Joyce Wilkerson was recently named executive director of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA). She moved to New Orleans from Philadelphia where for decades she was involved in policy-making, including years as chief of staff to Mayor John Street. 
She also spearheaded Philadelphia’s successful $350 million Neighborhood Transformation Initiative which raised property values after private investment in selected neighborhoods.
Through a grant from the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s Community Revitalization Fund, NORA developed a property database and GIS mapping system that allows it to identify and catalog properties, pinpoint blighted areas, and cluster properties for redevelopment.
What is attractive about New Orleans?
The whole world is watching what is going on in New Orleans right now. There are a lot of other communities that will take hope and ideas from what New Orleans is doing.
What does NORA do?
NORA is currently working with the State to dispose of Road Home properties, working to implement redevelopment projects that the City has identified, and looking to rebuild neighborhoods across New Orleans with both residential and commercial projects.
We can move neighborhoods from being fragile to healthy. We can create neighborhoods where people want to live and raise their families, and where private partners want to come and invest.
How much blight exists in New Orleans?
There are about 68,000 abandoned properties in New Orleans. Some of them are post-Katrina issues, but actually many of them predate Katrina. The population in New Orleans peaked in the 600,000 range, and by the time Katrina hit, the population was down about 200,000. So, you have a lot of abandonment that predates the storm. What you encounter now is that more neighborhoods are affected with vacancy rates between 40 percent to 50 percent.
How does NORA do its work?
Redevelopment Authorities across the country have very broad powers. They have the ability to issue debt in order to finance projects, the ability to assemble land, and the ability to participate in transactions to stimulate residential, commercial, and industrial developments. For example, NORA recently partnered with 13 community-based partners to apply directly to the federal government for Neighborhood Stabilization Program funding and through a competitive process received $30 million grant to assist organizations to assemble parcels of land and build new housing.
How are you introducing technology into this system?
We are working to utilize technology in a very aggressive way. We need to be able to map out what land is available and what land we can put back out for development. With technology we will be able examine neighborhoods with a bird’s eye view. We’ll know foreclosure, vacancy, and home ownership rates. We’ll know where the schools are, the challenges of flooding. These tools did not exist before. As we move forward, we also look to get more stakeholders on board sharing systems with each other.
