The City that Care Forgot Again

I used to dread it when people asked me where I was born. Inevitably, I would be greeted with comebacks like “Mardi Gras” and “Bourbon Street” when I mentioned that I was from New Orleans. True, the Big Easy is best known for its never-ending party scene, but there’s much more to the city than the Northern Hemisphere’s answer to Carnivale or a single street. Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and “Mardi Gras” and “Bourbon Street” was replaced by “I’m sorry” or an averted gaze so the questioner could avoid looking me in the eye. The former, however annoying, was preferable to the latter. While we continue to pour a seemingly never-ending stream of money into the morass that is Iraq, New Orleans slowly withers and dies on the vine. This story in today’s NY Times highlights how difficult life is for the displaced poor. Lacking savings, job prospects, or the social safety net extended to homeowners, the people who made New Orleans the great Southern city it was languish with no silver lining in sight. Even as employers in the Crescent City struggle to find employees, they discover the unpleasant truth that there simply aren’t enough places to house all the low wage workers required in our service-oriented economy.