Saving the neighborhood

That confidence is misplaced, says John McIlwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, the think tank that worked with the Bring New Orleans Back Commission to develop the plan. Told how assured Broadmoor residents seem about the neighborhood's future, he says, "That is not an accurate assessment of the situation."

The people who've moved back, he says, "are the pioneers. They're very invested in an outcome that would bring the neighborhood back, because if it does not come back, all of their time, effort and money have been lost. They have an emotional attachment and a definite financial attachment to convincing all of us that their neighborhood is coming back. But there's just no way of knowing."

One wild card is the new FEMA flood maps, which are expected to be out by this summer. The maps, last updated in 1984, determine how high houses must be built in order to be eligible for federal flood insurance, which is required for mortgage-holders in flood-prone areas. The maps, says McIlwain, are going to have "a profound effect on the ability to get mortgages and insurance. Without the ability to get mortgages, that neighborhood's not coming back. And that's just one piece of it."

Kroloff expresses enormous frustration with how long it is taking for the maps to be finished, noting that Mississippi's maps have already been completed. "I myself would not start to rebuild until I knew what the FEMA flood maps were going to say," he says. "I'm fortunate, I am in economic circumstances where I can find alternative housing, so it's easier for me to say that." Yet FEMA, he says, "is moving so terribly slow with these maps, with no explanation as to why. The entire city is being held hostage by this."

Residents of neighborhoods like Broadmoor find themselves in an enormously difficult situation. There is pressure to prove that the areas are coming back and countervailing pressure to wait and see how things shake out. McIlwain says the Urban Land Institute opposed the idea of asking neighborhoods to prove themselves viable. "That's the mayor's approach and it puts people in a Catch-22," he says. "It's an unfair Catch-22 because it requires some people to take a huge risk, and they'll either be successful or not. But that's a hell of a way to plan a city."

If the residents of Broadmoor are not successful, New Orleans could ultimately use eminent domain, which allows the government to purchase private property for public use. "Ideally, what should happen is they should be offered the opportunity to sell at their pre-Katrina value," McIlwain says. "That may be less than they've invested in rebuilding, but so be it. But they get bought out." And if they refuse to sell? "Ultimately, the right answer is that you do use eminent domain to buy them out, but that's the last resort."

One final prospect, says McIlwain, is neither side will prevail. "It's also possible that all of this planning will fail and we're just going to have a hodgepodge with a few houses here and a few there," he says. "Maybe 50 percent of Broadmoor is coming back and the other 50 percent is not."

He continues, "There's a strong possibility that all of this will fail partly because of the efforts of people in Broadmoor. Rather than pull together to say how do we design a city that we can all live in that's better and safer for everyone, they're simply saying, 'I want my neighborhood back, the hell with you, I want my neighborhood back.' And they're pulling against a concerted, cooperative citywide effort, and it is possible that their efforts will cause the concerted citywide efforts to fail, and that each of these little neighborhoods will Balkanize the city, and they'll win, and be left with a city that can't support them."

To imagine such a city, says McIlwain, think of Detroit. "Miles and miles of vacant housing, a few people living here or there, an unsupportable city," he says.

Yet the residents of Broadmoor refuse to accept that their only options are moving elsewhere in the city or watching their neighborhood morph into a sea of blight. "We worked so hard on this house for two years," says Bairnsfather. She's drinking a glass of wine in her airy kitchen. The walls are marigold and teal, the dining table chairs upholstered in a leopard print. High-heeled shoes decorated with glitter -- symbol of the Muses Krewe -- are everywhere. Two long-haired cats curl up by the window frames. She's at home, and she's not leaving. "We poured so much of our hearts into this house," she says. "We're not letting it go."

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