've never seen groups of residents from different neighborhoods work together to map before. Based on what I've seen today, faith and common sense can be more compatible than what many people assume. And the combination can be amazing.

Here Comes The Rain

2006-12-30T10:05:00.000-06:00

A strong storm is on its way to New Orleans. When we reached the office at UNO a half hour ago, it was overcast, gray, with rare sprinkles.

A few neighborhoods were "in play" for us to code today. Anticipating the storm, we're adapting. In a few minutes, we are leaving for Gentilly Heights Vascoville. All five of us from Dartmouth are going. Gwen, the neighborhood president, is looking to bring in 5 residents. At least several others from other Gentilly neighborhoods - e.g., Bancroft Park, Burbank Gardens, Sugar Hill - will be meeting us there. We will code while the weather holds.

If we finish Gentilly Heights Vascoville, we'll move on to Mirabeau Gardens and Burbank Gardens.

Out of the 22 Gentilly neighborhoods, we have finished coding 8 since the launch of this coding effort two weeks ago. We currently have started or priortized 4 more neighborhoods. We already have 3-5 neighborhoods beyond that are ready to go or are in preparation.

Yesterday, we committed to staying a few more days. I'm staying now until January 5. Sarah and Owen are staying until then too. Nick and Zsuzsa are staying now until Wednesday January 3.

34 blocks of houses and counting...

2006-12-29T12:31:00.000-06:00

We broke a new record today for coding houses. And we did it by noon.

We finished two more Gentilly neighborhoods (numbers 7 and 8) this morning: Gentilly Heights East and Bancroft Park. Part of it is that we are purely coding (i.e., walking) without entering the data, since our dedicated server at Dartmouth has failed. The other is that the core team is getting lots of help from residents.

In Gentilly Heights, we were joined by residents who are part of an informal walking club. Forget the stereotypes. A couple of people walking with us were retirees, but they walked around and coded 5 blocks of houses with ease. I walked and coded with Mary, and she remarked how easy it was. She would have walked more if we had more assignments!

In Bancroft Park, we had three Gentilly residents (Keith, Tonya, and Charlotte) and one local volunteer (Adam) help us finish coding the neighborhood much earlier in the day than I expected.

Before this walk started, I met briefly with Vera. She's a resident of another nearby Gentilly neighborhood Milneburg. She described walking house to house with a few neighbors to document local needs and rebuilding around Christmas time. The small group was able to cover a lot of the neighborhood quite fast. I wonder how much could be mapped if dozens of people were walking in Gentilly, or hundreds in the city as a whole?

Unfortunately, we got up so early this morning - 5:30am wakeup - that we forgot to emphasize taking some pictures during our morning walk. Maybe Zsuzsa has some. I'll try to do better next time. We have two more neighborhoods scheduled for tomorrow: Gentilly Heights Vascoville and Mirabeau Gardens.

On the move again...

2006-12-28T14:19:00.000-06:00

We're out this afternoon with residents mapping in two additional neighborhoods, Indian Village and Bancroft Park. Tomorrow we have scheduled a third neighborhood, Gentilly Heights East. Things are moving so fast that I'm preparing a scorecard so that we show how we are progressing in each neighborhood.

Overall, we count 22 neighborhoods in Gentilly. We have completed 5. We have another 9 neighborhoods that in "active" phase: we have started coding, made contact with residents, and/or ready to code there in within the next day.

Our server at Dartmouth that will allow us to enter and display the results (http://icpd.dartmouth.edu) is down. The silver lining is that we can concentrate purely on mapping and not data entry. The weak link ws that we lost our ability to generate address lists for about 20-30% of the blocks we have yet to walk and code.

Fortunately, I had a quick brainstorm a couple hours ago with Ben Wilson (Dartmouth class '07) who's been working with the project for many months. We figured out how we can reconstruct the lists we need through a data archive that he sent me about two weeks ago. It's a bit of a cumbersome process, but we can make it smoother using Microsoft Access database software. Then, during lunch, Sarah's husband Owyn saw how he might do things even easier using table functions in Excel.

The intellectual and social capital of Dartmouth is at work here in New Orleans, and I'm pleasantly surprised and delighted every day with the progress we make and the challenges that we are able to overcome.

