Hurricane Katrina: Who Got Hit the Most?

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When John Logan studied the impact of Hurricane Katrina, he found the storm hit some groups much more severely than others: African Americans, people who rented their homes and the poor and the unemployed. Logan, distinguished professor in sociology from Brown University, will offer the second annual Dan Ferritor Community Lecture titled “New Orleans after Katrina: Whose City?” at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2, in Giffels Auditorium, Old Main.

While some affluent white neighborhoods were hit hard, and while some minority neighborhoods were spared, a report on the post-Katrina population found that if nobody were able to return to damaged neighborhoods, New Orleans was at risk of losing 80 percent of its black population.

“This means that policy choices affecting who can return, to which neighborhoods, and with what forms of public and private assistance, will greatly affect the future character of the city,” Logan said.

Because the majority of displaced people were living outside of the city during the mayoral election and so the electorate was much smaller than in prior elections, the political voice of black neighborhoods - those most affected by the hurricane - was greatly diminished.

“Turnout was actually greater in 2006 in some relatively undamaged, predominantly white neighborhoods of the city than in 2002. This is the case, for example, of the French Quarter and Garden District,” Logan said. “In predominantly black and middle class New Orleans East, turnout for the runoff fell by 23 percent and in the less affluent Lower Ninth Ward it plummeted by nearly 40 percent.”

Logan recently received nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation for his research on Katrina. He serves as director of the Initiative in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences at Brown. He is co-author, along with Harvey Molotch, of Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. For several years he has been gathering data on neighborhood change and individual mobility in U.S. cities from 1880 to 1920.

In another project, he traced individual residents over time to see how their families, work, and neighborhoods changed between 1900 and 1920. A much larger project under way will provide this kind of information for several thousand residents of both New York and Chicago.

“The Ferritor lectures are geared toward issues related to community development and growth, minorities and the disadvantaged, and ways we might better understand and nurture social capital in northwest Arkansas,” said Kevin Fitzpatrick, the Bernice Jones Endowed Chair in Community in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

The Dan Ferritor Community Lecture Series pays tribute to the legacy of Dan Ferritor, who led the University of Arkansas for over a decade as chancellor from 1986 to 1997. His tenure laid a firm foundation for the university's continued progress in the 21st century. Among his many achievements was the leadership he provided during the campaign to save Old Main, rallying the state of Arkansas to contribute nearly $13 million toward restoring Arkansas' symbol of higher education.