« Wednesday Caption Contest: Part 22. | WILLisms.com | The Louisiana Libertarian Lives. »

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 163 -- New Orleans.

Political Machine Politics Defeated New Orleans-

New Orleans can and should be rebuilt. It must be. But much about New Orleans needs to change. The race-based political machine of New Orleans should never return. The corruption, mismanagement, graft, and laziness of government officials in the Crescent City must become relics of the past, washed away by Katrina.

New Orleans must retain and regain much of its unique charm, but the city should also follow the lead of Houston or Miami:

In 1920, New Orleans's population was nearly three times that of Houston and nine times Miami's. It was the primary Southern destination for European and Caribbean immigrants. Now, both the Houston and Miami areas--despite their own ample experience with disasters of the natural as well as the man-made variety--have long since surpassed New Orleans, with populations more than three times as large. During the '90s, the Miami and Houston areas grew almost six times as fast as greater New Orleans, and flourished as major destinations for immigrants, particularly from Latin America.

These newcomers have helped transform Miami and Houston into primary centers for trade, investment and services, from finance and accounting to medical care, for the entire Caribbean basin. They have started businesses, staffed factories, and become players in civic life. Houston has taken over completely as the dominant center for the energy industry, once a key high-wage employer in the New Orleans region.

Instead of serving as a major commercial and entrepreneurial center, New Orleans's dominant industry lies not in creating its future but selling its past, much of which now sits underwater. Tourism defines contemporary New Orleans' economy more than its still-large port, or its remaining industry, or its energy production. Although there is nothing wrong, per se, in being a tourist town, it is not an industry that attracts high-wage jobs; and tends to create a highly bifurcated social structure. This can be seen in New Orleans's perennially high rates of underemployment, crime and poverty. The murder rate is 10 times the national average.

There is no good reason for Houston, in 2005, to have been a booming and thriving city, economically, culturally, and otherwise, while pre-hurricane New Orleans languished.

No reason, that is, other than political leadership.

Michael Barone adds that New Orleans must reform, because it was dying, slowly, even before Katrina:

The population of the central city declined from 484,000 in 2000 to 462,000 in 2004 -- one of the biggest percentage declines in the nation. It seems unlikely that many of the small wooden houses in neighborhoods dominated by the criminal underclass will be habitable after the waters recede, nor will it be worth anyone's money to rebuild them....

But New Orleans' heritages of upper-class complaisance and political corruption -- the result of the city's French tradition -- work against a more broadly based commercial and economic revival. Without changes in these attitudes, historic New Orleans may revive, but the city will become little more than a theme park, like Venice, and not the great commercial beehive it once was.

Indeed, some more tidbits on the pre-hurricane decay of New Orleans:

According to the Census, the population of New Orleans in 2000 was 485,000 of whom 326,000 were black, 136,000 white, and the remaining ten thousand or so each, Asian or Hispanic.

If 75-80 percent of the population evacuated the city safely before the storm hit, as everybody is reporting, that means that far more than half the black population escaped safely before the storm slammed into the city. Even if all those who did not evacuate were black — and that is manifestly not true — 25 percent of the total population is only 121,000. Twenty percent is 96,000. By far the majority of blacks in New Orleans, who numbered as the storm began some 326,000, evacuated in advance....

The Census report shows what that means in vivid detail. In 2000, there were only 25,000 two-parent families in New Orleans with children under 18. By contrast, there were more than 26,000 female householders with children under 18, and no husband present. In other words, slightly more mothers all alone with children than married-couple mothers.

In addition, there were more than 18,000 householders who were more than 65 years old and living alone. Of these, most would normally be female.

If you add together the 26,000 female householders with children under 18, no husband present, and the 18,000 householders more than 65 years old and living alone, that is an estimated 40,000 female-headed households. That explains the pictures we are seeing on television, which are overwhelming female, most often with young children. The chances of persons in this demographic being employed full-time, year round, and with a good income, are not high. The chances of them living in poverty, and without an automobile, are exceedingly high.

New Orleans must be rebuilt. But it must do so with an eye toward reform, not more of the same.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Israel, and the Jewish Vote.

Posted by Will Franklin · 8 September 2005 11:00 AM

Comments

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at September 8, 2005 11:50 AM

Posted by: K at September 8, 2005 02:50 PM

Posted by: bullwinkle at September 8, 2005 03:00 PM

Posted by: Homer J. at September 8, 2005 03:34 PM

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at September 8, 2005 03:42 PM

Posted by: K at September 8, 2005 03:55 PM

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at September 8, 2005 04:17 PM

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at September 8, 2005 07:57 PM