Nagin
I despise Nagin. As a former New Orleans resident, he's worse than even "MMM" Mayor Marc Morial, whose laissez-faire method of city government let rampant corruption become institutionalized, and who seemed to have an excuse for every misstep, but never a solution. Morial presided over the police scandals (that became public) and were covered on shows such as "America's Least Wanted" with troy McClure.
The rising tide of the mid and late 90s boom that boosted so many American city and town coffers provided New Orleans with...not much at all. A couple of highway projects on I-10 in Metairie, a foundering land-based casino (and aesthetic abortion), the absolute worst poverty and crime you can imagine, and what's worse - the meteoric rise in the cost of higher education meant that the former middle-class commuter schools like Loyola were off limits.
The city's middle-class chasm cracked and yawned wide pretty quickly as educated students fled the area soon after graduation. Hell, I was one of them.
Through all this, the city remained optimistically fatalistic. That's the only way I can describe the attitude of New Orleans and it's people. "Nobody gives a shit, but it might get better. Probably not, though." The city bet everything on tourism and, for lack of a better way of putting it, mortgaged it's future against the willingness of the American public to "get all Bacchanalian" once in a while on the company expense account. Why would one of the most important port cities in the U.S. do something so stupid?
1. With a hearty push from the World's Fair in 1984, New Orleans started to rely more and more on the kindness of strangers - tourists - for it's bread and butter. A risky strategy in the best of times, it was successful because of the city's wealth of feel-good/act bad attractions and reputation.
2. Infrastructure in the Crescent City is incredibly laughable. For a place that manages to transship, cross ship, and pass-through more cargo than all but three other ports in the world, (tonnage) New Orleans managed to hold on to precious little money, and even fewer jobs.
3. In the 90s, neighborhood-led beautification projects, major sources of civic pride in most cities, were left up to private citizens alone. In places like the Tremé and Marigny, upper-middle class landlords restored, rebuilt, and with varying degrees of success, ran drug dealers deeper into the more rotten neighborhoods beyond - with no support from the Mayor or Police chief. One owner in the Treme I'm familiar with started by renovating his home, renting out two bedrooms, moving into the place next door, and then gutting and renovating it. He'd then rent out to middle-class folks, moving on to the next house. He'd gotten through two full city blocks like this, creating decent rental apartments and gardens out of a blighted area.
Despite his productive nature, how much more could have been accomplished if Morial had given a shit about the city's majority population?
Mitch may have been a "legacy" candidate, but at least he was a leader. Nagin uses the same "I'm one of you because, hey - look at my skin" crap to get votes. As a Louisianian involved in many political races, I can say with no small degree of certainty that it's a tactic that is sadly effective.
I know from talking to several people still there that New Orleans is essentially cored; it has lost the veneer of optimism that was a hallmark of the city's middle class. All that is left is the despair of the very poor majority and the hardened attitudes of the city's very rich sliver of population. Two sides, each giving each other a hearty "fuck you" over every single issue by stymieing each other's self-indulgent efforts.
Well, darn* you all, rich and poor. New Orleans could be a symbol of where this country is going if we're not careful. An evaporating middle class and declining average education (despite the many universities in N.O. many kids leave the state after graduating...brain drain) combined with a disaster has left this nearly 300-year-old city a shell of anything it's ever been.
If I move back there, I want to change these things. I want to work to keep the smart people in Louisiana. I want to work to bring smart people in. Louisiana was gifted by borders and geography with some of the richest assets of any state in the union, yet it's one of the poorest. People go to good, big schools, then leave the state for the east coast or California - or Texas, which I consider the boring space between the "ears" of Louisiana and New Mexico.
Ahhh. More on this later. I'm frustrated. Go read this good post, via Atrios, from Nim at The Ham Hock of Liberty.
*fuck
The rising tide of the mid and late 90s boom that boosted so many American city and town coffers provided New Orleans with...not much at all. A couple of highway projects on I-10 in Metairie, a foundering land-based casino (and aesthetic abortion), the absolute worst poverty and crime you can imagine, and what's worse - the meteoric rise in the cost of higher education meant that the former middle-class commuter schools like Loyola were off limits.
The city's middle-class chasm cracked and yawned wide pretty quickly as educated students fled the area soon after graduation. Hell, I was one of them.
Through all this, the city remained optimistically fatalistic. That's the only way I can describe the attitude of New Orleans and it's people. "Nobody gives a shit, but it might get better. Probably not, though." The city bet everything on tourism and, for lack of a better way of putting it, mortgaged it's future against the willingness of the American public to "get all Bacchanalian" once in a while on the company expense account. Why would one of the most important port cities in the U.S. do something so stupid?
1. With a hearty push from the World's Fair in 1984, New Orleans started to rely more and more on the kindness of strangers - tourists - for it's bread and butter. A risky strategy in the best of times, it was successful because of the city's wealth of feel-good/act bad attractions and reputation.
2. Infrastructure in the Crescent City is incredibly laughable. For a place that manages to transship, cross ship, and pass-through more cargo than all but three other ports in the world, (tonnage) New Orleans managed to hold on to precious little money, and even fewer jobs.
3. In the 90s, neighborhood-led beautification projects, major sources of civic pride in most cities, were left up to private citizens alone. In places like the Tremé and Marigny, upper-middle class landlords restored, rebuilt, and with varying degrees of success, ran drug dealers deeper into the more rotten neighborhoods beyond - with no support from the Mayor or Police chief. One owner in the Treme I'm familiar with started by renovating his home, renting out two bedrooms, moving into the place next door, and then gutting and renovating it. He'd then rent out to middle-class folks, moving on to the next house. He'd gotten through two full city blocks like this, creating decent rental apartments and gardens out of a blighted area.
Despite his productive nature, how much more could have been accomplished if Morial had given a shit about the city's majority population?
Mitch may have been a "legacy" candidate, but at least he was a leader. Nagin uses the same "I'm one of you because, hey - look at my skin" crap to get votes. As a Louisianian involved in many political races, I can say with no small degree of certainty that it's a tactic that is sadly effective.
I know from talking to several people still there that New Orleans is essentially cored; it has lost the veneer of optimism that was a hallmark of the city's middle class. All that is left is the despair of the very poor majority and the hardened attitudes of the city's very rich sliver of population. Two sides, each giving each other a hearty "fuck you" over every single issue by stymieing each other's self-indulgent efforts.
Well, darn* you all, rich and poor. New Orleans could be a symbol of where this country is going if we're not careful. An evaporating middle class and declining average education (despite the many universities in N.O. many kids leave the state after graduating...brain drain) combined with a disaster has left this nearly 300-year-old city a shell of anything it's ever been.
If I move back there, I want to change these things. I want to work to keep the smart people in Louisiana. I want to work to bring smart people in. Louisiana was gifted by borders and geography with some of the richest assets of any state in the union, yet it's one of the poorest. People go to good, big schools, then leave the state for the east coast or California - or Texas, which I consider the boring space between the "ears" of Louisiana and New Mexico.
Ahhh. More on this later. I'm frustrated. Go read this good post, via Atrios, from Nim at The Ham Hock of Liberty.
*fuck
Labels: Archived
posted by Doug at 12:39 PM
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