Coming Home to New Orleans documents grassroots rebuilding efforts in New Orleans neighborhoods after hurricane Katrina, and draws lessons on their contribution to the post-disaster recovery of cities. The book begins with two chapters that address Katrina's impact and the planning and public sector recovery policies that set the context for neighborhood recovery. Rebuilding narratives for six New Orleans neighborhoods are then presented and analyzed. In the heavily flooded Broadmoor and Village de L'Est neighborhoods, residents coalesced around communitywide initiatives, one through a neighborhood association and the second under church leadership, to help homeowners return and restore housing, get key public facilities and businesses rebuilt and create new community-based organizations and civic capacity. A comparison of four adjacent neighborhoods in the center of the city show how differing socioeconomic conditions, geography, government policies and neighborhood capacity created varied recovery trajectories. The concluding chapter argues that grassroots and neighborhood scale initiatives can make important contributions to city recovery in four areas: repopulation, restoring "complete neighborhoods" with key services and amenities, rebuilding parts of the small business economy and enhancing recovery capacity. It also calls for more balanced investments and policies to rebuild rental and owner-occupied housing and more deliberate collaboration with community-based organizations to undertake and implement recovery plans, and proposes changes to federal disaster recovery policies and programs to leverage the contribution of grassroots rebuilding and more support for city recovery.

Coming Home to New Orleans documents grassroots rebuilding efforts in New Orleans neighborhoods after hurricane Katrina, and draws lessons on their contribution to the post-disaster recovery of cities. The book begins with two chapters that address Katrina's impact and the planning and public sector recovery policies that set the context for neighborhood recovery. Rebuilding narratives for six New Orleans neighborhoods are then presented and analyzed. In the heavily flooded Broadmoor and Village de L'Est neighborhoods, residents coalesced around communitywide initiatives, one through a neighborhood association and the second under church leadership, to help homeowners return and restore housing, get key public facilities and businesses rebuilt and create new community-based organizations and civic capacity. A comparison of four adjacent neighborhoods in the center of the city show how differing socioeconomic conditions, geography, government policies and neighborhood capacity created varied recovery trajectories. The concluding chapter argues that grassroots and neighborhood scale initiatives can make important contributions to city recovery in four areas: repopulation, restoring "complete neighborhoods" with key services and amenities, rebuilding parts of the small business economy and enhancing recovery capacity. It also calls for more balanced investments and policies to rebuild rental and owner-occupied housing and more deliberate collaboration with community-based organizations to undertake and implement recovery plans, and proposes changes to federal disaster recovery policies and programs to leverage the contribution of grassroots rebuilding and more support for city recovery.

In this collection, essayists examine their lives, their memories of Mississippi, the reasons they left the state, and what drew them back. They talk about how life differs and wears on you in the far-flung parts of our nation, and the qualities that make Mississippi unique. The writers from all corners of the state are as diverse as the regions from which they come. They are of different races, different life experiences, different talents, and different temperaments. Yet in acceding to the magical lure of Mississippi they are in many ways alike. Their roots are deep in the rich soil of this state, and they come from strong families that valued education and promoted an indomitable optimism. Successes stem from a passion, usually emerging early in life, that burns within them. But that passion is tempered, disciplined, encouraged, and influenced by the people around them, as well as the landscape and the history of their times. These essays give us a glimpse of the people and places that nurtured the young lives of the essayists and offered the values that directed them as they sought their dreams elsewhere. Often they found that opportunity was within their grasp in their home state and came back to realize their full potential. They came back, in some cases, to retire to a familiar place of pleasant memories, to family and to friends. They all have a love and respect for Mississippi and continue, back home, to use their talents to help make the state an even better place to live.

You Go Home, Make More Money and Come Back is a non-fiction book that takes you to six continents and many diverse places and cultures. It covers a 35 year period from 1969 to 2004. It is about a man who develops an interest in geography in college. He lives a conventional life while having a dream of seeing the world. He travels by working and saving his money for vacation trips of a few days to a month long over a lifetime. The book tells of adventure on the Yangze River, an African photo safari, the outback of Australia, seeing the pyramids of Egypt, traveling solo by train through Europe, train travel in the USA and Canada, and more. It takes you around the world traveling alone with few advance reservations as well as going on organized group tours.

A lovingly illustrated book about a hummingbird in New Orleans.

Post-disaster housing concerns and dilemmas are complex, global in nature, and are inextricably intertwined with social, economic, and political considerations. The multi-faceted nature of housing recovery requires a holistic approach that accounts for its numerous dimensions and contours that are best captured with multi-disciplinary, multi-scalar, and multi-hazard approaches. This book serves as a valuable resource by highlighting the key issues and challenges that need to be addressed with regard to post-disaster housing. By featuring a collection of case studies on various disasters that have occurred globally and written by scholars and practitioners from various disciplines, it highlights the rich diversity of approaches taken to solve post-disaster housing problems. Coming home after Disaster can serve as an essential reference for researchers and practitioners in disaster and emergency management, public administration, public policy, urban planning, sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, architecture, and other related social science fields. Key features in this book are: Addresses a wide range of dilemmas such as differential levels of social and physical vulnerability; problems related to land tenure, home-ownership, property rights, planning, and zoning; and political and legal challenges to housing recovery. Discusses the role played by public, private and non-governmental organizations, the informal sector, financial institutions, and insurance in rebuilding and housing recovery. Features global case studies, incorporates relevant examples and policies, and offers solutions from a range of scholars working in multiple disciplines and different countries.