Office of Policy Planning and Analysis central files

Collection

Identifier: CA-AAP

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Office began its cental filing system in June 1975. Incoming files, as well as materials already collected, were classified using a two-letter coding system to indicate the category to which the files were assigned. That classification system has been retained in this archival series as indicated in the arrangement section that follows.

The Office and its components collected data and information from a wide variety of sources from within city government and from outside agencies, governmental and private. Very little weeding was done when the records were originally processed during the mid-1980s, with the result that a considerable amount non-local data remains in the files. In some instances where the contents of a file had already been cataloged separately in the City Documents collection (or in other NOPL collections), the original file name has been preserved along with a "see" reference to the call number of the cataloged item.

Dates

Creation: 1973-1979

Creator

Office of Policy Planning and Analysis (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Available to registered researchers by appointment.

Requesting Materials

Materials Request Guidelines

Conditions Governing Use

Reproduction or use of materials is prohibited without the permission of the City Archives & Special Collections. Please review the Archives' Permission to Publish note.

Biographical / Historical

In 1972 Mayor Moon Landrieu established an Office of Urban Development within the Mayor's Office. It was designed to administer a HUD Section 701 grant to assist in the development of a comprehensive planning process for the Crescent City.

In 1973 McManis Associates, hired by the city to consult on strengthening and reforming city government, recommended that the Office of Urban Development be disbanded and that there be designated an Executive Assistant to the Mayor for Policy Planning. Th at individual was to be responsible for developing a data collection and analysis unit that would develop a goal structure for the city to provide logical categories for considering the city's needs and to group the activities designed to meet those needs . The Office of Policy Planning and Analysis was the result.

In 1975 the Office added grant-funded (initially) unites for economic analysis and economic development. In 1977 a Title XX human services planning unit became another component of the Office.

Under Mayor Ernest Morial, elected in 1977, the office coordinated long-range planning, advised the Mayor on planning matters, served as the Mayor's liaison to Boards and Commissions, and represented the Mayor in contacts outside City Hall. Planning and D evelopment, headed by one of the Mayor's executive assistants, coordinated and guided individual planning and program units including Federal Programs and Special Projects, Office of Economic Development, Office of Policy Planning, Primary Health Care Pla nning, Data Analysis Unit, Environmental Planning, Transportation Policy Development, Office of Economic Analysis, the Downtown Development District, and Transit Administration. The names as well as the duties of these units changed as the needs of the ci ty changed and as the direction of federal funding evolved. Despite these fluctuations, the overall mission of Planning and Development remained constant: to plan for and coordinate maintenance of and improvements to the physical and economic infrastructu re of the Crescent City.

An early concern, dating from the Office of Urban Development period, was the identification of neighborhood boundaries and characteristics. Working initially with Curtis and Davis, Architects and Planners, the Office staff identified seventy distinct nei ghborhood units within the Crescent City and produced statistical profiles of each.

Among other major projects undertaken by the Office were:

an analysis of blight in New Orleans; citizens' attitude surveys; comprehensive needs surveys; development of a local atlas series.

The Office also conducted feasibility studies for specific projects, prepared background papers for Community Development and other grant proposals, and generally functioned as an information broker for city government.