COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR DIVERSE POPULATIONS

AVOID THE SINS OF THE PAST BY GETTING 

MEANINGFUL INPUT FROM MARGINALIZED PEOPLE

Amy Stelly — a planner, designer, teacher and artist — has studied the health and economic impacts of New Orleans’ Claiborne Expressway, which has been recognized as “an example of historic inequity” by the Biden administration.

Until the 1960s, Claiborne Avenue was filled with live oaks trees and azaleas along a grassy median.

It was heart of the Tremé neighborhoods’ Black commerce and culture. 

By the end of the ‘60s, trees were gone and 18 blocks were dominated by endless concrete pilings holding up Interstate 10.

It became the poster child for tearing down freeways that destroyed communities, yet it still stands.

Stelly has documented air and noise pollution, loss of property value and other ill effects of an era when planners routinely ignored, and major projects ran roughshod over, minority communities.

Stelly said Black communities “have been rained on for most of their existence,” building mistrust.