Greater French influence? Detroit vs New Orleans (best, state, largest)

[ThroatGuzzler]

Which city has greater French cultural influence in terms of architecture, history, culture, food, music, housing stock, art etc?

[kidphilly]

It would seem to me NOLA - but maybe a American derivation. Detroit seems to have a bit of the French Canadian influence but feels like America, whereas NOLA seems to have molded many different backgorunds into it's own thing where the flavor of French for example is still felt even today

[BPerone201]

New Orleans BY FAR

[ThroatGuzzler]

Well Detroit's referred to as the "Paris of the Midwest", so it's interesting to see how much of a blowout the poll's become.

[DANNYY]

Originally Posted by ThroatGuzzler

Well Detroit's referred to as the "Paris of the Midwest", so it's interesting to see how much of a blowout the poll's become.

No it used to be called "The Paris of the West" not because of its French influence but because of its 1950's heyday claiming the best architecture in the country at the time. Its nickname faded away more when its problems grew.

But Detroit is a French name and I do believe it had some French colonization history and how it was found and stuff. Don't know the exact details on that part though.

[cottonwood2420]

New Orleans.

[Metro Matt]

Originally Posted by ThroatGuzzler

Which city has greater French cultural influence in terms of architecture, history, culture, food, music, housing stock, art etc?

Are you kidding me?

[ThroatGuzzler]

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Are you kidding me?

No.

The city of Detroit, Michigan developed from a French fort and missionary outpost founded in 1701 to one of the largest American cities in the early 20th century. Based on its auto industry, Detroit's economy expanded following World War II with a post war economic prosperity. A population shift to the suburbs began in the 1950s and continued as the metropolitan area grew to one of the nation's largest. The city experienced social tensions during the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, the city has experienced increased urban renewal. Many areas of the city are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The city name comes from the Detroit River (French: le détroit du Lac Érie), meaning the strait of Lake Erie, linking Lake Huron and Lake Erie; in the historical context, the strait included Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River.Traveling up the Detroit River on the ship Le Griffon (owned by La Salle), Father Louis Hennepin noted the north bank of the river as an ideal location for a settlement. There, in 1701, the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, along with fifty-one additional French-Canadians, founded a settlement called Fort Ponchartrain du Détroit, naming it after the comte de Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine under Louis XIV. Ste. Anne de Détroit, founded July 26, 1701, is the second oldest continuously operating Roman Catholic parish in the United States and the church was the first building erected at Fort Ponchartrain du Détroit. France offered free land to attract families to Detroit, which grew to 800 people in 1765, the largest city between Montreal and New Orleans. Francois Marie Picoté, sieur de Belestre (Montreal 1719–1793) was the last French military commander at Fort Detroit (1758–1760), surrendering the fort on November 29, 1760 to British Major Robert Rogers (of Rogers' Rangers fame and sponsor of the Jonathan Carver expedition to St. Anthony Falls). The British gained control of the area in 1760 and were thwarted by an Indian attack three years later during Pontiac's Rebellion. The region's fur trade was an important economic activity. Detroit's city flag reflects this French heritage.

During the French and Indian War (1760), British troops gained control and shortened the name to Detroit. Several tribes led by Chief Pontiac, an Ottawa leader, launched Pontiac's Rebellion (1763), including a siege of Fort Detroit. Partially in response to this, the British Royal Proclamation of 1763 included restrictions on white settlement in unceded Indian territories. Detroit passed to the United States under the Jay Treaty (1796). In 1805, fire destroyed most of the settlement. A river warehouse and brick chimneys of the wooden homes were the sole structures to survive.
Father Gabriel Richard arrived at Ste. Anne's in 1796. While the local priest, he helped start the school which evolved into the University of Michigan, started primary schools for white boys and girls as well as for Indians, as a territorial representative to U.S. Congress helped establish a road-building project that connected Detroit and Chicago, and brought the first printing press to Michigan which printed the first Michigan newspaper. After his death in 1832, Richard was interred under the altar of Ste. Anne's.

Detroit, settled in 1701, is one of the oldest cities in the Midwest. Detroit experienced a disastrous fire in 1805 which nearly destroyed the city, leaving little present-day evidence of 17th and 18th Century Detroit save streets named for early French settlers, their surviving French ancestors, and what remains of the twelve original missionary pear trees.After the fire, Judge Augustus B. Woodward designed a plan of evenly spaced public parks with interconnecting semi-circular and diagonal streets. Although Woodward's plan was not fully implemented, the basic outline in still in place today in the heart of the city. Main thoroughfares radiate outward from the center of the city like spokes in a wheel, with Jefferson Avenue running parallel to the river, Woodward Avenue running perpendicular to it, and Gratiot, Michigan, and Grand River Avenues interspersed. A sixth main street, Fort, wanders downriver from the center of the city.

The first recorded mention of what became Detroit was in 1670, when the French Sulpician missionaries François Dollier de Casson and René Bréhant de Galinée stopped at the site on their way to the mission at Sault Ste. Marie. Galínee's journal notes that near the site of present-day Detroit, they found a stone idol venerated by the Indians and destroyed the idol with an axe and dropped the pieces into the river. Early French settlers planted twelve missionary pear trees "named for the twelve Apostles" on the grounds of what is now Waterworks Park.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Detroit

I guess people are just not knowledgeable enough about Detroit's history... as expected.

[GreatLakesDrifter]

As stated in the last response, Detroit was founded as a french city (and you can tell by looking at the city street names on a road map); with that said, the French influence has somewhat waned in the two centuries since its days as a French settlement, sort of in the same way that the dutch flavor has faded in Harlem.....

[detroitlove]

New Orleans for sure