As a friend of mine put it after a visit to New Orleans it's the only city that turned its ghetto into a tourist attraction.
New Orleans is very dirty and filled with beggars and vagrants. Frankly I am (was) surprised at how much Convention business they book. Our company has had a couple meetings down there but once you go you really don't want to go back - for business anyways.
That is an interesting observation.
History is filled with examples of what in more recent times has come to be called slumming.
Upper class people visited Manhattan's notorious Five Points section for amusement, and during the 1930's wealthy people would have hobo parties, where they dressed in ragged clothes and drank out of tin cans and jars.
Much of the attraction of NO is likely based on this fascination that the well to do have with the quaint and bawdy amusements of the poor.