the Greater Nomadic Council

The Economic Aftermath

The Random Penseur discusses some aspects of Katrina's effects that I have yet to see mentioned elsewhere:

Third, who is going to repopulate New Orleans? Those who are the most mobile, the best educated, those with the most portable skills, they are going to establish lives elsewhere. I was on the phone yesterday with my kids' nursery school and the director told me that she just got off the phone with a woman from New Orleans who is relocating up to Connecticut. She was calling from a hotel room in Houston. Once these kids get into new schools and the smart and aggressive types get new jobs, are they going to go back? I am skeptical. Highly skeptical. They will wonder whether anything in New Orleans can ever change and they won't take the risk of putting their families back there. So what happens to the city when you have this huge brain drain? You cannot populate the city with the Ninth Ward, those who may lack the skills and the resources to re-establish themselves elsewhere. Not to be a doom sayer, but I am deeply worried about the total eradication of the middle and upper middle class in New Orleans. You can't have a city without these people, at least, not a city people would want to live in.

I've wondered a bit about this myself. If the quotes we hear from those in shelters in Houston and other places are accurate, a very significant portion of the NO population will not be going back any time soon. I doubt, however, that this displacement will be limited to the upper and middle classes. Since many of those who did not evacuate could not due to poverty, why should we assume they'll be able to move back to NO when this over, especially now that they have even less than before? If anything, I would expect a good section of the upper class to consider moving back—they have the money to do so and, given NO's tradition of multi-generational families, ample historical reason. If NO is where your proud, pseudo-aristocratic family has lived for ten generations and you have the wealth to rebuild, I would guess that you might seriously consider moving back once things settle down a bit. I do doubt that the middle class will return in droves, though. It has already demonstrated that one of its characteristics is flight from any perceived danger or uncomfortable situation (i.e., white flight, suburbanization, etc.). Given that few people will have both the means and inclination to return, we might have witnessed the beginning of NO's slow death. Let's just hope that its previous residents have enough to return to that they're willing to do so and that the federal and state government don't simply let the city rot away. A major reconstruction effort must occur akin to the rebuilding of Dresden after the fire-bombing if New Orleans is not to be lost.

UPDATE: Mark points us to this Yglesias post dealing with the same issue. And Jeff points out that the rich are already buying houses elsewhere.