It's Happening! Our Beta Interactive Platform Is Live!
The Beta platform is live!
Please dig deep and share!
In early 2006, I came to New Orleans to document stories of how this beloved city would rebuild after the massive devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I met resolute homeowners gutting their properties, determined immigrant workers living in tents, courageous community organizers fighting for decimated neighborhoods and defiant public housing tenants protesting the closing of their homes. I also learned about the clashing agendas of politicians, planners and developers who all had different ideas about what the new New Orleans should be.
As I documented hundreds of stories over five years, it became clear that the issues and tensions I was witnessing—Devastation/Rebuilding, Displacement/Home, Exclusion/Engagement, Community/Commodity—were not happening just in post-Katrina New Orleans. From the Gulf Coast to Chicago, from New York City to Detroit and from the U.S. to the Philippines, a fundamental question resonates: How can we (re)build our communities in a just, inclusive and sustainable way?
In order to explore this complex question, we needed a new way to create and share stories, one that drew connections across time, place, and community. Today, almost 8 years after my journey in New Orleans began, I’m pleased to share with you the newest iteration of the Land of Opportunity project: an experimental web platform that merges multimedia storytelling with curated data, research, and calls to action in one collaborative interactive space.
Please take a look at the Beta of the LandofOpportunity interactive web platform. Dig deep, make comments, and share the platform with your communities and contacts.
Share on Facebook and Twitter.
On LandofOpportunity, you’ll find stories of artists facing displacement in post-Katrina New Orleans; youth organizing for jobs and livable communities in Boston; public housing tenants facing eviction in Chicago in the nineties; gentrification in downtown Brooklyn; communities sharing backyards and bayous with the oil industry on the Gulf Coast, and more.
We’ll be rolling out content for the next several weeks (including an interactive Katrina/Sandy Timeline) so stay tuned and keep coming back!
The Land of Opportunity project has been a journey, one that doesn’t end with the launching of the interactive site. We’ll need resources and developers to keep improving the open-source platform. We’ll need storytellers to keep finding and contributing stories. We’ll need educators to foster dialogue and debate. We’ll need advocates to turn online audiences into actors for change. We invite you to take the next step with us. If you have feedback or ideas for collaboration, please contact us.
Thank you for being a part of our journey.
Luisa and the Land of Opportunity team
*A note about Beta: This platform is a work-in-progress at the cutting-edge of current technology. It currently works best on laptops or tablets with the latest version of popular browsers (Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer 9 and above), and with a high speed internet connection. Moving forward, we hope to get the resources to make this experience more accessible as the technology evolves. If you encounter bugs or glitches, we appreciate your patience and feedback.
IN THE NEWS
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Land of Opportunity to Participate in the 2012 BAVC Producers Institute: Stories With Impact
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November 14, 2011
Affordable Housing
GNOFHAC files suit against landlord over discrimination against Latino renters.
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B.W. Cooper residents organize successfully for jobs in the rebuilding of their neighborhood
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Footage from Land of Opportunity to be used in opening credits of Treme: Season 2
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February 25, 2011
Affordable Housing
HANO Chairman David Gilmore pledges to hire locally for latest public housing construction.
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February 07, 2011
Disaster Recovery
2010 census reveals shifting population and demographics in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
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November 17, 2010
Immigration
Judge orders release of Orleans Parish inmate who was jailed for too long
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Land Of Opportunity Sneak Peek with "Housing is a Human Right" at the Brecht Forum in NYC
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August 23, 2010
Urban Planning
Land of Opportunity to be featured at Maysles Institute in Harlem!
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