Young Professionals as Ambivalent Change Agents in New Orleans after the 2005 Hurricanes

After the 2005 hurricanes, newcomers arrived in New Orleans to help rebuild the city. The influx of one identifiable group, young professionals and postgraduates, raised hopes and concerns that New Orleans would gentrify. Based on semi-structured interviews with 78 young and mid-career professionals, this paper examines how the young professionals approached an ambivalent situation where they were working to rebuild a better city while retaining its distinct cultural qualities, given that their presence itself contributed to the cultural change. They reconciled these tensions with an appreciation for localism that, for newcomers in particular, was expressed through knowing and responding to longtime residents instead of working against the social displacement that their presence could facilitate.