update: new orleans

[SheetWise]

Is there any indication that the incompetence of the local leadership has eroded their political base? Is there an impeachment process, and has it been threatened? As an outsider I'd assume that the wealthier residents remaining would force the leadership to start pandering to their demands.

[LittleOldLady]

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Is there any indication that the incompetence of the local leadership has eroded their political base? Is there an impeachment process, and has it been threatened? As an outsider I'd assume that the wealthier residents remaining would force the leadership to start pandering to their demands.

[/ QUOTE ]

The leadership IS pandering to the demands of the wealthy. What the wealthy want is a richer and especially whiter New Orleans. That's what all this NIMBY-ing about the trailers is all about, preventing the housing project and Lower Ninth Ward people from coming back. The council members representing the Quarter, Algiers, and Lakeview are putting the kibosh on the trailers--which is exactly what their constituents want them to do.

The voters of Louisiana are scattered all over the country, and no one has a clue as to where they are except FEMA which refused to provide the addresses to the state for voting purposes until it was forced to yesterday. There is supposed to be a mayoral election in February, but that is not enough time to figure out the practicalities of how to run a fair and legal election under the circumstances. And then there is the problem of local candidates being forced to run a campaign that is national in scope. Right now the storm and subsequent mass relocation have eroded everyone's political base--whose voters get to come back when is very much part of the political agenda.

[SheetWise]

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The leadership IS pandering to the demands of the wealthy. What the wealthy want is a richer and especially whiter New Orleans. That's what all this NIMBY-ing about the trailers is all about, preventing the housing project and Lower Ninth Ward people from coming back.

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That seems like a good thing to me. It seems these people were never productively involved in the economy of the city in the first place. They've been relocated, why in the world would anyone want to make an effort to bring them back? As the OP put it -

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pvn: The public housing residents won't be brought in until later (and apparently many of them have decided not to come back).

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I don't get it. Public housing residents get to choose where they will live, and be returned at someone elses expense? Those that can afford to return will.

[LittleOldLady]

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The leadership IS pandering to the demands of the wealthy. What the wealthy want is a richer and especially whiter New Orleans. That's what all this NIMBY-ing about the trailers is all about, preventing the housing project and Lower Ninth Ward people from coming back.

[/ QUOTE ]
That seems like a good thing to me. It seems these people were never productively involved in the economy of the city in the first place. They've been relocated, why in the world would anyone want to make an effort to bring them back? As the OP put it -

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pvn: The public housing residents won't be brought in until later (and apparently many of them have decided not to come back).

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I don't get it. Public housing residents get to choose where they will live, and be returned at someone elses expense? Those that can afford to return will.

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Until the storm it was customary to send buses round to the projects on election day to bring the residents to the polling places. That was, for example, how bond issues and millage increases got passed. (Public housing and section 8 residents did not pay the increased millages either directly or indirectly; they just voted for them.) The busloads from the public housing projects also formed the voter base of many of our elected officials. Those officials would like to see their voter base return.

Just as some people and their political representatives would like to see a whiter, richer city, others have a vested interest in maintaining a large African-American majority.

It should also be remembered that while the Lower Ninth Ward was the least desirable neighborhood in the city, and it did contain (infamous) housing projects, much of the Lower Ninth Ward consisted of modest homes which had been passed down from generation to generation. These homes were owned and occupied by many of the lower-paid workers on whom New Orleans' service-based economy depended. These people have as much interest in coming home to their properties and rebuilding as the people in the big houses on the lakefront. And the economy as it revives will need their labor.

[sweetjazz]

LOL -- I like your posts.

I agree that there is too much pandering going on to the wealthy people in the city, but at the same time I am somewhat sympathetic to the effort. For one, keeping wealth in the city is a priority, probably more useful than bringing in labor (which is more readily available). And it is easier to help out those who can help themselves already.

So while I don't particularly like it, I understand it to some extent. Hopefully more will be done to help people in the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly, Mid-City, NO East, etc. Everybody will be better off if everyone in the city is given a chance to succeed. The way to have an affluent and low crime New Orleans is to give everyone who ends up in New Orleans the opportunity to succeed.

[SheetWise]

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The busloads from the public housing projects also formed the voter base of many of our elected officials. Those officials would like to see their voter base return.


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Reason enough to thwart their plans.

[tylerdurden]

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Is there any indication that the incompetence of the local leadership has eroded their political base? Is there an impeachment process, and has it been threatened? As an outsider I'd assume that the wealthier residents remaining would force the leadership to start pandering to their demands.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's pandering and there is plenty of "base erosion". There are elections coming up in february, and there's lots of discussion as to whether they should be postponed because of the widespread diaspora on the one hand, and the need to clean house as soon as possible on the other (another related question I haven't seen addressed is how you differentiate between people that have temporarily relocated and plan on coming back vs. people that have permanently relocated and don't want to come back (but still might have an interest in voting)).