Bleakness from the Gray Lady
Given the less-than-encouraging events of the past month or so, I hesitate to post this New York Times article about brain-drain in New Orleans, but it’s a real problem–moreso now than before Katrina or even immediately after it. Not many of us want to talk about it, and I don’t know of much that’s been written on the phenomenon lately, at least not in any complex or meaningful way. It’s not for the faint of heart:
As a city in flux, New Orleans remains statistically murky, but demographers generally agree that the population replenishment after the storm, as measured by things like the amount of mail sent and employment in main economic sectors, has leveled off. While many poorer residents have moved back to the city, the “brain drain” of professionals that the city was experiencing before the storm appears to have accelerated.
. . .
In battered but proud New Orleans, abandonment is a highly emotional subject, in part because many have made sacrifices to stay and rebuild. To some, leaving now is tantamount to treason. When a report appeared a year ago that Emeril Lagasse, the famed chef, had said the city would “never come back,” reservations at his restaurants were canceled and strangers berated him. He insisted he had been misquoted.
And in response to an article in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans about a woman who had decided to move on, Poppy Z. Brite, a New Orleans novelist, wrote: “This isn’t an easy place to be right now, and the decision to stay or go is deeply personal. But why must some people use the media to take a parting shot at the city?”
On another occasion, Ms. Brite said, “If a place takes you in and you take it into yourself, you don’t desert it just because it can kill you. There are some things more valuable than life.”
In the end it’s a little vague, a little ambiguous, a little “Here are the facts, now figure it out for yourself, reader”, but then, that’s how it is, right?
This is what happens when the mayor invites reprobates and criminals to return so he can get re-elected. Shameful. “Chocolate City” indeed.
You don’t desert it just because it can kill you? New Orleans is a wonderful idea…but it isn’t worth dying over. No city is worth that.
Ironically, my husband and I are trying to find a way to move there – I’m in dissertation stage and would like to teach high school, if I can make enough to pay student loans. My husband is a environmental scientisit and can get a job in a blink of an eye. I think the “brain drain” is temporary – there are openings for professionals of all types. Once the housing market rebounds and it’s possible to buy a house and get insurance (that’s the major problem I see), the professional/middle class will return.
As a Louisiana native, I can say from experience the brain drain has been going on for 250 years. We left as soon as we were through with college, but have been trying to get back ever since. If there were incentive programs for college grads to stay in state, especially in the education and medical fields, more people would stay. But if you start at $34K as an eleemtary teacher in Augusta, Georgia, why the hell would you stay in Monroe for $23K? (those two have comparabale costs of living and demographics) A break on student loans after teaching or working at Charity would be a fabulous start. But maybe that’s my Pollyana-rose-colored glasses personality talking outloud again.
A.
I think your sentiments are laudable, Ann, and your assessment is fair and balanced. Of course the living conditions will improve, and of course New Orleans is going to get through all this crap; sometimes, though, it’s hard to remember that….
The couple was living in an area they knew wasn’t exactly the safest part of town to begin with–north of St. Claude in the Ninth Ward? So you go from there to New Hampshire? Whatever floats one’s boat, different strokes, all that.
The crime rate in New Orleans is definitely inexcusably high, and it deserves civic action. But the emphasis on it, or perhaps more accurately the manner in which crime talk and coverage is laid out (as in this article), is leading to hysteria and stupidity, not to mention blatant, numbing racism of the sort you can find galore at nola.com, the “rants and raves” section at craigslist, etc.
Nola.com asks, “Will you go to the parades despite the crime in New Orleans?” or something that that effect. This due to shootings in the Ninth Ward and a club at Tulane and Banks? Hello? Since when did the parades start rolling down beautiful Tulane Ave.? Do people with advanced degrees or people from, say, Old Metairie have a jones to stop at the Club Unlimited, only they’re worried about their safety and so decide against it, a fact that leaves them bitter?
National Pubic Radio had a story a couple of months ago about a brain drain in Bagdad!
I can understand why professionals would leave Bagdad if they could. That’s a country in the midst of the madness of a civil war.
But a brain drain from New Orleans…there’s no civil war here…just people who have been driven mad by the incompetence of government at all levels.
I am not happy with the New York Times coverage of NOLA — bleak certainly is the word for it. I find it troubling that neither of the two most recent front page articles on the area (the other was about crime) has anything at all to say about either the folks who are working hard to bring to light what is really going on as far as the local, state and federal level (and the NOLA bloggers have been fantastic at this) nor have they done a very good analysis of the underlying problems, i.e., botched recovery, that are hurting the city.
It’s almost as though Katrina didn’t happen, or it was just a storm that did damage, not the work of an incompetent federal government and its agencies. I find the New York Times to be woefully behind the times when it comes to real reporting on post-Katrina recovery.
I much prefer the NOLA blogs … they do not hesitate to call out anyone, Republican or Democrat, local, state or federal reps, in their search for the truth of what is going on, but their analysis has a vitality and vigor sadly lacking in the NYT. I wish the New York Times would catch up to that; it’s a crime that they are so missing the boat on this story.