Red State Stimulus

The vast grid of streets here in New Orleans, laid out long ago on grassy bottomland near a waterway, remains eerily devoid of houses. Modest bungalows were ripped from their moorings by the foul, murderous floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina three and a half years ago. Eventually, the storm-tossed homes were torn down and carted away. Today, cinderblock foundations dot brush-covered lots like archeological remains. Live oaks line sidewalks upon which no one walks to school, or rides a bike, or runs to the corner store.

This is what you see when you drive east out Claiborne Avenue from downtown New Orleans, out past ramshackle streets named Piety and Desire (the streetcar tracks were paved over long ago), across the Industrial Canal bridge and down into the famously beleaguered and still largely abandoned Lower Ninth Ward.

Yes, there is progress: new homes, on taller concrete stilts and therefore eligible for flood insurance, sprout here and there, like dandelions on a lawn. (A few are gaudy, geometric showpieces with huge solar panels. The locals call them "Brad Pitt Houses," since they were built with the actor's support.) The library is open, as is a citizens' service center and a very few shops.     

Still, if President Obama wants a vivid place in which to dramatize American economic plight as he sells his recovery package, he should come here, to this still-struggling city, and to the Lower Ninth. The president is on the road, visiting hard-hit towns in traditionally Red States. It's a dramatic way to sell his plan—and to remind congressional Republicans that they oppose him at their peril. Well, Louisiana is such a Red state, where Obama had hoped to win last year.

And even though New Orleans is a special case, it is a case that must not be forgotten. Indeed, in the campaign, Obama promised he'd remember. Let's see how well he upholds that vow. And Obama should not forget that George Bush's glaring failure of leadership in the aftermath of Katrina is a chief reason why Obama, who sought to embody calm competence and attention to detail, is president.

Scott Cowen, the dynamic president of Tulane University here, is watching congressional action on the stimulus package closely. Even before Katrina, he had been drawn into various civic concerns, notably public elementary and secondary education. He championed charter schools for the city system, and the changes are making a difference. But the perpetually cash-short city desperately needs what Obama wants—federal money to rebuild crumbling local schools. The Senate cut the measure out. Cowen wants it back in.

As for the city as a whole, Cowen—who has a management background and a degree in economics—says that New Orleans is about "70 percent back." More affluent and higher-ground areas are doing decently; but 30 percent of the "land mass" of the city and parish remain in dire need. Roughly 30 percent of the pre-Katrina population has not come back, he adds. "We still have a long way to go."