Thursday, May 08, 2008

I wonder if they'll remember to turn off the lights

Chevron completes move to the North Shore
by Kate Moran, The Times-Picayune
Wednesday May 07, 2008, 9:15 PM

Following the well-trod path of energy companies that have left the city, Chevron will vacate its downtown New Orleans office building today and celebrate the opening of a gleaming regional headquarters in an office park just south of Covington.

The company's announcement in 2006 that it would relocate across the lake ruffled Mayor Ray Nagin and other urbanites who were already heartsick about the pull Hurricane Katrina has exerted on the city's population and on the few large corporations that provide high-paying jobs.

Today's move seems all but certain to accelerate the movement of professionals across the lake. About half of Chevron's employees lived on the north shore before Katrina, and the company has offered a relocation package to south shore residents who dread the long commute across the Causeway.


Adding:

Lame joking aside, this is another sad symptom of the continued hollowing of post-flood New Orleans. Despite the promises of "blank slate" opportunities for renewal, the same trends that were in effect before the storm remain so only at an accelerated pace.

Whatever semblance of professional business activity exists in the City's urban core is retreating to the suburbs, to Houston, to... wherever leaving in its wake a ghost town of now unusable empty office buildings like the Plaza Tower and now the Chevron building. Meanwhile the only "development" happening is the conversion of acceptable commercial and residential real estate into condos and vacation homes. Exactly what kind of a city does this leave us with?

When we hear the word "city" we are inclined to think of a diverse, active, center of trade. A city, in this sense, is a place that draws people in not only to do itinerant business or to stay the night and entertain themselves but to live their lives. Will the "new" New Orleans being built now even really qualify as a "city" at all?

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