The link below is from my New Orleans blog that details our life here post Katrina: today August 29th, it will be 9 years since that terrible day when our region suffered through the hurricane and then through the much larger federal levee disaster.

We community organizers learned that we needed to be constantly available to our family, our friends and neighbors (including our farmers and fishers) as they rebuilt their lives and businesses. And we had to carry the story of citizen-led recovery to our colleagues in other places while remaining vigilant when home to help combat bad ideas from our decision makers.
We still need to do that work unfortunately.
Some of this piece may be too local, but the sentiment is clear I think. Basically, the years of 2010/2011 were when we really began to really feel the pressure from corporations trying to find deals; this post tells some of what we were going through:

“We are now coming up to 6 years after the federal levee system disintegrated in New Orleans. When we look around, do we see our old neighbors, a resurgence in small mom and pop businesses, and a generally more livable city than before?
I’d say no….”

Complete post from New Orleans Can Thrive