“Which is largely what has happened - and why BR now has a larger population than NO, which is nowhere CLOSE to where it was pre-Katrina pop.-wise.”
The city of Baton Rouge has a population of 229,553 as of the 2010 census
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Rouge,_Louisiana
The Census Bureau in July 2006 estimated the population of New Orleans to be 223,000; a subsequent study estimated that 32,000 additional residents had moved to the city as of March 2007, bringing the estimated population to 255,000, approximately 56% of the pre-Katrina population level.
Another estimate, based on data on utility usage from July 2007, estimated the population to be approximately 274,000 or 60% of the pre-Katrina population. These estimates are somewhat smaller than a third estimate, based on mail delivery records, from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center in June 2007, which indicated that the city had regained approximately two-thirds of its pre-Katrina population.[35]
In 2008, the Census Bureau revised upward its population estimate for the city, to 336,644.[36]
Most recently, 2010 estimates show that neighborhoods that did not flood are near 100% of their pre-Katrina populations, and in some cases, exceed 100% of their pre-Katrina populations.[37]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans
Census Population Counts
February 3, 2011
Total population counts by parish for the New Orleans Metro (1980–2010)
http://www.gnocdc.org/census_pop_counts.html
Note: New Orleans proper is Orleans parish-
Population 343,829
Of which about 30,000 are LSU students.
http://www.businessreport.com/news/2011/feb/21/good-bad-and-ugly-gnit1/
http://www.businessreport.com/news/2011/mar/08/how-baton-rouge-measures-edvl1/
A very different perspective..guess we’ll have to go with what we see ourselves and/or the research sources that we believe most.