Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants: Finding Blight: Code Enforcement in Post-Katrina New Orleans

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University of California-Irvine doctoral student Sean Mallin, supervised by Dr. William M. Maurer, will undertake research on building code enforcement as a lens through which to observe debates over the meaning of property, recovery, and community in post-disaster contexts. In particular, Mallin will investigate the proposition that legal processes tied to code enforcement coalesce with rebuilding imperatives to enact discourses and understandings of the meaning of property and ownership. In previous research, it has been observed that some residents see code enforcement as a welcome mechanism to transfer vacant properties from less responsible owners who have not rebuilt to those who will commit to neighborhood recovery. On the other hand, residents still struggling to return may be more critical of the process in that it appears to turn their misfortune into a crime. This scenario plays out in post-disaster contexts throughout the world, which makes the research both timely and significant.For the purposes of this study, Mallin will conduct 12 months of ethnographic research in post-Katrina New Orleans. New Orleans is an appropriate site because a local anti-blight campaign has targeted vacant properties through comprehensive code enforcement and thus the reconceptualization of property and ownership may be underway. Mallin will collect data and conduct semi-structured interviews at four sites: the Department of Code Enforcement, city-run property auctions, an organization assisting property owners, and in neighborhoods with residents and local organizations. Mallin will employ a mix of social science methods including direct observation, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of archival documents and newspaper articles (to provide social and historical context for contemporary redevelopment activities). These data will be analyzed to address four overarching research questions: (1) How are designations of blight made, supported, interpreted, or contested, especially in relation to Hurricane Katrina? (2) What kind of social, moral, and material relationships between residents and property are framed through the concepts of blight and responsible ownership? (3) Do municipal laws and real estate markets create economic and non-economic values through new categories of property (blighted or non-blighted)? and (d) Are criteria for social inclusion and exclusion mediated through categories of property and ownership?This research is important because it contributes to knowledge about new urban dynamics. Results should also generalize to other post-disaster contexts such as communities affected by the current foreclosure crisis and coastal cities anticipating property-related issues because of climate change, and thus will be of use to planners and policy makers. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.