Desire Projects, human settlement in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America
Desire Projects is a former public housing development in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans, once made up of over 260 brick buildings arranged across a large, flat site. The area was enclosed on all sides by canals, railroads, and fences, making it a physically separate neighborhood from the rest of the city.
Construction began in 1949 and the development opened in 1956 to house African American residents who had been displaced from other parts of the city. Demolition of the original buildings started in the 1990s and the process was disrupted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, after which mixed-income housing eventually replaced what had stood before.
The Desire Projects were home mostly to African American families who had been pushed out of other parts of New Orleans. Cut off from the rest of the city by canals and rail lines, residents developed their own shops, churches, and schools within the community.
The former site is still being redeveloped, so visitors will find a mix of newer residential buildings and open or underdeveloped patches of land. Getting around the area is easiest by car, as public transport links to this part of the Upper Ninth Ward are limited.
A local chapter of the Black Panther Party ran a free breakfast program for children in the neighborhood during the 1970s. Their presence brought the area national attention and briefly turned it into a reference point for civil rights organizing across the country.
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