Murder

Same old story. No matter what else is said, I don't see a successful recovery of New Orleans taking place without addressing the crime issue. I have more confidence in the Corps of Enginners levees than I do in New Olreans criminal justice system.

You can build a city on top of a fault line, have it destroyed by an earthquake,and people will be standing in line to invest in rebuilding San Francisco. Same is true of South Florida after a hurricane. The problem with New Orleans is a significant percentage of its residents, which were on dispaly after Katrina, and were begged to return by the city's leaders. The crime problem constantly reminds everyone of the huge, useless underclass that controls much of the city's future, and scares away all investors.

It is little comfort to be reminded most of the vitims are criminals because that is largely accomplished by the rest of the city running around scared and having to be "on guard" all the time. Then, if someone breaks into your car to steal a camera left in the back seat, it is probably not even reported because it is useless, and the victim blames himself for "tempting" the criminal. If you get away from that type of environment for a awhile, you start to realize it isn't "normal" or "just like any city," and get use to going to an ATM without looking over your shoulder the whole time, not worrying about where you park, walking in the dark, or other similar daily events.

It is one thing to count on inertia to keep residents in the city despite its problems, but that same inertia works against rebuilding once the good citizens have left. To attract people, if anything, New Orleans needs to be better city than it was before, not worse.
A murder rate of 200 people for just over 200,000 residents is off the chart and reflects a city plagued with crime and all the problems that go with it. Mnay of the leaders appear to be criminals themselves, and, at the very least, don't even take a stance against the other indicted leaders for criminal behavior. Not exactly the "tone" to set for cleaning the city up.