Another exodus from New Orleans

AP/Houston Chronicle:

New Orleans is a city on a knife's edge.

A year and a half after Hurricane Katrina, an alarming number of residents are leaving or seriously thinking of getting out for good.

They have become fed up with the violence, the bureaucracy, the political finger-pointing, the sluggish rebuilding and the doubts about the safety of the levees.

"The mayor says, 'Come back home. Every area should come back.' For what?" said Genevieve Bellow, who rebuilt her home in heavily damaged eastern New Orleans but has been unable to get anything done about the trash and abandoned apartment buildings in her neighborhood and may leave town. "I have no confidence in anything or anybody."

A survey released in November found that 32 percent of city residents polled may leave within two years. University of New Orleans political scientist Susan Howell, who did the survey, said more will give up if the recovery does not pick up speed.

In fact, figures from the nation's top three movers suggest more people left the area last year than came to stay.

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... New Orleans' population appears to have plateaued at about half the pre-storm level of 455,000, well short of Nagin's prediction of 300,000 by the end of 2006. And in many ways, it is a meaner city than it was before the hurricane.

New Orleans ended 2006 with 161 homicides, for a murder rate higher than it was before Katrina and more than 4 1/2 times the national average for cities its size. After starting 2007 with practically one killing a day, the city has at least 19 slayings so far this year.

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Blanco's Road Home program, born 10 months after the storm, has been vilified by politicians and civic leaders as too slow to distribute $7.5 billion in federal aid to buy out homeowners or help them rebuild. As of Feb. 5, Road Home had taken 105,739 applications and resolved only 532 cases, granting $33.8 million. At the current rate, Road Home would take more than 13 years to complete.

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It is still the dysfunctional city it was before the hurricane. The level of dysfunction is more concentrated now because many of the most intelligence have made a decision not to come back or not to stay if they did. I am curious as to what real estate values are now. Shortly into the recovery process there were lots of buyers. This story suggest there may be more sellers at this point.