Hurricane Katrina physically disrupted the City of New Orleans and recast the distribution of resources, influence, and authority in local government. In Reforming New Orleans, Peter Burns and Matthew Thomas explore the consequences of the August 2005 storm for governance through analysis of the actors engaged in economic development, K–12 education, housing, and policing before and after the storm. This 10- year post-Katrina retrospective on four critical fields of urban policy will excite readers intrigued by the long running battle of urban reformers against corruption and inefficiency in local government. While clearly tied to the urban politics literature on power and regimes, the book should prompt critical questions about how political scientists study reform rhetoric and policy change in local government.

After acknowledging simmering pre-Katrina reform debates in New Orleans, Burns and Thomas animate their book with a question that readies the reader for conflict: “To what degree would the storm affect this struggle between the city’s embedded interests on one side and extra-local actors and reform-minded locals on the other?” (p. 2). The term political arrangements is used to describe the book’s primary unit of analysis, tying the study of policy change to urban regime theory’s focus on the scope of actors who are involved in local governing coalitions. In the introduction, the authors write: “A political arrangement distinguishes actual governance from the formal institutions of government. It identifies how various sectors of society interact to set and support an agenda, endorse and challenge strategic policy options, enact policy, and produce winners and losers” (p. 4). Policy agenda fidelity, “the degree to which a political arrangement is able to promote and execute an agenda over time,” is also important to the authors’ narrative (p. 4).

The analysis of New Orleans begins in Chapter 2 with comparisons of political arrangements before and after the hurricane. In economic development, the authors describe pre-Katrina New Orleans as lacking corporate leadership and direction, with major economic-development efforts spearheaded by the state governor and other extralocal actors. They cast the economic-development story broadly, discussing major development efforts, the city’s general business climate, land-use planning, and even special district governments. Post-Katrina, the authors point to an expansion of extralocal involvement in each area, as national foundations and federal and state agencies became involved in the movement to rebuild the city. Burns and Thomas acknowledge grassroots initiatives, crediting local nonprofits and neighborhood associations for rebuilding in individual neighborhoods. However, external actors are credited with driving the broader political agenda for the city’s redevelopment. As the authors argue: “Resources and authority ruled in the post-Katrina era. One common theme throughout the period is that local entities lost their authority” (p. 61).

Reform in K–12 education is also characterized by the involvement of extralocal actors. The education narrative unfolds over Chapters 3 and 4. Poor performance under the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) led state and local officials to advocate for reform before Hurricane Katrina; however, the authors describe a cartel of local interests, including OPSB employees, who resisted reform. Post-Katrina, education in New Orleans was recreated, with the OPSB opening charter schools and the state of Louisiana’s Recovery School District directly administering others. The involvement of the state and national education reformers yielded local concern: “Opponents of the reformers, including African American leaders and some residents who rejected change, disliked the fact that education policy in city schools post-Katrina was being made and executed by non-elected officials from outside the city, who did not descriptively represent the population of New Orleans,” write Burns and Thomas (p. 91).

For housing policy, pre-Katrina ideas also paved the way for post-storm policy change, as described in Chapter 5. Even before the hurricane, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had taken over operations of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) due to mismanagement. Burns and Thomas argue that the destruction of Katrina allowed HUD through HANO to close public-housing buildings and continue public-housing reforms based upon low-density and mixed-income development models, consistent with broader national reforms in public housing.

In the city’s police services, the focus of Chapter 6, the authors conclude that political arrangements changed very little. Police services continued to be delivered by the city, despite the extreme operational complications caused by the hurricane. The authors highlight improvements in public safety during the pre-Katrina tenure of police Superintendent Richard Pennington from 1994 to 2002. However, they argue that the reforms were not institutionalized, and the post-Katrina era exhibited rising crime and resumed corruption. The political arrangement for policing, Burns and Thomas argue, remained centralized in New Orleans, with limited community or external influence fostering reform, until the imposition of a federal consent decree in 2014. On the basis of the authors’ argument, in order to assess the outcomes of external reform—oriented actors in New Orleans, the city’s police service should be a focus of ongoing evaluation.

As a single-city case study, Reforming New Orleans will appeal to readers who care about the consequences of natural disaster in a major American city, or readers with a special affinity for New Orleans. The book contributes to post-Katrina scholarship by discussing pre-Katrina reform efforts, pressing readers to consider both stability and change in governing arrangements over time. Burns and Thomas also expand our understanding of urban political regimes by illustrating the extent to which state governments shape local policy options. Given broad interest in Hurricane Katrina recovery, the book will find a home in many public and university libraries. It would be an ideal supplement to an undergraduate urban politics class in order to illustrate the challenges of reforming local government and the complexity of actors engaged in urban policy debates.

The work of Burns and Thomas should also challenge urban politics scholars to take new steps in the investigation of local government reform. Like many studies building upon urban regime theory, Reforming New Orleans outlines the winners and losers of power battles for the control of political arrangements or governing institutions. While power is central to political science, the consequences of governance for government performance are also critical. The authors document some outcomes of reform, particularly in K–12 education and policing; however, collectively, urban politics researchers should do more to link research on governance to government performance and the short- and long-term outcomes of reform. Because single-city case studies are pervasive in local government research, an important starting point might be careful meta-analysis to document the relationship of political arrangements, political contestation, and the long-term performance of major American cities. Scholars of urban politics have an opportunity to say more about the long-term consequences of local government reform across the United States, and we should meet this challenge.