chaos takes many forms.

Now that we have an idea of what the geopolitical setup of New Orleans is (see my previous post), the next few posts will discuss some of the key components of a faltering city: economic recession (unemployment), low-scoring public education, and crime, which will be addressed in this post.

There is a lot of discussion about the alarming murder rate in NOLA since Katrina - and the violent crime numbers seem to be ever rising. There were nine murders in the first eight days of the year. According to MSNBC, 46 states have seen their violent crime rates drop in the past two years; New Orleans has seen its rise.

This is not the worst of it: New Orleans hit its crime peak in 1994; in 1995, a university experiment had police fire 700 blank rounds into a neighborhood in one afternoon, and there was not a single gunshot reported. The problem, as is often true, is rooted in money. Inexperienced prosecutors, understaffed police stations and reluctant, fearful witnesses were dubbed the reasons for this criminal outbreak.

Now, with even less money the situation seems to be worse. However, theft has been the real problem since Katrina; not murder. Looters swept the greater majority of flooded businesses in NOLA in the six months after Katrina. The homicide rate is still extremely low compared to the 1990s.



photo courtesy of tomgpalmer.com

The fact of the matter, as has been determined, is that a city that had already fallen was just knocked down further; recovery will be a long and hard and expensive process.

In the next few posts, I'll discuss a few of the other reasons cities begin to crumble, and place the NOLA (pre-Katrina) senario into the ideas of the Shrinking Cities project.

sources:
Nicole Gelinas: Will New Orleans Recover? (www.cityjournal.org)
Associated Press: New Orleans Murder Rate on the Rise Again (MSNBC)
Denny Burk: Katrina Didn't Do It (DennyBurk.com)