Since the first year after the levee failures, many neighborhoods have home made street signs in place of signs missing. The Road Home program has been a complete failure, too. New Orleans is coming back in SPITE of the local, state, and Federal governments. I personally think that many officials are glad the levees failed. This is, to them, the opportunity to purge the city of its criminal element. Don’t believe me? Lakeview, an affluent white neighborhood, had MORE water than the Lower Nine (in some parts and has bounced back quite a bit. On the other hand, the Lower Nine, notoriously known as the “murder capital of the murder capital” before the storm, sits in a state of utter disrepair with a few people working their BUTTS off to make it work anyway.

It’s this way all over town, too.

It is my opinion that Louisiana doesn’t want the New Orleans of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Louisiana wants OLD New Orleans, that is, New Orleans before all the whites moved to Metairie, the North Shore, and the Westbank. And, actually, there are more white people in New Orleans now than there were in 2005 or 2004.

Again, this is all just my humble opinion. I live in the French Quarter which hasn’t changed too much., but I am quite aware of the unique social class system here as well as the racial antipathy. This isn’t to say that “Katrina was planned.” That’s retarded. When the levees broke (the REAL disaster), it was because of a long period of negligence (about 40 years) from the Federal government on the FEDERAL levee system. Since, the flooding from the lake coming into the city, little has been done to preserve or sustain these poorer neighborhoods. Treme, right in the back of the Quarter, now has a significantly larger white population. Still, however, the neighborhood has its second lines, restaurants, and cultural museums.

It is what it is, so if you ever want to move to New Orleans, just go with the flow.