It's very easy to kid yourself that nothing has happened in New Orleans.
Several times a week, I go for a long walk. Each time I step out of the front door into the early-morning sunshine I have to make a fundamental choice.
I can walk for miles east or west, parallel with the Mississippi. Here, the levees didn't break, the city didn't flood, and the only reminder of what happened two years ago is the occasional boarded-up window or painted cross telling us that no one died there. The faces I see are predominantly white, and the homes are all the colours of the rainbow.
Or I can stride boldly northwards towards Gentilly and Lake Pontchartrain, through what looks like the results of a particularly vicious artillery bombardment. I went to Beirut once, just a few years after the civil war, and it looked like this.
I try to go north as often as possible, just to remind myself of my good fortune in living where I do and stop myself from developing a ghetto mentality.
I am usually the only white person around, and many of the people sitting on their ramshackle front steps have defeated looks on their faces. I have to be in the right mood before I venture into this part of town.
If I'm feeling good, I concentrate on all the green shoots, the signs that New Orleans is fighting back. Some of the people at least have got their insurance money and built sparkling new homes amid the heaps of debris that line the streets.
But if it's a muggy, overcast day and I haven't woken up properly and everyone's dog barks at me, I think there's no hope for this place and it just needs to be swept clean by a giant broom so everyone can make a fresh start.
On the positive side, walking in New Orleans is anything but a solitary experience - in the space of an hour I will exchange greetings with perhaps twenty people.
A complex set of unwritten rules governs the whole salutation process, and sometimes I get it wrong - for example, you don't have to say how ya doin' to people with their backs to you, passing cyclists, or on busy main roads - but I prefer to strike preemptively by greeting almost everyone I see.
Each encounter is a pleasant little reminder of our shared humanity, the lazy pace of life here, and the old-fashioned southern courtesy that still prevails in most places. It's one of the reasons why I love it so much.
Another is that although New Orleans is one of the most car-dependent cities in America, with public transportation almost non-existent, it's a very walkable city. I've always said I'd find it difficult to live in the suburban sprawl of places like Phoenix and Los Angeles where you have to drive miles just to buy a newspaper in the morning. So for all its woes, it will do me just fine for now, thanks very much.
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I beg to differ.
ReplyDeleteNew Orleans is not one of the most car dependent cities in America. In fact only a few cities are less car dependent and they are all much large and have extensive subsidized public transit systems.
Have you spent any time in Atlanta or Houston or Miami? To name a few.
I always check my facts before making statements like that. According to census data, only 14% of households in New Orleans have no car. The figure for Los Angeles is 11%, whereas in New York it's 42%.
ReplyDeleteI see you list your interests as 'Getting out of my FEMA trailer'. Would you care to share your experiences with us? How did you end up there? What's it like?
ReplyDeletePhil,
ReplyDeleteI've just started reading your blog, and I know this is an old post (perhaps again addressed in later posts), but despite that figure, it's really not car dependent. It does more to call into question how those statistics are kept, or what they truly indicate, if anything.
I'm one of many individuals in my immediate social and economic circle who either don't have a car, or don't use it very often. If you have a bicycle, the city pretty much opens itself up to you, in a way much larger cities cannot.
My car was stolen last year, and I've been on a bicycle since, with little to nothing in the way of major inconveniences affecting my lifestyle, except massive savings on gas and car repairs.
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