Disaster and Response in an Experiment Called New Orleans, 1700s-2000s
Courtesy Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Tulane geographer Richard Campanella analyzes three centuries of disasters in New Orleans—storm, flood, fire, plague, war, among others—and how the city has responded, recovered, and transformed. New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s “Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” will feature a series of articles on…
How ‘Forward Thrust’ Reshaped Southern Geography
Take a look at where the capitals of Southern states and colonies were located originally, and where state capitals are today. Most have been moved inland, including Louisiana’s; New Orleans once had capital-city status until it transferred to Baton Rouge in the 1840s. Tulane geographer explains the pattern, courtesy Louisiana Cultural Vistas (PDF). New Orleans:…
The History—and Geography—of Public Drinking in New Orleans
Drinking has a geography, and New Orleans has a geography of drinking. Where did this come from, and how does it work? Tulane geographer examines a key moment on Bourbon Street in the 1960s when potations took to the public space. Courtesy The Times-Picayune (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s…
Élisée Reclus in Louisiana (1853-1855): Encounters with Racism and Slavery
In January 1853, the future anarchist geographer Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) arrived in Louisiana, where he spent almost three years. Reclus was in self-exile, having left France in the wake of Louis-Napoléon’s 1851 coup d’état. Élisée and his older brother Élie, future anarchist anthropologist, had organized local opposition to the coup, but left ahead of the…
The Ozone Belt: How St. Tammany Parish Turned Ecological Services into Good Business—but for the Wrong Reasons
For nearly a century, the piney woods across Lake Pontchartrain came to be known as the Ozone Belt—a ‘brand’ that touted the region’s salubrious environs as a summertime alternative to pestilential New Orleans. And it seemed to work, writes Tulane geographer Richard Campanella—but not for the touted reasons. Courtesy The Times-Picayune (PDF). New Orleans: Place…
Lugger Culture: Vernacular Oyster Vessels of Coastal Louisiana
A century ago, distinctive vernacular boats traversed the waterways in and around New Orleans, even sailing up to the rear of the French Quarter. Known as luggers, their crews brought oysters and other wild foods to public markets—and coastal culture to the metropolis. Tulane geographer Richard Campanella investigates “lugger culture” in this article from Louisiana…
Pleasure Atlas: New Orleans
Making space for—and money from—pleasure in New Orleans is as old as the city itself. By Tulane geographer Richard Campanella, courtesy LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture a Pleasure Atlas of New Orleans (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s “Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” will feature a series of…
Coastal Land Loss in Louisiana: From Denial to Reality
The coastline formed by the Mississippi River is changing continually as part of the never-ending interplay between the forces and processes reshaping and realigning coastal contours and bathymetry. Over millennia, this formative process created Louisiana’s expansive wetlands that once encompassed million acres (11,500 square miles) – about the size of Connecticut and Delaware combined –…
Confederate Monument Controversy in New Orleans
Across the South and beyond, cities are debating the fate of their Confederate monuments. In New Orleans, the May 2017 removal of the Robert E. Lee monument in Lee Circle, the large round-about on St. Charles Avenue, was the culmination of over two years of public and political drama, driven primarily by Mayor Landrieu’s 2015…
How Do You Fence a Cloud? Tracking Bourbon Street’s Pedestrian Parade
A recent spate of shootings on Bourbon Street precipitated a citywide debate on how best to patrol and secure the rollicking strip. This article, courtesy The Times-Picayune, draws upon Tulane geographer Richard Campanella’s research into the spatial dynamics of the nightly Bourbon Street pedestrian parade (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months,…
Shotgun Geography
It’s New Orleans’ most ubiquitous house type, and its sobriquet is as intriguing as its geometry is simple. Where did this vernacular architecture come from, and how and where did it diffuse—or was it invented locally? Tulane geographer Richard Campanella synthesizes some of the cultural geography and anthropology research on the shotgun house, courtesy The Times-Picayune…
Commemorating the Enslaved Along Louisiana’s River Road
Members of the NSF research team visit the River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville, Louisiana in June of 2013. (Photo by Amy Potter) Between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, lies the remnants of antebellum sugar plantations along Louisiana’s famed River Road, named for the Mississippi River that snakes its way through southern Louisiana before spilling…