Basin Street blues: drainage and environmental equity in New Orleans, 1890–1930

Before 1900, Blacks typically occupied the swampy portions of New Orleans, Louisiana. As the city embarked on an ambitious Progressive Era public works project to improve drainage in the 1890s, it began to overhaul environmental conditions. This process, if carried out according to rational engineering principles, would serve the entire city equitably. At the same time as the improvements, Jim Crow policies appeared in the political landscape and presented a potential challenge to equity in the engineering project. An examination of the design and delivery of drainage and sewerage services compared with racial segregation offers insights into the discussion of environmental equity and also the agents of segregation in New Orleans. By 1930, engineering concerns overcame racist tendencies in delivering public services. Drainage allowed Blacks to move into previously uninhabited portions of the city, but Jim Crow policies ultimately limited their movement out of the lowest sections of the city.  2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd