Replica of New Orleans: A Study in Urban Cloning

New Orleans is supposed to be 130 miles east of this Cajun country capital on the Vermillion River, but there in the distance, rising from the swampland, is something that looks very familiar.

The quaint row houses of the French Quarter are off Interstate 10, past the strip malls. There are Garden District-style mansions in a neighborhood named the Garden District, and blocks full of Creole cottages, lush courtyards and lacy ironwork. There is even a street called Elysian Fields.

It is not the Crescent City, however, but rather River Ranch, a commercial development here that is a virtual re-creation of much of historic residential New Orleans, meticulous in detail and substantial in size, with a growing population of more than a thousand on about 300 acres.

from the NY Times