Tale of two cities

This is a somewhat annoying interview with Wendell Pierce where he says "best practices" a bunch of times and even sort buys into the deceptive "blank slate" myth popularized by conservative columnist David Brooks after Katrina.

Pierce may say a lot of dumb things but I think he probably means well by it.  He's (sort of)  right about this anyway.

Q.With Super Bowl week in full swing, New Orleans seems to be on fire right now. As someone from here who cares deeply about the city, what are your feelings about it all?

 

A.It’s great, man. It’s a milestone. It’s a milestone of the recovery. Seven years ago we weren’t sure if it would even be a city. At all. So at this point to be able to host one of the biggest sporting events, one of the biggest events, period, is a real milestone. It lets people know that we’re back on our feet, that the recovery is going well, but we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t become a tale of two cities, that just only downtown is working, because a lot of neighborhoods still need time to recover.

Of course, he's probably a bit late with that sentiment.  There are undoubtedly chunks of money being thrown around town this weekend.  It isn't evident, though, that our political leadership is interested in seeing that money benefits more than just a few of us.

Here are some pretty pictures of the contrast at work.