As a quick follow-up to my recent post on Open Sound New Orleans, I just came across another interesting project which maps the city based on media coverage. The site is called citymurmur.org and uses RSS feeds of blogs and news sources to “feed” a geographical representation of the city, linking individual streets and regions with tags based on topic, type of source, and source scale (e.g. local, regional, national). You can also view keywords based on the content of news articles. It’s an interesting way to get a sense of both the city and its representation in the media.  As an aside, I find that the coverage of New Orleans’ recovery post-Katrina, while somewhat limited, has still allowed me to get a better sense of the overall anatomy of an American city. The focus on individual elements of the city as they are rebuilt (or should be rebuilt) puts a spotlight on issues within city government or development that are often glossed over or deemed unimportant. But perhaps this is just me and my interest in urban studies. Do others find that post-Katrina coverage has enriched their understanding of the function/dysfunction in cities in general?

Recently, a number of articles have cropped up about displaced New Orleans residents and the 2010 census.  According to sources such as the  Associated Press and The Louisiana Weekly, a debate has emerged over how displaced New Orleanians should record their residency. Mayor Ray Nagin is encouraging those who intend to return to record New Orleans as their home. However, census watchdogs have suggested that this is a dishonest representation of how many residents are actually living within the city’s borders.  They insist that an accurate census count in 2010 is important for a number of reasons:

• It provides an essential benchmark for New Orleans’ recovery.
• It determines representation (i.e. whether or not both the immediate region and the state of Louisiana lose elected officials).
• It determines federal funding. Thus, the decision for displaced residents to mark New Orleans as their home affects both the city’s incoming funding and that of their adopted homes.

(The various articles linked above discuss these points in greater detail.)In addition to the identity struggles of former New Orleans residents, I find this an interesting topic because it illustrates the radiating effect of a simple census count.  The context of disaster recovery illuminates the way that US citizens hold value as statistics within the political arena. I feel like this could be an interesting example for anyone delving deeper into issues of census-taking and the political process, in addition to those interested in the development of New Orleans.