Deck is stacked against blacks returning to New Orleans (WaPo)

[kpete]

The WaPo has an exceptional piece in today's paper regarding the challenges facing New Orleans in the rebuilding, and the daunting issues facing those residents who are considering whether or not to return.


http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

As they see it, the deck is stacked against blacks returning to New Orleans.

"Your upper-class white neighborhoods are first in line and we are very last," said Kesa, who works in Atlanta as an accountant.

While she and her husband insist they are not going home, the family histories of most of New Orleans's black exiles suggest that ties of blood, time and culture will draw many back.

"This is one of the most rooted black populations in the United States," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan. Nearly nine out of 10 blacks in New Orleans were born in Louisiana, according to Frey's analysis of census figures. He said that nearly all of them have family ties to the city that reach back several generations.

"I think these people in exile will hold out, hoping to return, longer than residents of any other city might," said Frey, adding, though, that there are limits. "Once they get a year down the road, and they still can't come back, I would say the chances of return fall sharply."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122701125.html