Open for Business (Again)

2006-12-28T09:52:00.000-06:00

We're back at our staging site at the Science Building of the University of New Orleans. This morning, we're doing a lot of set up: creating and modifying flyers, updating volunteer lists, and developing assignments to hand out to volunteers. As the day progresses, there's much communication that we need to do.

We're volunteering passionately for Gentilly. We're busy but friendly. Call us: 504-280-1264.

New Orleans Bound!

2006-12-27T16:11:00.000-06:00

We're at Boston airport waiting for our flight to New Orleans (Hi back at you, Nel!)

On the drive down, I reviewed what it will take to finish mapping Gentilly. Unfortunately, our server will be down during this trip. We can't input the color codes so that others can see it on the Internet. But that means we can concentrate on mapping the rest of Gentilly. We won't have address lists for some blocks, unless someone helps us figure out a way to get address lists for a particular census block. But that can only slow us down and not stop us.

We're going to reconfigure our home page on the project main website http://www.gentillyproject.com, so that we can still post what our progress - by neighborhood and on the whole - on the Internet.

We have broken Gentilly down into 22 neighborhoods. 4 neighborhoods are already coded. Over a dozen of the remaining neighborhoods can be coded with in several hours with less than 20 volunteers. Last week, we met with the Gentilly Heights Vascoville neighborhood association president Gwen Hawkins. Their group will be mapping as part of a cleanup that includes 50 student volunteers, offered through the Disaster Recovery Ministry of the Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

I'm exchanging emails as I'm blogging now with Mirabeau Gardens neighborhood association president Laurie Watt. She has put out a call to her neighbors to volunteer and map on Saturday at noon. I doubt I'll have time before our flight, but I need to list this event on our project calendar. All it takes is about 10 volunteers to complete the mapping of Laurie's neighborhood by dusk on Saturday.

Tonya and Charlotte, two residents from Gentilly's Bancroft Park, have signed up to map on our project website. We estimate their neighborhood can be mapped in several hours with about 8 volunteers. Karma signed up on our website to help, and she's not even in Louisiana! She can spread the word to others, and she has professional interests and skills in the field of education that she can volunteer towards the restoration of neighborhoods in New Orleans.

Sign up if you can map with us in Gentilly for a couple hours this Friday afternoon or sometime Saturday. Or call us at our local UNO operations center tomorrow (Thursday) morning at the UNO Science Building at 504-280-1264. It will help to have standing volunteers who can work in any Gentilly neighborhood that needs help getting the mapping done.

We can do complete this pilot project to map Gentilly this weekend with your help. Come to Gentilly this weekend to help us if you can. Or tell others who can come what we are doing. Whatever you can do to help. Please do so. Visit this site every day through the weekend for updates of how things are going.

We can finish mapping the local progress in Gentilly before the New Year with your help and support. If we can get our server back up (http://icpd.dartmouth.edu), we're going to start inputing the color codes so that you can see the progress for yourself.

Friday 12/29 and Saturday 12/30

2006-12-26T07:37:00.000-06:00

This Friday and Saturday will be our key days, so I'm watching the weather in New Orleans. A long term progress a week ago was for rain. Rain won't necessarily stop us, but not ideal for walking and mapping local rebuilding status in Gentilly. Fortunately, the weather forecast seems to be improving.

Right now, our server that runs all the time with the Gentilly status (http://icpd.dartmouth.edu) is off right now. Currently, it only shows how much has been coded in Gentilly as a whole. I think maybe posting where we are by neighborhood would be helpful.

I'm meeting this evening with this week's "away team" to New Orleans. Mostly going over and finalizing basic logistics for when we leave Wednesday afternoon.

Sign up if you can walk and map with us in New Orleans on Friday and/or Saturday. Even on Sunday. A couple hours of walking from you and a friend or family member will help. Or share with others what we are doing this weekend. Or assemble a group.

Many assumptions about today's New Orleans are too much at the extremes of "everything's normal" and "everything's in ruin." In the Gentilly area of New Orleans, we are showing literally how neighborhoods there are in between these extremes, and how things can vary street-to-street and house-to-house.

Christmas Day cheers!

