re: How would you improve Baton Rouge?

The answer based in reality is that Baton Rouge will not be improved.

My answer that would be unpopular with both the black and white communities is for the legislature to call a constitution convention to change the way cities over a certain population are governed (i.e. BR, NOLA, and maybe Shreveport). The new way would be the reverse of what St. George tried to do. BR and NOLA would annex their entire metro areas. The new BR would include Denham, P'ville, Gonzales, Zacharay, Central, etc. The new New Orleans would include most of JP, St. Bernard, some of Plaq Parish, etc. Under this plan everyone would vote for mayor and city council, like Houston parts of the metro could maintain ISDs. Sheriff's would still patrol their unincorporated areas, and the metro PD would cover the new city. Like NYC, structure it sort of like a borough where mini councils could make decisions closer to home.

Now as far as NOLA, the legislature should put the city on state management. Oversee their departments, pensions, roads, etc. Virtually any side street in New Orleans is like a lunar surface obstacle course. Cross the line into JP and with its bigger population they manage to make their streets decent (great compared to NOLA). NOPD has average response times of 177 minutes lately, JP it's about 11 minutes (4 min for a "hot" call). Almost 20 years after Katrina, they still beg to have LSP patrol their streets. New Orleans has failed. It's citizens consistently vote it super crooks and incompetents. Time for the state to run it, or have a greatly expanded metro get to vote.