From Bayou Heritage to Blue-Green Corridors: The development and contemporary urban functions of New Orleans’ Bayou St. John and Lafitte Greenway

Abstract

Over the last two decades there has been an increasing recognition of the cultural significance of rivers, canals and related bodies of water and of residential, recreational and/or heritage spaces located along their banks. These perceptions have led them to be recognised as cultural landscapes that merit preservation, maintenance and/or development. This article furthers research on this area by investigating the history and contemporary operation of one such cultural waterway in New Orleans, Bayou St. John, and of the adjacent Lafitte Greenway, built around a former canal route. In particular, the article identifies the process of social and land- and water-scape modifications that have created neighbourhoods around them and the gentrification that has accompanied this. With particular regard to Louisiana as their location, the article also addresses the nature of bayous and the cultural significance of Bayou St. John’s name in that regard. Balancing its historical-archival account, the article includes detailed discussion of the contemporary circumstances of the bayou and greenway drawing on close perambulant observation conducted between 2016 and 2022.