http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1478335/posts
Some of the Dispossessed Say They Won't Return (sound relieved to get out)
NEW ORLEANS — Displaced residents of this city — especially the poorest blacks, who were hardest hit by the storm — are pondering whether they will try to return to a town the tour guides often missed, one that has suffered decades of crime, corruption and grinding poverty.
... "This city was tough on a lot of them even before the hurricane. A lot of them were already unemployed or had minimum-wage jobs.
..."Family kept us here," Herman Taitt said. "And I love the history of this place. The culture. It's the birthplace of jazz. The food. The parties. You can have a good time here. So we stayed. We allowed ourselves to have a second-class status to Southern white folks."
....."The politicians were crooked, the judges were dirty," she said. "A judge convicted my son for murder and sentenced him to a life sentence, and two months later the judge got convicted."
In 2002, Mayor C. Ray Nagin came to office with a mandate to clean up city corruption and to lift residents out of poverty. ... Nagin ordered the arrests of dozens of city employees on bribery and related charges in the early months of his administration. Several federal corruption investigations were in process when Katrina hit.
In an effort to lower crime, city leaders had set about a controversial plan to replace many public housing projects with single-family homes and businesses. The notorious St. Thomas housing projects, for example, were replaced a few years ago by a Wal-Mart.
Supporters of the program say it is one reason crime had, in fact, been somewhat reduced in New Orleans. Detractors said it would displace black project residents, many of whom went to live in the eastern part of the city, one of the areas hit hardest by the flood.
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Oh when the saints... go marching in... I WANNA BE AS FAR FROM NEW ORLEANS AS POSSIBLE
I live in Lansing. Blah food. No great music or nightlife scene. A good time is pretty tame--frisbee golf, maybe, as opposed to showing one's mammaries from a balcony. I guess it all comes down to priorities.