2006-12-25T09:57:00.000-06:00

- I found the digital camera I thought I lost in New Orleans! On the top, a photo I took of Gentilly Woods resident Marla and Dartmouth volunteer Nel. They are mapping (of course!). On the bottom, a photo I took of the Morning Star Baptist Church located across the street from the Southern University of New Orleans (SUNO). The flood damaged church sits on the corner where we began mapping Pontchartrain Park. The nearby SUNO campus buildings were vacant and still not repaired.

- Two new people emailed back overnight saying they'd help in Gentilly this weekend. One is from the neighboring area Lakeview. A third person emailed back too. She's a Gentilly resident who's out of town for the holidays, yet she still emailed me the color codes for 8 houses on her street. And she asked how she could help more!

- The project calendar is back up. We can just add upcoming events, if there's no time to blog about them.

Have a happy holiday!

What is the Gentilly Project about?

2006-12-24T09:14:00.000-06:00

I've been advised that it's time for a recap:

Those who haven't been to New Orleans since Katrina often know it by the extremes. Much reporting seem to convey either things being "back to normal" or the city being still in ruin. In fact, there is much variety within the city (Orleans Parish) and neighboring areas, with lots of neighborhoods in the vast area between "normal" and "ruin."

The project exists to draw attention to these middle ground areas like Gentilly, and document the rebuilding progress at the property level. That way, those in distant places can see what progress is (and is not) within a particular area and get a more accurate sense of where the needs are. This project is a pilot. With additional resources, we'd expand the project to encompass more of the city.

Drawing attention to this middle ground includes people: those who were between great wealth and great poverty in New Orleans. It is my personal view that those in the middle must also be the focus of recovery, and we as a nation are neglecting their circumstances too much. You're not that different at all from those people in the NOLA middle ground if you've ever owned a home, held a steady job for a few years, or have started a small business.

I first conceived this project in November 2005 on my first visit to New Orleans post-Katrina. This project applies my research in the field of organizations and management. While this project does have a mission of service, it also has a role in advancing knowledge that is just as important. We are creating model here of accelerated development. Too often after major disasters, "normalcy" is elusive several years later.

Dr. Xun Shi of Dartmouth's Geography deparment is my project colleague. His research background in GIS (geographic information systems) helps make real a technical system that enables us all to see where the progress and needs are in Gentilly. What impresses me about Xun: When I first introduced this project idea to him, he understood it immediately from both a scientific perspective and a human perspective.

Dr. Beverly Wright, founder and director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, is a project colleague too, but the current phase of the project doesn't allow us the opportunity to fully access her expertise. However, after I spoke with her last week, I see ways we can help accelerate environmental development in NOLA in 2007.

Dr. Quintus Jett
Principal investigator, Gentilly Project
Center for Digital Strategies
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

Thank You

2006-12-23T10:09:00.000-06:00

Much thanks to the graduate student team that made this project their focus during Dartmouth Katrina Help service. There were many participants these past two weeks, but this group was especially generous with their time and very dedicated.

Co-leaders Sara Fischer (Louisiana) & Abbey Allen (Georgia); Nate Burger (Pennsylvania), Nick Chernov (Ukraine), Nelanjana "Nel" Dutt (India), Jon Feldman (New York), Harsha Koushik (India), Zsuzsa Mitro (Hungary), and Julie Zhu (China).

Sara, Nick, and Zsuzsa are all returning with me on Wednesday to continue mapping with residents and other volunteers on Friday December 29 and Saturday December 30. Email gentilly@dartmouth.edu if you'd like to join us or assist in some other way.

(Photo by Harsha: Last Sunday the team had a tour of some of the levees in New Orleans where the breeches took place)

Georgia Tech - And Getting Out of the Box

2006-12-22T11:25:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday, I was invited to a presentation for Georgia Tech students at City Council Chambers in New Orleans. The invitation came from Pamela Bingham, an environmental management and policy consultant and one of the very interesting people I've met through this community disaster response work.

There were about 50 students, all members of Georgia Tech's chapter of National Society of Black Engineers and the African American Student Union. They were in New Orleans during their Christmas break to help New Orleans' residents through the organization ACORN.

