Jungleland

Activism & Community, Architecture & Preservation, City Life & Neighborhood, Levees & Recovery, Review & Critique

May 12th, 2012

The New York Times recently published an article about the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, discussing the issues the city and specifically the neighborhood faces six years following the hurricane. The article, titled “Jungleland: The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans Gives New Meaning to ‘Urban Growth,’” addresses a question archaeologists have studied for decades: What causes a once densely populated area to be abandoned and returned to nature? Archaeological theories run the gamut-political leadership, economy, diseases or epidemic, social unrest, mass dispersal of residents or even a natural disaster of epic proportions.

Well, quite frankly, most archaeologists are of the persuasion that…