Post-Hurricane Katrina: Progress in sight?

This blog was modified from "New Orleans of the Future May Stay at Half Old Size," by Adam Nossiter. The story was originally published in The New York Times on January 21, 2007. Read the full story here.

After Hurricane Katrina, the city of New Orleans was reduced to empty streets, deserted homes, and a population skeptical that their city would return to its prior way of life.

Seventeen months later, the growth of one of the Gulf Coast’s largest cities remains stagnant, and experts still wonder if it will ever achieve a full recovery.

“Where there are high concentrations of poverty, people can’t see a way out,” said William Oakland, a retired economist from Tulane University who has studied the city’s economy for decades. “Maybe the diaspora is a blessing.”

That diaspora has brought dramatic change to the Big Easy. Prestorm, the city’s population stood at 444,000, and was on decline since it’s peak value of 627,525 in 1960. Currently, the population is 191,000, well below half the prestorm total, with little influx of new residents.

“It will be a trickle based on what we know now,” said Elliott Stonecipher, a consultant and demographer based in nearby Shreveport, La. “Low tens of thousands, over three or four or five years, something in that range. I would say we could start losing people, especially if the crime problem doesn’t get high visibility.

But did Katrina spur problems that had never existed before?

Before the hurricane, about 4 out of 10 men of eligible were unemployed or disinterested in attaining one. The unemployment rates among blacks were above 25 percent, with more than half of black men ages 16-24 sitting jobless.

According to Oakland, the Lower Ninth Ward and Central City experienced endemic employment problems, as more than half of working-age people were not looking for jobs.

"The job mobility was very low among the poor, so they just stay where they are, and the social welfare system shored them up,” he said. “It’s not normal to have that level of non participation in the labor force.”

Natural disaster behind, the city’s government continues to struggle in its efforts to revive the population, let alone the city’s working class. Attempts to rebuild hospitals, schools and public housing projects have stalled.

Janet Speyrer, an economist at New Orleans, sees these stalled plans as a sign of further depths for the city. With the combination of these chronic problems and current hurdles, the near 50,000 former city residents who have established themselves elsewhere may be even harder to bring back.

“The longer it lasts, the more likely it is that our population is plateauing, the longer the uncertainty continues,” she said.

For more coverage and information on post-hurricane efforts, visit here:
Recovery Budget - Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour
Katrina Flash Photos - Minnesota Public Radio
Chris Ackerley's Hurricane Witness Diary - BBC News