"It's only the fifty-fourth largest city in the United States-down from fifth largest two hundred years ago-but it occupies a much larger place in the national mind than, say, Arlington, Texas, or Mesa, Arizona, where more people live. There's the food, the neighborhoods, the music, the historic architecture, the Mississippi River, Mardi Gras. But the love for New Orleans stands in contrast to the story that cold, rational statistics tell."
"If one were to propose an origin story for New Orleans as it is today, it might begin in 1795, when a planter named Jean Étienne de Boré held a public demonstration to prove that he could cultivate and process cane sugar on his plantation, which was situated in present-day Audubon Park-just a stone's throw from where I grew up."
New Orleans combines celebrated cultural attractions—food, music, neighborhoods, Mardi Gras, historic architecture, and the Mississippi River—with persistent social and economic failures. The city ranks poorly on measures such as poverty, murder, and employment. The modern city emerged from a late-18th-century sugar boom initiated by Jean Étienne de Boré's demonstration, which expanded plantation slavery and transformed New Orleans into a central U.S. slave market. The legacy of slavery shaped urban inequality. Hurricane Katrina exposed deep vulnerabilities and suffering, revealing how historical inequalities magnified disaster impacts and undermined the city's enchanting reputation.
Read at The New Yorker
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