NO was sort of like Venezuela. The middle class was very thin. And there was very little of the disinterested civic culture down there. You grabbed all you could for your family and clan. The Yankee Protestant ethos was thinner here on the ground than any place else in America, or its cultural derivatives, and just didn't influence the place much at all. But frankly I don't know why blacks in NO were less integrated into the market economy than in other metros areas. I don't pretend to be an expert. All I know is that the black income here was way below the black income in other metro areas, while the white income reflected national norms or above. The white per capita income was 31K, the black 10K. I doubt there is any wider gap in the nation. Class and race were almost synonyms down there. Thank heavens that is no longer true of the nation as a whole.
This goes alot toward explaining why blacks are seen as the "problem minority" by many whites in the Norteast and Upper Midwest, while "Mexicans" are seen as the "problem minority" by whites in California and Arizona.
Good point. It's easy to dislike Yankee Protestant do-gooders, and "good government" civic reformers. But every now and then cities do need people like that to clean things up. After a while, they overstep the limits and get thrown out themselves, but without them corruption and complacency can become an accepted way of life.
Philadelphians have complained about the same problem. Local elites, perhaps influenced by Quaker quietism, stayed out of government and let first the bosses, then the demagogues run things. That meant more corruption, less community, and a tendency to lag behind other comparable cities.
That's one reason why we have a two party system -- to clean up the messes that accumulate over time. Even the sort of people that are real pains, can perform a valuable function once a generation or so.