There’s No Place Like Home: Rebuilding Community in the Lower Ninth Ward

In December of 2007, actor Brad Pitt made national headlines, announcing his plan to build 150 green homes in the Katrina devastated area of the Lower Ninth Ward through his philanthropic project called Make It Right 9. His efforts are part of a larger phenomenon taking place across the country in which areas destroyed by natural disasters are rebuilt using green architecture and technologies. This study seeks to understand through semi-structured interviews, service learning and archival research, how one neighborhood’s complex definition of community includes the built environment and how these philanthropic projects ultimately contribute to or work against the community rebuilding process, particularly in the Lower Ninth Ward. This paper will focus on the Make It Right 9 and Global Green Project in the Lower Ninth Ward, an area of New Orleans with traditionally strong communal bonds. I will conclude this paper with speculations on the future of this neighborhood in light of these “Green” philanthropic projects, showing that while many of these efforts have supposed good intentions to rebuild homes in the area, the building plans not only will erode the traditional architectural style in the neighborhood but increased property values could financially force out those families with whom they are trying to help.