The government officials in New Orleans were the quickest act and immediately received the funding to build the initial six housing complexes in the city.

[1] During segregation, the Iberville was occupied by whites, while the nearby Lafitte Projects served the black tenants.

[2] Beginning in the late 1980s, when many cities were regenerating and real estate in downtown areas became ripe for private investment, developers began looking to redo the 23-acre Iberville project.

Then, in 2004, developer Pres Kabacoff proposed partially demolishing the project in order to reinvigorate the city's tourism economy and the urban core.

Representative Richard Baker (a Republican from a wealthy area of Baton Rouge) said after Hurricane Katrina: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans.

"[citation needed] New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin expressed a desire to redevelop the Iberville Projects in 2003.

Los Angeles Times article published in 2006 stated "before Hurricane Katrina hit, the Iberville was as an extremely dangerous place.

It was designed to blend in with the old neighborhood's housing in terms of proportionality, size, and style, resembling rowhouses of the 19th century with gabled ends, galleries, chimneys, and ironwork.

[11] James Russell, and architectural journalist for Bloomberg News said: "In New Orleans, public housing doesn't mean bleak high-rise towers.

The city has thousands of units with Georgian brickwork and lacy ironwork porches that came through Hurricane Katrina barely scathed."

When the projects in New Orleans were racially integrated in the 1960s, low-income whites had options available to move to the suburbs, but their African American counterparts did not.