Evaluating New Urbanist Plans in Post-Katrina Mississippi

Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi Governor's Commission for Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal partnered with the Congress for the New Urbanism to provide teams of planners and designers to work with communities along the coast in preparing rebuilding plans. Following a week-long charrette in October 2005, each coastal community was provided with a rebuilding plan that was intended to be based on the principles of New Urbanism. The initial plans have been followed up with further long-range planning. Two years after Katrina, this paper examines the degree to which New Urbanism has been incorporated into the long-range comprehensive, master and other rebuilding plans developed in the communities along the coast in Harrison County, Mississippi. This study finds that New Urbanist principles were integrated into some community plans, but were largely absent from others. In those that do incorporate the principles, the realities of post-Katrina planning created serious challenges to the feasibility of implementing New Urbanist plans. While the goals of the New Urbanist consultants were to create better communities and regions, these good intentions have primarily failed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In many cases, communities felt dissatisfied with their design-based plans because they were not appropriate for the time and place of post-Katrina Mississippi. The paper concludes by offering suggestions on how communities can improve their plans relative to integrating the principles of New Urbanism that can help rebuild better communities, while balancing community priorities for rebuilding.