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This is one of the craziest stories of the past week. Many of the wealthiest black families in New Orleans are being told that the rebuilding of their homes is "the last priority" and therefore that it isn't being done and may not ever be done.
New Orleans's mayor, C. Ray Nagin, spent an evening at one of the group's meetings recently, hearing of the residents' longing to return home. But despite the group's considerable resources, the plan taking shape to remake the city lumps New Orleans East and its 90,000 residents with the Lower Ninth Ward and other deluged neighborhoods as the last priority of the city as it struggles to rebuild. The Urban Land Institute, a planning group advising the city, recommended that the city begin rebuilding less damaged neighborhoods first, provoking outrage from residents of the flood zones.
There is a concern that the residents may never be permitted to rebuild:
Since September, hundreds of displaced residents from New Orleans East, the neighborhood that was home to the largest concentration of the city's black elite, gather there for a small taste of the camaraderie and community that they sorely miss. But the residents - whose ranks include lawyers, judges and a few elected officials - are also anxiously mobilizing to save their low-lying corner of the city, which some planners argue should revert to marshland.
So far, the group has used its clout to extract a promise that electricity will be turned on in the neighborhood next month, instead of waiting until June. It has also speeded the return of water service. Without either, many residents say, they must wait in Baton Rouge longer even if their neighborhood is open.
This priorities list put together by the city of New Orleans needs to be reconsidered.
"It would kill the black psyche if New Orleans East wasn't rebuilt," said Talmadge Wall, an interior designer who for 15 years has lived with her husband and children in New Orleans East. "Think of what it would mean if the city successfully chased off so many African-Americans who had money, its doctors and successful businesspeople and lawyers and such. People who were aspiring to attain that kind of success would no longer feel like they have a chance."
