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September 7, 2005
New Orleans' future
Even as the rescue efforts continue, part of the debate has turned to the question of the future vision of New Orleans. Speaker Hastert has already gotten himself in hot water for suggesting that the city not be rebuilt. As one wag responded, "you mean like we didn't rebuild Chicago after the fire?"
The newest entry into the debate on the future vision for the city is urbanologist Joel Kotkin with a piece in the LA Times, A NEW New Orleans. Unfortunately, Kotkin can't resist using this as an opportunity to continue his anti-"creative class" jihad:
Sadly, even before Hurricane Katrina's devastation, local leaders seemed convinced that being a "port of cool" should be the city's policy. Adopting a page from Richard Florida's "creative class" theory, city leaders held a conference just a month before the disaster promoting a cultural strategy as the primary way to bring in high-end industry.
This would be the easy, bankable way to go now: Reconstruct the French Quarter, Garden District and other historic areas while sprucing up the convention center and other tourist facilities. This, however, would squander a greater opportunity. A tourism-based economy is no way to generate a broadly successful economy.
. . .
Look a few hundred miles to the west, at Houston - a well-run city with a widely diversified economy. Without much in the way of old culture, charm or tradition, it has far outshone New Orleans as a beacon for enterprising migrants from other countries as well as other parts of the United States - including New Orleans.
Houston has succeeded by sticking to the basics, by focusing on the practical aspects of urbanism rather than the glamorous. Under the inspired leadership of former Mayor Bob Lanier and the current chief executive, Bill White, the city has invested heavily in port facilities, drainage, sanitation, freeways and other infrastructure.
At least in part as a result of this investment, this superficially less-than-lovely city has managed to siphon industries - including energy and international trade - from New Orleans. With its massive Texas Medical Center, it has emerged as the primary healthcare center in the Caribbean basin - something New Orleans, with Tulane University's well-regarded medical school, should have been able to pull off.
So, New Orleans should not pursue the "creative economy" but become a biomedical center. Well - guess what -- medical research is part of Florida's creative economy.
Kotkin also exaggerates the loss (if that is possible): "Even a rebuilt, reconfigured Latin Quarter would no doubt seem more Anaheim than anti-bellum." Wrong -- from what I have been told by my contacts with property in the French Quarter is that the anti-bellum core is still very much in place.
I agree with part of Kotkin's message -- if New Orleans only focuses on rebuilding its tourism industry, it will lose an opportunity to rebuild "a city with a thriving economy, a city of aspiration as well as memory." But New Orleans' cultural core is part of its jurisdictional advantage. To ignore that would be folly.
Why oh why does Kotkin insist at every turn in trying to create an either/or -- either you have good infrastructure or you have a "cool city". In this case, he paints a picture of those who want to rebuild the city as a museum versus the sensible types (like him) who want to put money into flood control. Moving beyond the rhetoric, it is clear that both rebuilding the cultural core and upgrading the infrastructure (including flood control) are necessary. The creative economy is built on good infrastructure.
I wish Joel would get over his anti-Florida kick. It takes away from his very important insights on how cities should be run.
Now -- for a different take on the future of New Orleans (and an important discussion of the industrial side), see
see Brad Setser's Web Log on the global economy - specifically his post on "Those Louisiana ports, once again":
A city will rise up again in Southern Louisiana; it just may be a smaller city, one shorn of the tourist trade and entirely based around the hard work of a bulk port and servicing the region's energy infrastructure.
I disagree that the tourist trade will disappear. But clearly the geography of the site continues to work in New Orleans’ favor as a transportation hub.
It remains to be seen whether they can go beyond the industrial vision for the city to build upon their other intangible (and creative) assets.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at September 7, 2005 9:20 AM
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Comments
The exodus begins: Ruth's Chris Steak House will more its corporate headquarters out of New Orleans. They hope to rebuild the original restaurant, which was "a New Orleans institution that sizzled over the last four decades not just as a tourist favorite but also as a popular hangout for the city's power brokers."
Posted by: Ken Jarboe at September 9, 2005 12:53 PM
and continues - see Louisiana Frets About Job Poaching in today's Wall Street Journal
Posted by: Ken Jarboe at September 12, 2005 12:34 PM