Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Army Corps of Engineers is not beyond criticism either. Technical studies
conducted in the 1980s anticipated the collapse of the floodwalls that were directly
impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The warning was ignored and for various reasons,
the system of levees designed to protect New Orleans was far less effective than
expected ad was with critical weaknesses that were to prove catastrophic.
9.2. Increased vulnerability from urban sprawl
Thus, while the city was highly vulnerable to flooding from storm activity, the
risk was significantly increased over recent decades as a result of human activity.
The extent of the 2005 catastrophe is largely attributable to the urbanization of
wetlands whose retrieval began in the 1930s. It is the unreasonable urbanization of
drained wetlands that created the exceptional vulnerability of New Orleans in
2005.
Although New Orleans experienced relatively low population growth relative to
the rest of the country following the end of the Second World War, New Orleans
was not spared the urban sprawl that characterizes so much of the country (see
Chapter 7). In the 2000 census, New Orleans ranked as the 35th largest US
metropolitan area with 1.34 million inhabitants. The eight parishes (in Louisiana,
county subdivisions are called parishes) comprising the New Orleans' Metropolitan
Statistical Area (MSA) span an area of 19,110 km².
5
This surface area is, however, a vast maze of rivers, lakes, and lagoons including
Lake Pontchartrain and surrounding marshes, so that the estimated non-submerged
surface area is less than 8,500 km². It is for this reason that we must be very careful
with the concept of population density in the case of New Orleans. The city of New
Orleans sits mostly along the Mississippi, at the center of the MSA and south of
Lake Pontchartrain.
The city of New Orleans (460 km²) is contiguous with Orleans Parish while the
metropolitan area includes most of Jefferson Parish to the west (East Bank
Jefferson) and south (West Bank Jefferson), all of St Bernard Parish and the city of
Belle Chasse in the Mississippi River Delta parish of Plaquemines. With nearly 1
million inhabitants, greater New Orleans is a city of average size for the United
States of America. Its effective density is of 14 inhabitants/ha, which is a figure
slightly higher than the national average of 9 inhabitants/ha.
5
. The 2003 revision detached St James parish from the New Orleans metropolitan statistical
area, which is now reduced to seven counties. Nevertheless, this change of geographical
nomenclature does not much change the figures for the entire metropolitan area.
