Los Angeles Times series looks at NOLA’s rebuilding effort two years later

The two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is a largely grim occasion, but a Los Angeles Times series has found cause for inspiration. In a 10-story installment, the paper appraises the rebuilding effort in New Orleans and the innovation it has sparked — particularly in the environmental arena. Read up on nonprofit Global Green’s push to build inexpensive, eco-friendly, low-income housing; the all-too-relevant deconstruction movement, which encourages the use of old building parts in new construction; the charter school that’s bringing slow food to NOLA; an amateur inventor’s idea for a (gasp!) waterproof floodwall; and one engineer’s vision of future residents unaffected by flooding — because their Styrofoam-foundation houses will just rise with the water. A city ravaged? Not entirely. It’s also a city with potential to spare.