Progress For New Orleans

One of the things I have found missing from the post-Katrina recovery landscape is a unified media message about the importance of rebuilding and a sense that our efforts are being cheered on by our fellow citizens. I always thought that the World War II US propaganda poster was a good model for creating both a unified message and crafting a consensus. Some would be cautionary, others would exhort citizens to productive measures and still others would be of a celebratory or mission defining nature.

So, I started creating posters. They were on the previous incarnation of this website, and while some of them are clearly post-storm in their focus others tackle larger issues. Some of the issues of the previous posters have been settled for the most part.   Eventually, I’d like to get together a budget to produce these and bring them to the city.

We could have used this whole experience to fundamentally remake the city into one that provides opportunity for its citizens and perhaps create a new prosperous city. We could have used this to create a new New Orleans based upon economic opportunity but instead we are continuing to pursue the same methods that have led to our stagnation and decline.

Economic development sections put low wage tourism first and follows it with the dubious concept of the “cultural economy”. The rest of the chapter seems to be focused almost exclusively on the ‘public private” partnership. It almost ignores our place in the global economy and the benefits that has brought us over the course of our existence.

And all of this is premised upon a dubious new theory that contradicts millennia of observation on the growth and prosperity of cities. The planners brought to the table the idea that a diverse and cosmopolitan population will drive economic development instead of what has actually been the case since the dawn of civilization, that economic development will bring a diverse and cosmopolitan population. We didn’t get built on this swamp because our forefathers came for the culture, they were the culture, they came for the economic opportunity and that’s how real, vibrant cities maintain themselves.  We can’t pretend we can pay people to BE the culture, we have to recognize that we have a culture because people got paid doing other, more productive things.

The one thing this master plan desperately needed to do was to sweep away the 70s CZO that zoned our neighborhood businesses out of existence. The empty storefronts that dot our city are the legacy of a previous plan, more suited to Slidell, that painted on zoning with a paint roller rather than recognizing the diverse land-use mosaic that is our streetscape. This plan pays lip service to opening up these locations to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit of the city but it should be boldly declaring that these storefronts can be a force in our economic renaissance.

But of course they are being cautious, lest they upset the forces of NO, that are holding this city back economically because it may, possibly, make their lives the slightest bit less comfortable or not cater exclusively to their needs. Well, we have a whole passel of city ordinances to deal with any disturbances and better we use them than foreswearing commercial uses and leaving our city filled with vacant buildings.

In a city that is going broke, the Planning Commission gave themselves another 14 or so district planners. Instead of eliminating the need to “kiss rings”, the so-called Citizen Participation Plan adds another layer of rings to kiss as they empower the most obstructionist elements of our city to stand in the way of new development or request kickbacks from projects.

We have already seen this play out as a neighborhood association already requested a cut of the operating funds of the ill-conceived “Re-inventing the crescent”. Not only unhappy with getting a park that will further erode New Orleans’ raison d’etre they wanted to be paid. And this is a public project. How many developers looking to bring jobs and sales tax revenue will be similarly held up?

The plan is overly protective of the housing for 650,000 plus people that we don’t need and hostile towards the commercial property that we desperately need for the jobs and the sales tax revenue they produce. It has removed most commercial zoning west of the industrial canal unless it is adjacent to a housing project.

There seems to be notion in this town that we can complain about section 8 housing and property taxes and in the same breath stop the businesses that bring jobs and sales tax revenue as if these two aren’t linked. That we can call for more police and better schools without understanding how more and better employment opportunities help both these situations.

At a time when we are struggling to maintain and grow our population we should be making it EASIER for people to rebuild and businesses to open. But instead of a growth plan, this thing focuses on a preservation plan.  But here is the bottom line, without a robust economy there are no resources to preserve anything and without a prosperous population there is no reason to preserve anything.

Throughout the process there have been calls for “input” but when it comes to the actual plan it seems to stick pretty closely to the desire of special interest groups with their obstructionist agenda. So much so, that the Fairgrounds Racetrack isn’t mapped to be commercial, like it should be, but is mapped for doubles, like we need

yet more housing without jobs.

Additionally, have we told the people of Lakeview that a new massive interstate interchange is coming to their

neighborhood or the people of New Orleans East that we don’t really care if they can get to work downtown or the people of the Treme that Claiborne is probably going to be 8 lanes of traffic at highway speeds, if we keep the destruction of I-10 in the plan. The only thing that works in the plan is the new hospitals, which it gives rather tepid support to.

My wish? Send it back to the City Planning Commission with the notation to make the entire plan advisory only. Take the destruction of the I-10 out of the plan. Open up the “Citizens Participation” Groups to all comers and not just members of unelected neighborhood associations. Short of going back to the drawing board to build a plan that embraces progress and puts economic development first, without the fantasy that either preservation or culture is economic development, a plan that opens up the city for development and redevelopment rather than giving into the forces of NO and their desire to hold the city back. We needed to start with the idea that everything not explicitly forbidden is allowed,

rather than the other way around. We need to find ways to say YES. It is the only way for New Orleans to survive and thrive.  Thank you.

The small airport satisfaction  rankings are out and it is no surprise that Louis Armstrong New Orleans International is near the bottom of the list.  You can check them out here. ( http://www.jdpower.com/travel/ratings/airport-ratings/small/sortcolumn-1/ascending/page-#page-anchor ) The only airport with lower ratings is San Jose (SJC), which lacks jetways for half its concourses and reminded me of a used plane sales lot the last time I flew through it.