Pam had me introduce the Gentilly Project, and I spoke off the cuff for a few minutes. Thinking about what I feel is needed from other African Americans with respect to Katrina recovery and broader issues of black leadership, I asked the students if they were ready to be "out of the box."

I don't know what I was expecting, but I was taken aback and delighted at how many hands went up so quickly. It's natural to have doubt about actions that must be taken, but we all need to step more "out of the box" with respect to our society's approach to the Gulf Coast and how we might address future global catastrophes.

Even within this project, we are regularly stepping out of the box from what is routine and comfortable. I didn't know 2 weeks ago that we'd become a project of 10-20 participants per day, but we improvised and adpated. We met new people, found the resources, and developed a process that got more efficient each day. Now for our return trip to New Orleans next week, we must do get out of the box again.

I flew back to New Hampshire last night, and this morning I met with Sarah Fischer from the Dartmouth graduate team. She just spent most of the past 2 weeks participating in the project, and she's coming back with me to map the rest of Gentilly. Her husband Owen is coming too. Zsuzsanna Mitro and Nick Chernov, two other members of the Dartmouth graduate team, can return as well.

About 1/3 of Gentilly is mapped. Before the New Year begins, we can map all of the Gentilly.

To map the remaining 2/3 by New Year's Day, we'll need 100-200 participants beginning Friday 12/28. And we estimate needing about $6,500. I don't pretend to know exactly how this will work out. But if there is a way to finish mapping Gentilly by New Year's Day, we will find it.

The Rats Are Coming Back

2006-12-21T09:02:00.000-06:00

The Dartmouth graduate team that left New Orleans last night started a "Rat Board," as a means of giving and taking away "points" from different members of the team. Christiana and I received honorary membership on their team, and so were placed on the Rat Board too! Like everyone else we got nicknames.

I am Splinter.

I'm planning to come back here after Christmas to continue mapping. Maybe 2-3 other "rats" may come back too. This morning I spoke with Daryl, who's construction superindendent at the Lutheran Disaster Response camp we've been staying at the past several days. He said about 120 volunteers are coming to town next week. We talked about providing them with an option to map as a break from a series of gutting days.

I spoke yesterday with people from other faith based groups too. One group is sending 50 volunteers to a Gentilly neighborhood, and I spoke with Ms. Gwen the neighborhood president about deploying a group of these volunteers for mapping on the 30th.

Although "inactive" for the next seven days, preparations are underway to continue mapping actively again a week from now.

Five Gentilly neighborhoods done!!

2006-12-20T18:08:00.000-06:00

When Christiana and I arrived in New Orleans almost two weeks ago, I didn't expect to complete five Gentilly neighborhoods.

The broader objective of the project is to map as much of Gentilly as possible. However, finishing Pontchartrain Park was a good aspiration goal for us on December 7, given the resources that we had available.

I wanted us to do more, but I had no evidence that we could. I was uncertain about how exactly we would finish Pontchartrain Park happen if it happened! Much of it do to new participants who came into the project after Christiana and I got here on the 7th: Norbert Rome, the undergradate group from Dartmouth's Afro-American Society who particitated actively towards the start, and especially the graduate student group from Dartmouth who made the project their focus much of their final 10 days here. And also there were the new residents we met from a variety of neighborhoods.

We weren't able to get to all the residents who expressed interest before the graduate student team left this afternoon - and Christiana and I tomorrow. However, we've started working with 4-6 additional neighborhood groups in preparation for a post-Christmas move. I'm planning to return here next week (December 29 - 31) to do more mapping with residents and assist them in mapping themselves when a Dartmouth team isn't present in New Orleans. A couple of the graduate students can return too.

How much more we do will depend on so many things. I'm uncertain about what will happen next with the project AGAIN, but there have always been plenty of blessings and unexpected opportunities since the early conceptions of this project in late 2005.

I'll continue to post how things are progressing through the holidays.

Estimating the number of volunteers needed

2006-12-20T12:16:00.000-06:00

Midday today I modified Jon Feldman's Excel spreadsheet breakdown of assignments per neighborhood. In order to estimate the number of volunteers needed for completion, the project can now use my simple formula is now available on the spreadsheet, as long as the number of days volunteers are going to work is known, and the number of hours per day they can put in.

