Remember

The Independent (UK) reports on the new year in New Orleans, mentioning the unfortunate long-term legacy of Katrina - the NOLA diaspora:

You need not visit the French Quarter tarot card readers to know this much: New Orleans will emerge a far smaller city than before. Pre-Katrina, about 480,000 people called the Big Easy their home. Some predict that a miracle will be needed to get its rolls back even to 150,000 by the end of this year...

Smaller is one thing, but what about whiter as well? It was the US Secretary of Housing, Alphonso Jackson, who said it first back in September. "New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again."

Katrina's winds have scattered on of the nation's oldest African-American communities, displacing tens of thousands of people who, despite their often quite low economic status, were connected with a certain pride of place. It is tremendous cultural loss, and it seems to increase the chances of the rebuilt New Orleans being a more humid Las Vegas, coasting on its lost history.