[kittymyrib]

WHAT election? Surely you don't think NO will be rebuilt in time for an election in the next few years. The city is dead. The lucky ones have fled. No sane person in the US will allow billions of tax dollars to put up the human warehouses called "The Projects" again. They should have been razed when St. Louis knocked down Cabrini Green, but of course, since the poor hostages inside provided the votes for Democrat politicians, this cesspool was allowed to produce the citizens who were looting, raping and murdering during this crisis. Rebuild a city half the size to the north of the old one, restore the port, and federalize the Gulf coast area of the old city as wetlands that can never be built on.
Had we only done this in the past, we would not be shamed before the world now and be stuck with billions of dollars of disaster relief.

[Wallace T.]

Most of the New Orleans underclass, if they were not welfare recipients or low level government employees, worked in the hotels and other tourist related businesses. At a minimum, that industry is dead for the foreseeable future. In any case, most of the housing in that city is uninhabitable and will likely be razed. The underclass will likely settle in Baton Rouge, Houston, Memphis, and other places. The middle class faces a similar problem. They have nothing to go back to, for the most part, and will probably do the same as their lower income counterparts. Savings and credit card lines will only go so far, and they will receive less assistance from the Feds. Expect them to land in suburban places like The Woodlands outside of Houston, Plano outside of Dallas, or Cobb County near Atlanta.

Sans New Orleans, Louisiana will become almost as conservative as Mississippi and Alabama. The state will be in the Republican column for the next decade at least on both state and Federal levels. Neither Mayor Nagin nor Governor Blanco have any future in politics.