New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape by Pierce F. Lewis (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Pierce F. Lewis. New Orleans:The Making ofan Urban Landscape, Second Edition. Santa Fe: The Center for American Places (distributed by The University of Virginia Press), 2003,200 pp., 69 b/ w illus., paperback, $22.50, ISBN1-930066-10-4. R ght now, it is difficult to read anything about New Orleans without looking hrough the lens of Hurricane Katrina. Pierce Lewis's New Orleans: 7he Making of an Urban Landscape, Second Edition, is no exception. Firstpublished in 1976,this revised effort combines in one handy volume the original as "book one" and a new "book two," which revisits many of the issues addressed in the original but focuses on the years between 1975 and 2002. Lewis traces the settlement and development of New Orleans from the colonial period to the present, juxtaposing the antithetical propositions that the city is unique in terms of its settlement, culture, and architecture and that it is like most American cities in terms of its social ills, poverty, racial conflict, crime, sprawl, gentrification, and economic decay. Throughout, he provides a commentary on how the city's geography has shaped its pattern ofgrowth. The commentary is one of the book's greatest strengths. In language that is technical yet easily understood, Lewis explains the complex geological interplay between the Mississippi River, the delta, and the government's system of levees. Settlement patterns, port functions, commerce, and the development of adjacent communities are all tied to the river and its manipulation, even though such connections may not be immediately apparent to the present-day visitor. Armed with this knowledge, the reader can begin to make sense of the city's urban plan. Lewis argues that the city was destined to be-there simply had to be a port at the mouth of the mighty Mississippi. However, given the propensity to flooding, the poor soil, and the tortuous path from the Mississippi through the delta to open water, what is now New Orleans was simultaneously brilliantly and poorly sited. This premise is liberally illustrated with photographs, maps, and charts, which further illumine the city's development relative to its topography. Book two expands on the themes of book one, but from the distance and perspective of the intervening twenty-five years. White flight, suburbanization, growing racial division, the role of the port in the local economy, the impact of historic preservation, and tourism are treated more thoroughly and provide a solid complement to the original text. Most poignantly, book two reinforces and elaborates on concerns expressed earlier about the vulnerability of the city to devastation by flooding and hurricanes. While these threats have always been present, Lewis explains how they have been exacerbated in the late twentieth century by coastal erosion, poor soil, and the resultant "sinking" ofthe city. Lewis closes with a hypothetical argument about why one should save and protect a city that is balanced so precariously upon its geography. He provides a litany of reasons, among them that New Orleans is "one of the few cities in the United States with a special genre de vie--a special genius loci -that sets it apart of all others." (Lewis, p. 171.) He warns, however, that the only way this city can indeed be saved is if New Orleanians commit themselves to do so with leadership and determination, an admonishment that is sadly prescient. MARYRUFFINHANBURY Raleigh, North Carolina ARRIS Volume Seventeen 67 ...