Geographies of New Orleans integrates hundred of historical sources with custom-made maps, graphs, photos, and satellite images to explore the intricate urban fabrics of one of the world's most fascinating cities from its fragile deltaic terrain to its striking built environment, from its diverse ethnic makeup to its devastation by Hurricane Katrina.

All New Orleans' glories, tragedies, contributions, and complexities can be traced back to the geographical dilemma Bienville confronted in 1718 when selecting the primary location of New Orleans. "Bienville's Dilemma" presents sixty-eight articles on the historical geography of New Orleans, covering the formation and foundation of the city, its urbanization and population, its "humanization" into a place of distinction, the manipulation of its environment, its devastation by Hurricane Katrina, and its ongoing recovery.

Exploring the Crescent City from the ground up, Richard Campanella takes us on a winding journey toward explaining the city’s distinct urbanism and eccentricities. In Cityscapes of New Orleans, Campanella—a historical geographer and professor at Tulane University—reveals the why behind the where, delving into the historical and cultural forces that have shaped the spaces of New Orleans for over three centuries. For Campanella, every bewildering street grid and linguistic quirk has a story to tell about the landscape of Louisiana and the geography of its bestknown city. Cityscapes of New Orleans starts with an examination of neighborhoods, from the origins of faubourgs and wards to the impact of the slave trade on patterns of residence. Campanella explains how fragments of New Orleans streets continue to elude Google Maps and why humble Creole cottages sit alongside massive Greek Revival mansions. He considers the roles of modern urban planning, environmentalism, and preservation, all of which continue to influence the layout of the city and its suburbs. In the book’s final section, Campanella explores the impact of natural disasters as well-known as Hurricane Katrina and as unfamiliar as “Sauvé’s Crevasse,” an 1849 levee break that flooded over two hundred city blocks. Cityscapes of New Orleans offers a wealth of perspectives for uninitiated visitors and transplanted citizens still confounded by terms like “neutral ground,” as well as native-born New Orleanians trying to understand the Canal Street Sinkhole. Campanella shows us a vibrant metropolis with stories around every corner.

Development Drowned and Reborn is a “Blues geography” of New Orleans, one that compels readers to return to the history of the Black freedom struggle there to reckon with its unfinished business. Reading contemporary policies of abandonment against the grain, Clyde Woods explores how Hurricane Katrina brought long-standing structures of domination into view. In so doing, Woods delineates the roots of neoliberalism in the region and a history of resistance. Written in dialogue with social movements, this book offers tools for comprehending the racist dynamics of U.S. culture and economy. Following his landmark study, Development Arrested, Woods turns to organic intellectuals, Blues musicians, and poor and working people to instruct readers in this future-oriented history of struggle. Through this unique optic, Woods delineates a history, methodology, and epistemology to grasp alternative visions of development. Woods contributes to debates about the history and geography of neoliberalism. The book suggests that the prevailing focus on neoliberalism at national and global scales has led to a neglect of the regional scale. Specifically, it observes that theories of neoliberalism have tended to overlook New Orleans as an epicenter where racial, class, gender, and regional hierarchies have persisted for centuries. Through this Blues geography, Woods excavates the struggle for a new society.

"Five years in the making, Geographies of New Orleans unveils fresh new perspectives on a famous old city, from its fragile deltaic terrain, to its striking built environment, to its diverse ethnic makeup, to its devastation by Hurricane Katrina. Geographer Richard Campanella brings computer cartography, aerial imagery, spatial analysis, and fieldwork to the study of urban and regional history. In chapters with intriguing titles such as "America?s Oldest Multicultural Society?," "What the Yellow Pages Reveals About New Orleans," "Creole New Orleans: The Geography of a Controversial Ethnicity," "Paradoxical Yet Typical: The Geography of the African-American Community," and "Hurricane Katrina and the Geographies of Catastrophe," Campanella integrates hundreds of historical sources with custom-made maps, graphs, photos, and satellite images to explore the intricate urban fabrics of this fascinating city, up to the moment of their terrible shredding." -- publisher website (October 2006).

Across Rampart Street from the French Quarter, the Faubourg Treme neighborhood is arguably the most important location for African-American culture in New Orleans. Crutcher argues that Treme's story is essentially spatial--a story of how neighborhood boundaries are drawn and take on meaning and of how places within neighborhoods are made and unmade by people and politics.