New Orleans, my beloved hometown, is 'œdying,' said Brian Schwaner in the Associated Press. Two years after being devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the Big Easy is still a cesspool of physical ruin, broken lives, and neglect. More than 160,000 residents'”about 40 percent of the population'”have left, probably never to return. Once-flourishing middle-class neighborhoods are rotting ghost towns, choked with weeds and scarred by 'œgruesome' graffiti. Many schools, transit routes, and firehouses remain closed; electricity, garbage collection, and other basic services haven't been fully restored. Drugs, crime, and mental-health problems are rampant. 'œI can't believe this is the United States and, after so long, so much is still not fixed,' said Tulane University researcher Melanie Ehrlich. 'œIt's scandalous, unforgivable.'
So much for President Bush's 'œrosy promises' about the city's future, said Jason Berry in The Boston Globe. Instead of a coordinated federal, state, and local recovery effort, residents have gotten bureaucratic bungling and 'œstillborn' initiatives. The Army Corps of Engineers is four years away from rebuilding the all-important levee system to withstand a direct hit by the strongest hurricanes. Road Home, the $8 billion state-run and federally funded program to help homeowners rebuild, is going broke. 'œStories abound of insurance companies short-shrifting policy holders,' leaving thousands with homes they cannot afford to repair. Don't blame the stagnated revival on 'œred tape alone,' said Douglas Brinkley in The Washington Post. Consumed with Iraq, the White House isn't interested in making the 'œherculean' commitment in money and willpower that's required to turn things around. It's as if this administration's heartless social Darwinists are content to let the city's poorer neighborhoods 'œdie on the vine.'
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