Smaller, smarter

Buffalo. Pittsburgh. Cincinnati.

The poets will never compare them to Paris -- or, for that matter, to New Orleans, the fountainhead of so much American culture.

Still, those humble burgs are New Orleans' peers these days, in at least two important respects: About 300,000 people now call them home, and their zenith, in terms of population, has passed. And cities like these have something to teach New Orleans: how to cope with getting smaller.

It's not easy. Lost population usually translates into widespread blight, crumbling infrastructure, stretched budgets and the loss of civic confidence and clout. But more than three years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans must confront the reality of a reduced population, as resettlement has slowed to a trickle.

Embracing or even accepting a downsized city can be painful for leaders and residents accustomed to seeing their town as the center of the universe -- with reason. Not only is New Orleans the birthplace of jazz, it also was the nation's third-largest city a century and a half ago, trailing only New York and Baltimore.

Today, New Orleans ranks somewhere between No. 55 and No. 60 in population, depending on the estimate used. And that ranking seems unlikely to change much: ESRI, a leading market research firm, projects New Orleans will gain only 15,000 residents in the next five years.

Put bluntly, Mayor Ray Nagin's declaration that a laissez-faire "market forces" approach would drive New Orleans' population higher than before the flood seems well off the mark. Although some neighborhoods have recovered strongly, in many the population remains down by 50 percent or more. Across the flood zone, ghost homes sit empty by the hundreds on blighted, overgrown blocks.

The reasons for a patchwork comeback aren't surprising. In poorer areas, residents often had less insurance and savings to finance rebuilding. Moreover, the Road Home program's policy of using pre-Katrina home values in awarding grants, as opposed to replacement values, meant that the grants often did not cover rebuilding costs, particularly given the steep spike in construction prices. Progress in those areas may continue to stagnate, absent some new, large-scale intervention.

The gap-toothed recovery poses questions with no easy answers. Where should the city invest in schools, in roads, in sewer repairs? Should it focus more on healthy or struggling areas? Or should it compromise, by goosing progress in flooded areas that have shown some comeback promise?

How, in short, should fairness be balanced with realism?

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