Where did NOLA go wrong (New Orleans, Baton Rouge: city hall, violent crime, neighborhood)

[bustaduke]

Originally Posted by SouthernBelleInUtah

The tourist areas will always function (Fr Qtr, Uptown, Garden Distirct) but the rest of the "inner core" is trashed and likely to stay that way for some time. Come drive around and see where the money is and isn't.

So you are saying the money is only in, The Garden District, Uptown, and the French Quarter and not in Lakeview, English Turn, East Over, The Irish Chanel, Mid City, Broadmoor, etc. and lots of other New Orleans neighborhoods?

One thing unique about New Orleans is that you have very expensive homes in the same neighborhoods as trash homes. When is the last time you drove around to really see where the money is?

busta

[Drouzin]

Originally Posted by WestbankNOLA

What good is having a spread out metro area with a dead center? No matter how vibrant the outer ring seems if the inside is dead, the outside won't last too long.

THIS!

[chalcedony]

Originally Posted by LOUISIANA'SLEGEND

I can understand detroit, and that theory applies perfectly there, but in New Orleans I'm not convinced that people will never ever neglect the inner core of it. Money, tourist, and business will forever pour into inner New Orleans due to the fact it possesses treasures that probably will neverbe duplicated. You can't say the same for detroit.

Much as I love New Orleans and will defend it heavily, many of its residents need get their heads out of the clouds and realize that, however special its culture is, it suffered the same problems of white flight and disinvestment as every other city in America. There's no need to bash Detroit in the process--it has a rich musical and cultural history as well, but its white flight was more pronounced than New Orleans...only slightly. Detroit has induplicable treasures, cultural diversity, great architecture, but none of that stopped it from becoming the single most dysfunctional big city in the country. New Orleans is probably in the top five for dysfunctional, maybe top ten, but many of us still love. Many people in Michigan still love and defend Detroit.

Conversely, there are plenty of folks in Metairie, the North Shore, and St. Bernard who don't want a thing to do with the city and probably rarely visit it--Metairie in particular has a lot of jobs located there as well. New Orleans is just a creaky, blighted old city to them but since the suburbs of New Orleans could pretty much be the suburbs anywhere, I'm not certain all of them have a strong attachment to the place.

[Azalea City Man]

Originally Posted by MetroBTR

And it affected cities in different ways, often varying depending on main industries, geography, suburban areas already in existance, etc. It killed Detroit, and it put NOLA and St. Louis in ICU.

Just had to say that the STL core is recovering quite nicely, especially in the last couple of years. Hope N.O. follows the same path soon.

[Prytania]

I've been all over America...and New Orleans isn't that bad off. And it's absolutely nothing like Detroit.

[imaterry78259]

New Orleans should be the No. 1 or 2 city in the South

[TheseGoTo11]

New Orleans was #1 in the South before the Civil War, by a mile, just as Cincinnati was #1 in the Midwest, and St. Louis was #2.

In 1860, the three cities were all in the top 10 - NO had 168,000 people, meanwhile Atlanta had fewer than 10,000 people, and Chicago was still smaller than Cincy and St. Louis. Atlanta was even smaller than Covington, KY, the town directly across the Ohio River from downtown Cincy.

What did Cincy, StL, and NO have in common? Riverboats. They were river cities. After the Civil War, trains took over and Chicago and Atlanta became regional centers at the expense of Cincy, New Orleans, and StL. Places on rail lines between Chicago and NY - Cleveland, Pitt, and Buffalo - overtook the old guard riverboat towns. In 1860, for example, Cleveland had 43k people, 21st in the country, way behind in-state rival Cincy which had 161k and was 7th in the country. Just 4 decades later, Cleveland was the larger city.

In 1800, before river-padding steam boats, and when most boats had sails and went on oceans, Charleston was the largest city in the south.

After 1900, things started to change again, and Detroit blew Cle, Pitt, and Buf away.

NO's loss of importance economically had nothing to do with white flight or suburban competition, that happened just about everywhere. It declined in conjunction with StL and Cincy as trains took over for riverboats after the Civil War.

[WestbankNOLA]

Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11

NO's loss of importance economically had nothing to do with white flight or suburban competition, that happened just about everywhere. It declined in conjunction with StL and Cincy as trains took over for riverboats after the Civil War.

Except New Orleans became somewhat of a major rail center after that, plus the city relied more so on ocean going vessels. The role of the steamboat was to mainly get things from New Orleans upriver.
Also, don't forget the title that Houston holds for oil/energy was passed down to them from NOLA only within the last 20-25 years.

New Orleans downfall was political/social (in which white flight my not have been the direct or major cause, but did play part).

[texdav]

I don't know what happeened but I had not been to new orleans since the late 60's. i wnet in the late 90's and was shcioked. The town had really gone downhill and the french quarter actually stunk. Its a shamne becuse parts of teh city are very beautiful. My boirther in alw is from NO and says is always been corrupt but never quite as dirty as it is now.

[jobert]

It's the Mississippi River. The manufacturing base has all but vanished in the midwest, and the lifeblood of all the cities on the river has been shipped overseas. Let's look at the "great" cities on the Miss: St. Louis (crap), Memphis (crap), New orleans (crap). The problem is that we don't make anything in this country anymore. What else is left to entice anyone to live in NOLA? Oh yeah.."quality of life". Good luck getting anyone to relocate there in the 21st century information based world.