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Ten percent of the population lives in 10 housing projects, most of them squalid, low-rise slums so dangerous the police avoid them when they can. Though the wait for housing is months long, hundreds of units stand empty, many awaiting renovations. An equal eyesore is thousands of abandoned houses -- 37,000 by one estimate -- that stand boarded up or forsaken by landlords in the face of advancing crime and poverty. City services ranging from park programs and tree trimming to libraries have been cut.
Gambling's boosters, foremost among them Edwin Edwards, the state's high- rolling Governor, see salvation in plans to build the world's largest casino in the city's downtown. New Orleans officials were so desperate for revenues that before the deal was signed they penned $29 million in projected gaming revenues into their new budget. But a lawsuit threatens to delay the project.
Crime is the top issue in the March 5 mayoralty runoff that pits Donald Mintz, a lawyer and civic activist, against Marc Morial, a state senator and son of the late Dutch Morial, the city's first black mayor. The incumbent Sidney Barthelemy cannot seek a third term. Both candidates vow to put more cops on the street, but the issues have been obscured by a mudslinging barrage.
The political theater is familiar to New Orleans, but it seems only to heighten public cynicism. Observes Xavier University sociologist Silas Lee: "We've taken a Mardi Gras approach for too long, covering up all the problems with costumes. But we were dying on the inside." That can change, others say, if New Orleans draws on its inner grit and bonhomie. "It has things going for it that others don't," says Renwick. "Who would want to eat in Atlanta compared to New Orleans anyway?" In times like these, a little civic chauvinism should be forgiven.