Learning from disaster: Building city resilience through cultural heritage in New Orleans
This document presents the experience of New Orleans in building city resilience through cultural heritage in response to the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the devastating consequences on the lives of the city residents.The document provides an overview of the various resilience planning frameworks and explores their connections to cultural heritage and the new urban agendas.
Through the assumptions underlying the notion of Resilient Heritage, the document first explores the challenges associated with heritage preservation and resilient urban development in the LAC region, to later analyze the experience of New Orleans and the conditions and factors that led the city to overcome the urgency of the disaster and transform itself into an international reference in urban resilience. The experience highlights the key role of the New Orleans intangible cultural assets in underpinning its resilient nature and strength. Finally, the paper assesses the relevance of this experience to the case of LAC cities, given the similarities in cultural heritage and climate change vulnerability, to promote urban resilience across the region.