Preservation Resource Center

PRESERVATION IN PRINT APRIL 2007 17
GUEST
VIEWPOINT
The Unreported Influx
of Bright and
Energetic Residents to
New Orleans
Stephen Hales, M.D.
This op ed originally appeared in the Times-Picayune and is reprinted here with
writer’s permission.
R
ecently the New York Times carried
a story on its front page
under this headline: “New
Orleans’s New Setback: Fed-up Residents
Giving Up.” The article profiled several
families who are leaving New Orleans
because the pace of recovery is “too little,
too late,” an understandable assessment.
The article itself, while more
nuanced, generally supported that statement.
“We don’t have to go through
this” would fairly represent the sentiments
of those who have chosen to
leave.
But a different headline, equally as
true, might have been this: “A Unique
City Continues to Hold and Attract
Committed Citizens.” Support for that
alternative headline was found, in fact,
in the text of Shaila Dewan’s article, as
demographers and others described not
only a hard-to-quantify “brain drain,” but
also a determined and passionate core of
New Orleanians choosing to stay, and a
steady, if under-reported, flow of new residents
who see both challenge and
opportunity in this badly damaged city.
“The pattern in is certainly stronger than
the pattern out,” said one demographer.
So why does the story run under the
first headline, sure to be seen far and
wide as one more piece of bad news documenting
our city’s slide into oblivion
Headlines count, leaving impressions
that are hard to change, and I can only
wish they had chosen the second one.
I have been a pediatrician in New
Orleans for more than thirty years, long
enough to see a generation of babies
grow up and, now, to help care for their
babies. While I will not offer my experience
as a substitute for the academic
analyses of statisticians and demographers,
I will cite my own less formal, but
very personal survey of the flow of families
in and out of our city.
In the months after the storm, when
we were able to come back to the city,
open our office, and begin to care for our
stunned and stressed families as they
returned to pick up the pieces of their
lives, demographic dynamics became
very personal. Each day we collected
from the fax machine and the occasional
mail delivery requests for the medical
records of children we had cared for
through their young lives. There were so
many such requests – from Dallas and
New York, Denver and Houston, Atlanta
and San Francisco.
A unique city
continues to
hold and attract
committed
citizens
But there were many families who
chose to stay, for the whole range of reasons
the New York Times article cited –
for family, for jobs, for the keenly felt
need to rebuild their homes, and their
city. And, to our surprise, we began to
see a flow of new patients and families
into our practice from all over the country.
Young families – educators, attorneys,
physicians, and business people –
arrived to replace those who left after the
storm, or to begin new ventures made
possible by the profound changes which
followed Katrina. And we began to see
more and more babies born in our
remaining hospitals, perhaps the most
significant vote of confidence in the
future. We have found, over the past
year, that the net of those flows in and
out has turned decidedly positive.
www.prcno.org
Does that mean all is well in New
Orleans Clearly, it does not. New
Orleans faced significant problems before
the flood, and those have become even
more evident and wrenching as we
rebuild our city. This is not an easy
place to live right now. We recognize it
when we experience the daily reality of
broken traffic lights, pot-holed streets, a
dysfunctional criminal justice system,
and challenged health care resources.
We see it when we travel to other cities,
where things are “normal,” and the conditions
we face each day would not be
tolerated. Enormous challenges – unique
in the history of our nation – remain in
restoring housing lost when 80 percent of
our city was flooded. We live with the
pervasive sense that we have been failed
by our elected leaders.
But I strongly believe that the pessimistic
“giving up” New York Times
headline does not convey the reality I
see day in and day out in my office, or in
my city. Citizen-led initiatives have
brought real change and reform to
entrenched political structures, structures
which have served New Orleans poorly
for generations. The failed public school
system is in the midst of a transformation
led both by committed New Orleanians
and an influx of bright and energetic
educational reformers, school leaders,
and teachers who are here because there
is an unparalleled opportunity to “make a
difference.”
I was not born here, but found in this
city many years ago a rich and engaging
culture, place, and people. We have lost
many wonderful families, and will
undoubtedly lose more. This will be a
To our surprise,
we began to see
a flow of new
patients and
families into our
practice from all
over the country.
long process, and will require the devotion,
vision, and hard work of those who
choose to remain, and those who choose
to come here to help this city rebuild.
There are many who fit those descriptions
– more, I believe than those who
make the choice to leave. I hope that in
a future story, and under a more optimistic
headline, the New York Times will
return to tell that story.