Marshall‑Scale Aid, Minimal Recovery

The U.S. spent about $140 billion on Katrina recovery—more than the Marshall Plan—yet New Orleans remains smaller, poorer, and more unequal. The money was dispersed through a maze of agencies and contractors with weak accountability, leaving core services like housing, schools, transit, and health care underdelivered. Big checks without coherent authority and metrics don’t rebuild civic capacity. — It reframes disaster policy around state capacity and governance design, not just funding levels, with implications for future climate‑driven recoveries.