THE AVENUE FEBRUARY 9, 2010
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
The Saints’ victory celebration continues today as Coach Sean Payton, Drew Brees, and his teammates get feted at the Saints Super Bowl parade in New Orleans. The Saints’ remarkable win Sunday has literally served as New Orleanians’ proud cry to the nation: We are back!
But, did you know that last Saturday they also elected a new mayor?
Lost in all of the euphoria is another pivotal moment for the city. Mitch Landrieu, the state’s lieutenant governor, won the mayoral seat in a landslide, capturing the support of two-thirds of the city’s voters, thus avoiding a run-off among five other candidates. He won all but one of the city’s precincts and attracted the vast majority of the city’s black voters. Landrieu will serve as the New Orleans’ first white mayor since his father held the perch 36 years ago.
Perhaps some of the recent jubilation (or bead throwing) comes from the sheer relief that the Nagin era is over. Yet just because Nagin has set the bar so low doesn’t mean that Landrieu doesn’t have the job cut out for him.
The mayor-elect confronts two major tasks when he assumes office in May.
First, Landrieu will need to restore confidence in city government and city services. Like all new mayors, he must get “the basics” right, such as providing quality schools, safe streets, and the efficient delivery of public services. Without these, businesses and families will choose to locate elsewhere and, in New Orleans, patience for such basic functions is wearing thin. To his credit, Landrieu has already signaled that reducing violent crime and restoring public safety will be one of his first priorities in office.
Second, Landrieu will need to unify the city around a common, forward-learning vision and action agenda for New Orleans that goes beyond disaster recovery and puts the city and region on a path to long-term prosperity.
At the core, the city’s ultimate turnaround rests less on how many school roofs have finally been fixed or how many water and sewer lines have been repaired since Katrina. Instead, Landrieu must make sure that all of the tireless rebuilding efforts, hundreds of citizen meetings, and billions of investments over the last five years are truly moving New Orleans toward a future that is more promising than it was before the storm. This means building a more diverse, export-oriented, and innovation-fueled economy with good-paying jobs (beyond the rebuilding-related industries that are bootstrapping its economy now). It means improving opportunities for lower-income families by providing quality neighborhoods and strong cradle-to-career pathways that do not replicate recent decades of extreme poverty. And he should push for meaningful progress on coastal protection and restoration so that families and businesses can reside safely and sustainably in greater New Orleans for generations to come.
These are difficult goals and they need to be matched with practical strategies and outcomes. Further, Landrieu cannot achieve these goals alone. To be effective, he must harness the energies of citizen and civic groups, leverage the goodwill of private and philanthropic partners, and build bridges with federal, state and local governments, including his own city council and neighboring parish leaders.
In conversations prior to the election, I heard Landrieu supporters argue that he “gets” what the job is, and he has the skills and experience to build such critical partnerships.
Let’s hope he proves them right. When Saints fever fades, all eyes will be on Landrieu to channel all that overflowing New Orleans pride and fully demonstrate that, indeed, the Big Easy is back.
4 comments
damn right people should relocate elsewhere and not rebuild in flood prone areas. What kind of nitwit builds a city below sea level, cuts down forests that protect against erosion (like they are really going to restore the area to what it was before), all during the time of rising sea levels world wide?
- blackton
February 10, 2010 at 11:58am
I guess the same could be said for all those sad-sack nitwits living in Mexico City. I mean what kind of nitwit builds a city on a drained lakebed prone to flooding, seismic activity and years of corrupt politics all the while wiping out an entire indigenous population and razing a civilization to the ground.
- singlspeed
February 10, 2010 at 6:20pm
singlspeed, granted, people have to live somewhere, but I have always been bothered how wealthy people living on barrier islands keep getting bailed out every time there is a hurricane. I used to live in North Caldwell NJ (the town where Tony Soprano "lived") and below where I lived was the Passaic river and I used to take River road to get to 46, periodically it flooded out and I had to go around. This was fine, except for all the people who lived on River road, and when the state proposed buying them out (or the country I don't remember) they raised a huge cry, so periodically it got flooded out and periodically the state stepped in to assist them. I am not saying New Orleans should be abandoned, but that they shouldn't rebuild in flood plains. Make some parks there.
- blackton
February 10, 2010 at 7:01pm
blackton, I agree with your points about not rebuilding in flood plains. In fact, after Katrina, New Orleans went through 4 or 5 master plans about whether or not areas would be rebuilt and re-inhabited. Needless to say, that some areas that have been historically occupied, like the Ninth Ward, the city agreed to let people back to rebuild. It was difficult to argue against peoples' rights to return to their homes. Even if the city had already razed them. Ninth Ward was scraped flat by the city. I'm living here in New Orleans now and working on reconstruction projects that the city has taken a while to get off the ground: schools, libraries, etc. in neighborhoods that were damaged but not necessarily completely flooded out. That these projects are necessary to make the city livable again is important even if I think they won't be there for 100 years from now. There are many people in the city that question the rebuilding in some of the neighborhoods that received 8 feet of flood water and at the same time accept the realities of rebuilding and restoring the city again. The city finds itself at an important point in its history. Whether to proceed with the status quo or rethinking what it should do for the future. This means sustainable building practices, flood and hurricane resistant construction, smarter planning practices, and all the things that have been neglected because of ineptness, cronyism, corruption or "deferred maintenance." Neighborhoods like Mid City, Lakeview, East New Orleans, Ninth Ward, etc. suffered heavy flood losses and some will never fully recover. Which is fine. A contraction of the city core would probably be the best thing. With vacant lots reverting to gardens, parks and stormwater retention areas, New Orleans could become a true garden city that finds what balance it can have. As my adopted city for the next several years, I know a lot of smart people moving here to take chances, question what came before, and to rebuild back better. I have my doubts about the city but I also see a lot of potential for it to be a great place for the remainder of its time. Perhaps it will have to slowly transform into the Venice of the Gulf before it completely disappears under the rising waters. I guess that's what happens when you're below sea level. New Orleans' most difficult challenge is balancing the history and culture of what was, with the residents' needs and desires that are required of a 21st century city. New Orleans reflects the very irrational nature of human beings to build in places that really should never have been built in.
- singlspeed
February 11, 2010 at 4:12pm