New Orleans 1.1

NY Times:

...

New Orleans will almost certainly be smaller than it was. Repopulation has slowed to a trickle, leaving the city with well under half its prestorm population of 460,000. It will probably have fewer poor people; its housing projects remain essentially closed, and many poorer neighborhoods are still devastated. With inexpensive housing scarce and not being built, partly because of the paralysis in recovery planning, it is easier for the middle class than the poor to return.

...
This is a long story on the latest iteration of New Orleans or what is left of it. There are several multimedia links in the side bar on the story. The Washington Post also has its look at the empty New Orleans of today.

I cannot say that I am surprised that New Orleans is not doing better. If anything, it is surprising that half the people still want to go back. It still has a feel of corruption and ineptitude from many of the stories that have been written about it lately. The contrast with Mississippi next door remains striking. Much of it is attitude. While Mississippi took the brunt of the storm, it is also recovering quicker.

Some of this weeks retrospectives have been about former FEMA boss Brown one year later. His biggest misfortune was having to deal with a disaster in a state with incompetent Democrat politicians that dragged he and FEMA down. In Mississippi and Florida FEMA managed to handle storms OK, but in Louisiana the corrupt system broke under the strain and just dragged FEMA down with it. Caterwalling liberals mad dogged the administrationinto rushing aid to the area which also was subject to abuse and corruption.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains