After Hurricane Katrina, devastated Black neighborhoods created an “opportunity” for redevelopment that focused on gentrification

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused enormous devastation across the Gulf Coast of the U.S. But while many considered the hurricane to be a tragedy, in the aftermath, many city officials in the region saw it as an opportunity. Kate Derickson looks at how two Gulf Coast cities, Biloxi and Gulfport, used the destruction wrought by Katrina as an impetus for regional development. She writes that this development has been largely focused on poor African American neighborhoods that had already been squeezed by urban development strategies prior to the disaster, and that the nature of these neighborhoods helped to justify officials’ narrative that the storm had rendered them as ‘blank slates’.