The Data Center was founded in 1997 as an independent think tank to assemble data about New Orleans and southeast Louisiana, from economics to demographics to housing.
Then, in 2005, came Hurricane Katrina, and suddenly “the whole world wanted New Orleans data,” said Allison Plyer, The Data Center’s executive director and chief demographer.
Fresh off the release of The Data Center’s (www.datacenterresearch.org) report on New Orleans’ development since Hurricane Katrina — “The New Orleans Index at Ten: Measuring Greater New Orleans’ Progress toward Prosperity” — I talked with Plyer about the state of her adopted hometown, from both the local perspective and as a place to visit 10 years after the devastation. The conversation was edited for clarity and space.
Q: For those who didn’t see it firsthand, or only remember Katrina as vague television clips, describe the destruction that the city experienced beginning Aug. 29, 2005.
A: It was like an atom bomb had struck. Eighty percent of the city was flooded, and in some neighborhoods there was 15 feet of water that stood for three weeks. When the water finally drained, everything was covered with a brown film. The wind had blown all the leaves off the trees. There were no birds. No squirrels. And no people. It was incredibly eerie being in any neighborhood that had flooded. Places previously vibrant and full of life were completely empty.
Q: How did the 20 percent of the city that wasn’t flooded fare?
A: The areas along the river at higher elevations — the French Quarter, Bywater, Marigny, the Lower Garden District and Central Business District — were better off, but they had the run-of-the-mill hurricane experience, which is not inconsequential. So many houses had roof damage, and there was lots of debris on the streets. Virtually everybody’s refrigerator was on the curb because when you came home after three weeks of no electricity, what was left in there was rotten. They had to scramble for contractors, which were in short supply. Roofers were nearly impossible to get a hold of. In those neighborhoods, people were around to provide some level of community and support. In the flooded neighborhoods, you might be the only one for blocks. It was really difficult emotionally. Where I lived (in the Upper Ninth Ward), I got a foot and a half of water, which wasn’t nearly as bad as other folks, but my neighborhood was deserted. The few times I tried to go back, I got so depressed I couldn’t stay. I could only go do things there if I had a friend with me. It was depressing to have so much work to do. You could spend a whole day and barely make a dent. And if nobody was around, it was awful.
Q: What’s the state of 2015 New Orleans? How is the city doing compared not only to the aftermath of the hurricane, but before the hurricane?
A: People realized their city flooded because of government failures and that we had to get engaged and make sure our government and system worked. Citizen engagement since Katrina has been off the charts. Reforming levee boards, schools, the criminal justice system — all these things, we had no hope that we could do them before the storm. Then we realized we couldn’t be resigned. If the levee board didn’t do its job, the city wouldn’t exist. Now the economy is stronger and more diverse. There’s an entrepreneurship boom. A lot of people came here to volunteer to help homeowners rebuild, and a lot of college students fell in love with the city and decided to move here.
Q: What kinds of differences are there that a visitor would see?
A: The Central Business District is booming with warehouses turning into condos. That was starting before the storm and accelerated since the storm, and that’s not surprising; research says that disasters accelerate pre-existing trends. Downtowns across the nation are seeing an influx of millennials, sparking growth and new restaurants and fancy cocktail bars, and we’re seeing that in New Orleans. When I go to a bar and they give me a list of cocktails that I don’t recognize, and when that happens in multiple bars — not that I go to that many bars — I’m like, “Something is going on here!” New Orleans historically has always been about incorporating what newcomers bring and then creating the next thing with it. There was some of that happening pre-Katrina, but what we’re seeing now is the millennials bringing a new kind of creativity. The interesting question is whether they do something that blends with New Orleans’ creativity that makes it uniquely New Orleans, or will it just be like another New York? The jury is still out on that.
Q: It sounds as if the city is better off than 10 years ago, and that Katrina presented an opportunity that the city took. Is that the case?
A: I wouldn’t want to say it that way. A lot of people are worse off. There are still neighborhoods struggling to recover. The city has a 27 percent poverty rate. It’s been very, very difficult for those people to come back. They live paycheck to paycheck to say the least, and they can’t take off work to meet with the contractor or don’t have savings to pay rent while rebuilding. They’ve struggled the most.
Q: What in the data best underscores the state of New Orleans in 2015?
A: A lot of it has to do with the strength of the economy. The metro area has 5 percent more jobs than in 2008, while the nation is only up 1 percent — we’re outperforming the nation. Entrepreneurship is 64 percent above national levels. Wages are improving; we were 14 percent below the national average in 2004 and now we’re 4 percent below. Where our problems still are is in disparity: While white households make incomes on par with white incomes nationwide, black households have incomes 20 percent below black households across the nation. Nationwide, the disparity between black and white is 40 percent; here it’s 54 percent. We have been turning our economy around, and it is stronger post-Katrina than before Katrina, but not everybody is benefiting. As long as that’s the case, it’ll be a challenge for us to weather the next storm. If you don’t have $50 to fill your gas tank and money to get a hotel room, we’ll see people at the Superdome again waiting to evacuate. And there will be more storms.
Q: Does New Orleans think of itself differently than it did 10 years ago? Between this talk of millennial energy and the subtle changes afoot, like taking down Confederate Civil War monuments, it sounds like the city is heading in a new direction, intellectually speaking.
A: Obviously there are varied opinions on topics like Civil War monuments, but folks think more about the future than they used to. Katrina helped us realize that the future is in our hands. It forced people to think about what we want the future to look like. Before Katrina, New Orleanians enjoyed focusing on the past a lot. We’ve taken an interesting turn where we still very much value our past and appreciate preserving it because there’s so much beauty associated with our architecture and music and food. But we also spend a lot of time talking about the future. We’ve had literal hours and hours and hours of planning and talking about what the city should look like post-Katrina. We were forced literally and figuratively to think about what we want our future to look like.
Q: You’re from the Chicago suburbs, but have lived in New Orleans for 17 years. What’s the appeal that has made you stay all this time?
A: It’s the love of life. The music and dancing and the way people treat each other. People are just hilariously gracious and kind to each other. Once, at halftime of a Saints game, a friend and I got up to get beer. As we were walking back to our seats, we passed a brass band, so we put the beers down on the ground to dance. An usher came up to us and with a very serious face she scolded us and said, “Those are going to spill!” And so she held the beers while we danced. That only happens in New Orleans.
Twitter @joshbnoel
