We Shall Not Be Moved: Rebuilding Home in the Wake of Katrina

City Hall stalls while neighborhoods forge ahead in this unfocused study of the post-Katrina disaster recovery in New Orleans. Teacher and organizer Wooten (No One Had a Tongue to Speak) celebrates heart-warming scenes of mutual aid in districts from the impoverished Lower Ninth Ward to prosperous Lakeview, profiling the local residents, clergymen, and activists who removed flood debris, rebuilt homes, enticed neighbors back, and managed volunteers (including actor Brad Pitt). But the biggest obstacles they faced were city leaders who envisioned a smaller, wealthier, whiter New Orleans, tried to make rebuilding contingent on neighborhood “viability,” and placed ominous green dots on planning maps where flood-ravaged blocks were to become parks. Wooten’s narrative of citizen self-help gradually becomes bogged down in bureaucratic detail as scrappy groups evolve into community development corporations that seek grants, start charter schools, and elaborate renewal plans. Unfortunately, his celebration of grassroots process conveys little about the substantive differences between clashing redevelopment proposals, and flits past urbanist initiatives (from urban farming to a light-rail system and roof-top solar panels) that blossomed after Katrina. Wooten’s saga of fight-the-power community organizing yields an inspiring but myopic perspective on the reshaping of New Orleans. Agent: Rich Balkin, the Balkin Agency. (Aug.)