But other government services are inadequate. Hundreds of refrigerators, filled with rotting food and posing a health hazard, remain uncollected on sidewalks. Electric power has not been restored fully, and many traffic lights do not work. There is no public transportation, and I did not see one taxi during two days in the city.
I stayed at the Soniat, a small French Quarter hotel that reopened the day before I registered. I saw no other guests and sometimes no staff present (I was given a key to let myself into the hotel's front door). Management said all workers lost their homes, and most would have no place to go if they returned.
The expectation here is that New Orleans will downsize to a city of around 250,000. The Lower 9th Ward can only improve. A second gambling casino probably will be added to Harrah's present monopoly, but there will be no replicating Las Vegas. Developer Jimmy Riess, a member of the mayor's commission, calls New Orleans public schools the worst in the country and wants them totally reformed. Educational philanthropist Eli Broad is helping establish a landmark charter school system here.
So many poor black people are expected never to return to New Orleans that the Rev. Jesse Jackson claims a sinister plot by Bush adviser Karl Rove to send African-American voters into "perpetual exile." More than the poor are leaving forever. Ruth's Chris Steakhouse is moving its permanent corporate headquarters to Orlando, Fla., and New Orleans may never again see its Saints football team.
But the real story concerns those who are staying. John Besh, owner of Restaurant August and the hottest young chef in town, has turned down offers from New York and Florida to stay. He sees a New Orleans rebuilt by the people who live here, not by the politicians who make the headlines and hog the television cameras.