Smaller New Orleans After Katrina, Census Shows

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

NEW ORLEANS — When Hurricane Katrina hit and the murky waters rushed through levee breaches, even the facts were drowned.

Official documents were destroyed, years of photographs were ruined, and a city’s ability to know itself was lost. Answers to basic questions like how many people lived here, where they lived and who they were could not be easily answered.

Now there finally are some numbers, and they show that the city is 29 percent smaller than a decade ago.

The Census Bureau reported on Thursday that 343,829 people were living in the city of New Orleans on April 1, 2010, four years and seven months after it was virtually emptied by the floodwaters that followed the hurricane.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/us/04census.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[DonCoquixote]

1. This is BY DESIGN

Because the real red blue divide is in Cities. Even in "red" states like texas, the cities are mostly blue. This was an attempt to destroy a great liberal city of the South.

[denem]

2. Airlift the French quarter to a museum,

bulldoze the rest. NOLA is not environmentally sustainable to say the least.

[Ex Lurker]

3. Actually, any part of NOLA that was settled before the late 19th century

is above sea level and didn't flood. This includes Uptown and the Garden District among other neighborhoods. You're right that some areas should be allowed to revert back to wetlands. But New Orleans can and should be a viable city.

BTW, the vast majority of people who left didn't go far. The North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain is the fastest growing area of the country. That, along with Baton Rouge, is where most of the expats went.

[saras]

6. Cities in general are not sustainable

Why discriminate against New Orleans? Why not all of them?

[HereSince1628]

4. I thought that your were going to write about red-lining

which really does create a division in cities between the mostly european 'haves' and the mostly non european 'have nots.'

I agree that urban areas tend democratic compared to suburbs and rural areas. I also think there is a lot of misplaced resentment toward cities because they seem to capture attention and what appears to be assymetrical public spending between urban and rural. There is really no ideological reason why family farmers and small town business owners should prefer republican politics.

[Gman]

5. They accomplished what they wanted

conservative social engineering at work. Helped make a pre-Katrina blue leaning state to solid red.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. smaller and whiter nt