We are estimating that in the next 'active phase' of the Gentilly Project (aka "Quintus in Gentilly") there may be part-time volunteers (2.5 hours per day) and/or full-time volunteers (approx. 5 hours per day or more).

Wrapping up here in Gentilly... for the time being.

Open-Source Potential, Finally

2006-12-18T13:20:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Ari Bezman and Ben Wilson at Dartmouth College for their help, providing information from the US Census Bureau. Through the use of the census pages and information available through local governments about addresses/properties on individual census tracts, the Gentilly Project may finally have the potential to be universally applicable to any recovery situation, anywhere in the US.

Bigger Picture

2006-12-18T09:48:00.000-06:00

Last week we were mapping fast. So fast that we'd sometime get a call from a resident and we had already done their neighborhood. The bigger picture is that we're now preparing to help residents map themselves without us being stationed here.

The Dartmouth graduate student team running the project with me the past week, the one led by Sarah Fisher (MALS '07) and Abbey Allen (MALS '08), is creating what they are calling a "precinct in a box" as their signature project for this service trip. This box would be a set of materials and instructions that enable neighborhood groups to refresh the mapping of local recovery. Observations that we've made in the past couple weeks will need to be reviewed in the coming weeks/months to keep up with the most local rebuilding changes.

Also, a conversation that I had with Harsha from the team leads me to seriously consider returning to New Orleans after Christmas to finish mapping the rest of Gentilly. With several dozen people volunteering for a few days, we could finish before New Years.

A beautiful day in New Orleans

2006-12-17T12:26:00.000-06:00

The sunny is shining. The sky is blue. And the Saints are playing this afternoon.

If I had my camera, I'd post a picture. But it's missing, most likely due to me leaving it somewhere while my attention was focused elsewhere within the project. One of the graduate students Abbey said yesterday that I need a personal assistant.

The winning record of the Saints this season makes a lot of folks around here very proud and happy. I know locals who aren't deep into football, but they get into it when the Saints have a home game in the Superdome. The past 24 hours, I've seen people crowd around each other chanting: "Who dat! ... Who dat!... Who dat say they gonna beat them Saints?!!!" (trust me, it's not standard english but it's linguistically correct).

Last Sunday I attended morning mass at St. Leo the Great, a Catholic church with a largely black congregation that now is home to several churches in the area. The congregations of the other churches have joint services at St. Leo, while the flooding damage in their home churches is being repaired.

I didn't attend any church services today, but for a few minutes it was as if I had. In line for breakfast at McDonalds this morning, two brothers (brothas) were behind me talking about God and interpreting the Word with each other. Basically, one was making the point that God sees the love in what you do, even if you don't get the results that you intend. Further, it's the love in the act, not just the act in isolation, that God wants to see.

I acknowledged that I was overhearing, and we joked together for a quick minute. But the wait in line was long, and the two of them decided to go next door instead and grab something from Rally Burger. As they were leaving, one turned back to me as I was still waiting to place my order. "I think you got what you needed though...." he said with a smile going out the door.

Yeah, I would say so.

With a little help from new friends

2006-12-16T13:16:00.000-06:00

*Photos by Julie

Musicians at Edgewood Park social at Gentilly Presbyterian Church
& Nate in the lap of Saint Nick!

I try to be realistic in setting our goals for the day, while searching for ways to do things in a more efficient (or better) way. Yet, the additional help of volunteers keeps moving us along past the daily goals we set. For example, Michelle joined us for the first time today. And so is Wynecta, who had planned to start Sunday but had time and wanted to start today. And someone wants to donate money to the project, in addition to someone else who offered to donate on Thursday.

We're walking St. Roch Bend and Edgewood Park simultaneously today. It looks like we're about to finish, or have finished already, with a few hours left in the day.

My thoughts are turning to which neighborhoods we can do next. My current thinking is that we're going to put our foot into each of the 4-5 neighborhoods in which we've already created mapping assignments.

I say pretty much every day: "This project will be different two days from now." And it has been. Working with a few new volunteers every day is becoming routine.

Sweet Friday

2006-12-15T18:54:00.000-06:00

The number of residents are now walking with us to map. Some in response to emails about what we are doing. Others from running into us walking in the neighborhoods.

