Balloon Festival in Albuquerque; French Quarter, New Orleans
Sometimes you don't really know a place until you leave it.
And leave New Orleans I did.
I spent my 4th of July "weekend" in what seems a virtual opposite of New Orleans today, despite sharing a variety of similarities. Albuquerque--my destination--and New Orleans are both cities with deep roots in history, with a well-preserved Old Town and French Quarter, respectively, keeping the traditions rich, colorful, and alive. Catholicism plays a role in both cities, though far moreso in New Orleans. Both are diverse cities with traditional race relations turning a new page with growing immigrant communities. Both are ridiculously hot in July.
But for every gutted house and FEMA trailer in New Orleans, there is a brand new, trendy housing development or office building going up in Albuquerque. While New Orleans' death rate skyrockets, Albuquerque's quality of life gets accolades from publications. Just this past year, Forbes ranked the city as the best in the country for business, with good scores across the board and the lowest cost of business in the country. High tech companies like Intel, and smaller boutique firms doing everything from genetics work to the first mainstream production of electric cars, to private jet design.
Even the landscapes are vastly different: where New Orleans is hugged by a mighty river, Albuquerque is built in the foothills of a gigantic mountain. And sometimes, it's the smallest of touches that make all the difference: where New Orleans roads are full of gigantic pot holes, complex mazes of one way streets, and parked cars on every curb, the usually boring-but-efficient interstate in Albuquerque has Native American artwork lining rocky median (there's not much grass around), stone lane dividers painted in an adobe and blue scheme to mimic the desert and the sky, and roads smooth as fresh butter.
Moonrise over Albuquerque and Sandia Mountain
I say this not to make New Orleans sound bad. It isn't. But it does highlight the tremendous challenges that lay ahead of this city, and what it needs to revitalize. Housing is certainly a big part of the puzzle. But in order to catalyze the renewal of New Orleans, better efforts must be made to attract business. Not many companies were attracted to the city before Katrina. It had little competitive advantage over other cities, and a variety of negatives (including a struggling public school system) that put it behind the rest of the pack.
But with the influx of federal money being pumped into this area (albeit mired in federal, state, and local bureaucracy), there is certainly money that can be spent on economic revitalization. Many local businesses, boutiques, and restaurants have re-opened, which is a beautiful sight to both a native New Orleanian and a free-market capitalist alike. But New Orleans could certainly take a page from Albuquerque's book to attract big businesses, which could give jobs to many, attract thousands to return home to New Orleans, and pump millions of dollars into the local economy. Tax holidays, fee and permit waivers, incentive programs, and selective land-grants could all work together to make New Orleans better than ever.
Like ABQ (an abbreviation people of all ages use, unlike ATL), New Orleans is a city without a tremendous amount of endemic resources that would attract business. Combine that with the disastrous effects of Katrina, and the comparisons to a developing country/economy are all the more apt. And just as post-colonial Latin America reacted to its export pessimism with the development of ISI strategy, so too could New Orleans help develop its "domestic" (local) economy through its specific policies. While this temporarily limits free-trade, it ultimately generates far more income mobility (if not equality), and an overall stronger economy with more jobs.
Central Business District during Katrina Flooding
A big hurdle to this is poultry. But instead of a chicken and an egg and an existential quandary regarding their temporal relation, theres about a thousand chickens and a thousand eggs, no one knows who came first, no one knows which egg belongs to whom (perhaps the other way around), and the resources with which to figure out this dilemma are available, but hoarded by a fat, slow farmer with whom everyone is frustrated, even the normally docile, mute eggs who have no means with which to even feel frustrated, but are frustrated no less.
Housing. Jobs. Schools. Infrastructure. City government. Environmental issues. Planning for the next hurricane. Crime. Clean up. Restoration. Revitalization.
You get the idea. But what comes first?
Developing affordable housing for New Orleans.
Despite my desire to use economics and the marketplace to restore New Orleans, I'm glad I'm doing housing development. Sure, it's part of the same puzzle, a feather on the chicken. But given all that coming home means to the people of this city--the people of any city--it's perhaps one of the most important steps in the whole process. Homes, porches, and evening conversations in the sunset wake all mean a lot to this place. Getting back to work and putting kids through school are no doubt hugely important, but having four walls and a roof make all the rest much easier.
Jackson Square and Saint Louis Cathedral, New Orleans
I thought I knew New Orleans pretty well in my month here. And I was amazed at the progress the city itself had made. Granted, Gentilly and Lakeview are still in shambles, and some areas of the Ninth Ward are in complete ruin. Those are enormous issues. But the flavor of the city, the jambalya mix of sweat, sin, and jazz that dances in the thick bayou air like smoke from a late-night cigarette, is already filling the lungs of New Orleanians throughout the city. I thought I had caught a whiff of it in my time here.
And maybe I did.
But leaving the city and seeing the progress other areas have made, and are still making, really throws into sharp relief the challenges facing New Orleans, the challenges everyone talks about but perhaps few actually have a real feel for, let alone solutions.
It is my hope, however, that come August, when we're moving out of our rooms and trekking back to our comfortable homes throughout the country and the world, that we'll leave with more answers than questions, with more solutions than problems, and with more conviction than hope.
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