The NYTimes on the Rebuilding of New Orleans

From the NY Times:

"Like a half-completed drawing in a child’s coloring book, the picture is starting to fill in. There are shadows and firmer outlines, a few promising, some of them menacing.

New Orleans will almost certainly be smaller than it was. Repopulation has slowed to a trickle, leaving the city with well under half its prestorm population of 460,000. It will probably have fewer poor people; its housing projects remain essentially closed, and many poorer neighborhoods are still devastated. With inexpensive housing scarce and not being built, partly because of the paralysis in recovery planning, it is easier for the middle class than the poor to return."

And Later:

"Neighborhoods ruined now will probably shrivel further, planning experts say. The Lower Ninth Ward, still a barren wasteland, is unlikely to be rebuilt anytime soon, if at all. Gentilly, a classic 1920’s and 30’s New Orleans neighborhood of Arts and Crafts-style stucco houses with wide overhanging eaves, is coming back only fitfully, with a few trailers visible in front yards of once-flooded houses."