Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 9
New Orleans in Dangerous Waters
This last chapter is devoted to the case of New Orleans, and presents an
opportunity for us to complete our analysis of the geography of the United States
population by showing how a natural disaster framed the confrontation of urban
crisis with the relationship between Americans and their environment.
Our discussion of New Orleans completes our study of how a city telescopes the
questions that have been raised throughout this topic, highlighting the interactions
that comprise territorial complexity. The detailed study of the New Orleans
metropolitan area and its population of 1.34 million, according to the 2000 census,
presents an opportunity to observe the interplay between the different aspects of
settlement geography studied separately until now.
In a monograph which became a milestone in the history of urban geography in
the United States,
1
Pierce Lewis described New Orleans as a city that was
“impossible but inevitable” [LEW 03]. The mouth of the Mississippi River, the
world's fourth largest river in terms of drainage basin, enters the Gulf of Mexico and
naturally provides water to most of the Great Plains. A physical map of the United
States shows that a port city was bound to develop on the lower Mississippi. The
problem is that neither the delta nor the lower Mississippi offer sites conducive to
urban development. Since its founding in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de
Bienville, the history of New Orleans has been marked by an unending struggle
against unhealthy swamp waters, and flooding [COL 05]. Although the site chosen
for this port city provided facilities, and numerous advantages in terms of natural
1
. For its first edition in 1976. The publication was later revised and re-edited in 2003.