The issues with Armstrong are fairly evident to anyone who has ever flown through it. It is inconsistent across the concourses with some very modern and well designed (C & D) and others horribly dated (B). The baggage claim for the majority of carriers is in need of significant updating. The passenger pickup area is a dirty and dank cave. The food is generally bad and the kiosks providing most food and drink have inconsistent quality and service and hours that don’t meet the needs of all the travelers particularly those leaving very early or arriving late.

The current Louis Armstrong International Airport (MSY) is an outdated airport. It needs to be updated to remain viable. Expansion would be difficult due to jurisdictional conflicts between the City of New Orleans, City of Kenner, Jefferson Parish and St. Charles Parish.

There has been talk for decades about building a new airport to either compliment or supplant MSY, in New Orleans East or between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

I’d like to take this opportunity to suggest another option.

Revamp Lakefront Airport as a new international airport.

With the airport designation NEW, New Orleans Lakefront Airport is an overlooked asset for the city. And since the creation of a new airport is a time consuming and arduous process, we should focus on revamping Lakefront and expanding it to handle international service.   Give incentives to international carriers to come into the market by giving them breaks on landing fees.

An aerial view of NEW, Lakefront Aiport

It’s location on a man-made peninsula on Lake Pontchartrain means that it could be expanded without using  already occupied land. With a new connector road in the corridor between Downman road and the Industrial Canal the airport would be minutes from downtown. It’s position next to the Industrial Canal and with a major rail link backing up to the property makes it a natural for inter-modal transportation opportunities.

Then we could move most of the national carriers that also handle international flights (Continental, Delta, American, United, etc) to the new airport, leaving MSY to handle carriers that don’t have international flights (Southwest, JetBlue, etc)   This is a model used successfully by cities like Houston (Hobby and IAH), Washington (DCA and IAD), Dallas (Love and DFW) and the Bay Area (SFO and Oakland) to grow their airlinks.  Build the New Airport with expanded cargo facilities and make a significant attempt to lure cargo flights from Miami, Memphis, Atlanta and Dallas. It’s position next to the Industrial Canal and with a major rail link backing up to the property makes it a natural for inter-modal transportation opportunities. Connect the new airport to rail lines that run directly to the port facilities.

This new airport and an expanded list of direct air connections are essential for the goal of being involved with the business of international trade and would also enhance our ability to attract both visitors and new businesses.

Revamping Lakefront Airport (NEW) as the new New Orleans International Airport positions our city to truly take advantage of our geographic location and enhance our position as Gateway to the Americas.  And the world.

This is just a set, in concise form, of many of the themes, backgrounds, motifs and issues that are going to be central to this forum going forward. I expect that these will change over the course of writing in more detail. And who knows, my mind may change on some of these in the future. But now, just now, these are some of the more important points I’ll be working on with posts here.

- The River. The reason New Orleans is here, the reason our city was built here, and the reason we are still important to the rest of the country is due, primarily, to the river. Forget this and you will suffer for it.

- International Trade. We built a lot of things and grew when trade was central to our life in New Orleans. We began to ignore it and we began our decline.

- Tradition may or may not be a problem. Insularity almost always is.

- Romanticizing New Orleans and thinking that it is so “unique” that it doesn’t need to participate in the U.S. or world economy is one of the most damaging things you can do to the city. The people of New Orleans make it unique and if the people can’t sustain themselves then New Orleans dies as they leave for economic opportunity elsewhere.

- If you think national retail chains and large scale business are somehow incompatible with New Orleans, you haven’t been here long enough.

- Those who complain that they don’t want New Orleans to be like “Houston or Atlanta”  don’t seem to realize 1) Both those cities started out trying to be like New Orleans (in terms of economic primacy) and 2) that a lack of opportunity for our citizens will have them moving to places like Houston or Atlanta.

- Historic preservation is fine in small doses and when completely voluntary. When it becomes compulsory and preservationists become strident it becomes stifling.

- The combination of strident preservationists and an insular ruling class combine to be like a bad jealous lover for the city of New Orleans. They don’t want you to change and they don’t want you to meet anyone new.

- I will struggle to remember that you can get into a lot of trouble speaking in metaphors and similes in New Orleans.

- Neighborhood Organizations can be a double edged sword in a community, providing a method for disseminating crucial information and being a catalyst for positive neighborhood projects but oftentimes being resistant to change, a self appointed cadre of the NIMBY-minded with a reflexive NO towards most new development.

- Basic code enforcement, or rather the lack of it, is impacting economic development.

- In New Orleans, oftentimes, something is restricted so that you can have the privilege of paying to do it or have it done. More regulations generally just mean more opportunity for corruption.

- Almost every new development that has been built in the city in the past 50 years has had a positive impact on the areas around them. In the cases where you think they haven’t you need to perhaps look closer at what is causing the decline.

- Concentrating poverty has failed miserably.

- And to paraphrase Ernie K-Doe. “When you got your money in your pocket, that’s your money.”  That pretty well underscores how important individual economic opportunity is and why we should do the things we need to do to make sure that we build a prosperous city.

So… these are it… mostly, in a couple of bullet points what we will be talking about here.