We run into residents who are curious about what we are doing. And there's word of mouth sometimes when our teams are working multiple streets for a period of hours....

Friday night. Time for decompression and fun. Signing off until another day tomorrow.

On the move...

2006-12-14T16:39:00.000-06:00

Here are a few photos from the past couple of days at our project operations center at the University of New Orleans. A few days ago, our room was pretty crowded. Now we've learned to push some activities outside the office: e.g., data input at the library next door, having a team leader in the field to distribute assignments, etc.

Doing this keeps the room pretty open. Today we just congregate there first thing in the morning, for lunch, and then at the end of the day. During lunch, Wynecta Fischer stopped by about the upcoming planning meetings in the city. We had an impromptu discussion about ongoing developments in the city.

Neighborhoods 3 and 4

2006-12-14T11:55:00.000-06:00

We finished yesterday the second neighborhood Gentilly Woods as planned. Today, we started a third neighborhood called Lower Gentilly, and we will finish that today.

The fourth neighborhood will be Edgewood Park, and a resident from that neighborhood came by this morning to walk and color code progess with us. Pam, one of the Tuck alums, is bringing two people to walk and show the mapping progress. With these additional volunteers alone, we will likely start Edgewood Park today without really trying.

A few days ago, I had hoped that we could start Edgewood Park by the neighborhood association's brunch meeting this Saturday. Instead, we might be finished coding in that neighborhood by then.

We are now starting to finish neighborhoods before residents from those areas return calls about helping us.

Another neighborhood: Gentilly Woods

2006-12-13T14:08:00.000-06:00

Gentilly Woods is just south of Pontchartrain Park, which we completed mapping yesterday. Both neighborhoods have joined together to form "Pontilly," and I attended their neighborhood association meeting last Saturday with six Dartmouth students.

A few hours ago I met Jackie, a Pontilly resident who saw my informal presentation of the project. I walked around the block with her to color code a block in Gentilly Woods. Bob, another alum of Tuck's Executive Program, arrived yesterday and joined us too. It was quick work, and Jackie wanted to do another block so we did.

Yesterday afternoon, we all thought that Gentilly Woods would be finished by end of day Thursday. Instead, we'll be done today. We're picking up speed as our system of coding becomes more efficient and more volunteers trickle in.

Pontchartrain Park by lunch

2006-12-12T08:47:00.001-06:00

That's what we are shooting for. Finishing a 2-week task in less than 1/2 the time. And our process is getting better, and we have the capacity now to enlist more volunteers.

The graduate team (9 students) and my research assistant Christiana are headed to a field station at Harris Playground. The idea came from Sarah, a graduate student co-leader. She brought it up casually as a way to reduce the back and forth between Pontchartrain Park and our operations center at UNO. I didn't think it was something we'd operationalize for a couple days. I don't think it was something that Sarah thought would happen immediately either. But here it is.

We have a few bumps getting started this morning, due to transport coordination with 2-3 students from the undergraduate team who will be joining us today and traffic(!) on New Orleans freeways. Hopefully, we can finish the neighborhood by noon and get started on Gentilly Woods, the neighborhood just south of Pontchartrain Park.

We are over 50%

2006-12-11T12:55:00.000-06:00

We've completed another field run, and have already put the new color codes online.

This morning:

- Over 200 houses coded
- 15 participants
- Contact with about 12 residents
- Appointments made with several residents to volunteer with us this afternoon and tomorrow

We're making plans to move beyond Pontchartrain Park to Gentilly Woods.

30% of Pontchartrain Park done

2006-12-11T09:23:00.000-06:00

I expect at least 15 participants in the project today. It could be more. I got a call a few minutes ago from Norbert, who is helping us with the planning of local assignments, and he is going out to where we have a group mapping in Pontchartrain Park.

I came to our office at UNO with three Dartmouth graduate students: Abbey, Harsha, and Julie. Pam, business owner from Virginia and Tuck Exec alum, came in a few minutes ago.

My research assistant Christiana is out in the field with a couple of Dartmouth undergraduates, walking the other 6 graduate students through color coding for the first time.

We're beginning the day with about 30% of the Pontchartrain Park completed. I'll blog so more or add comments to this post as the day goes if I can.

We have company

2006-12-10T16:49:00.000-06:00

These are 6 of the 14 Dartmouth students who joined us on Friday. It's a long story, but I'll give you the short version.

The student team, here like us for two weeks, moved into our volunteer house. They took part in the project on Saturday, mapping a portion of Pontchartrain Park and helping us with presentations for two neighborhood association meetings.

Our progress multiplied more than several times from Friday to Saturday. Our goal was to finish color coding Pontchartrain Park in 12 days. Within the first 2 days, we have finished about 30% of it.

And now we have 9 more Dartmouth students staying with us. Another Katrina Help service team just moved into our house this afternoon. Each of us took Sunday as some combination of rest, worship in local churches, and overall recharging of our batteries and organizing a household that has grown (unexpectedly) from 3 to 26 people in 48 hours.

I look forward to seeing what happens on Monday.

"Lay the Tracks; Then Run the Train"

2006-12-08T18:51:00.000-06:00

Today has been non stop, filled with lots of things I couldn't have imagined this time yesterday. And there are still things happening tonight that could affect tomorrow.

The title of this blog comes from Norbert, the Gentilly resident that I met this morning. He joined Christiana, John, and I in mapping parts of Pontchartrain Park. Norbert brought along Tyrone, who brought his camera to do some filming. For over an hour, we walked several streets and talked about this project while we mapped.

I felt better going through Pontchartrain Park this morning as compared to Thursday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon, I felt such a sadness. Christiana and I drove around the area to get an idea of the physical layout of the neighborhood. We must have passed a couple hundred houses, and just about all we saw were gutted. What was sad is that so many houses showed no sign of further renovation. Many houses just stood there empty, either left open to the elements or boarded up. Among them were relatively fewer houses where people were clearly rebuilding their homes. Usually only one or two houses were like this on an entire block. Sometimes they were in clusters.

The place we walked today somehow seem brighter to me, although the renovated houses were still far outnumbered by the empty, gutted houses. It may have been the conversation we were all having.

Norbert and I brainstormed during this morning's walk about how we might combine the current organization and technology of the project with his know-how about designing precinct walks for community organizing. He and I are meeting tonight in about 20 minutes to devise a system. As Norbert put it earlier, "We have to lay the tracks before we run the train." When he said that I added, "Yes, and we're going to run the train in the coming week." I don't pretend to know how exactly it will be, but I know the train will run.

We've coded about 90 houses in Pontchartrain Park since we've arrived. And we will do more tomorrow..

We're also going to have about 14 Dartmouth visitors in our house tonight, something I wouldn't have expected when Christiana and I landed in New Orleans on Thursday afternoon. But that's a whole other story....

Arrived. Connected!

2006-12-08T08:26:00.000-06:00

Christiana and I got here yesterday. Getting adjusted. First got Internet again minutes ago.

John arrived here too from Atlanta last night. Off to meet a Gentilly resident who emailed me on Monday about the project. More later...

A volunteer or two

2006-12-07T02:01:00.000-06:00

Now the obsessive details - and packing! - really start kicking in.

I've been working out details about our mapping the first few days, Friday through Sunday. To stay on track, I think we need 1-2 more volunteers to map about two hours.

Doing last minute errands, I got some help by someone I met this evening named Jinwei. I was trying to figure out how to box up a few project displays to take on the plane with me.

I was standing in the aisle of Staples, one of the staff checking to see if my displays fit in any of their boxes. It wasn't happening. This third guy (Jinwei, I was to learn later) kind of paused in the aisle and kept looking at our attempts. Finally, he walked up to me and told me about his UPS store nearby at the Powerhouse mall.

He invited me to come to the store in the morning to box up the displays , but when I told him how early my flight was he offered to (re)open his store to box everything up for me. I said sure, and it worked out perfectly. A small generous act by another person sure can save a lot of time.

For mapping Pontchartrain Park, I try not to think too far ahead. Christiana and I will get in some mapping every morning. John may sometimes map with us. And someone who was forwarded one of my project emails agreed to help us on Friday morning. Can't wait to meet him. And Charles, who I know from previous trip, is looking for a few volunteers for the weekend too.

Just one more person makes a difference in what we're trying to do.