re: How Powerful was Carlos Marcello?

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NO downfall is due to three factors: demographics, backward thinking elite, and the rise of of other Southern cities. The ascent of Houston was probably unstoppable,

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New Orleans: I Have Seen the Future, and It's Houston For many who love New Orleans, the changes that accompany commercial growth inspire fear—but in the meantime the city's economy stagnates and its population declines

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For the past century or so, New Orleans has been a city that has gotten by on charm alone. Very few people here seriously consider New Orleans part of the "New South" or of the "Sunbelt" or of any other geoeconomic entity conjured up in the past two decades. And, until a few years ago, hardly anyone in New Orleans minded being left out. New Orleans might be poor, but it is happy. In fact, during last year's mayoral race, one of the candidates ran TV commercials that showed a bustling skyline with a voiceover ominously intoning, "Do you want New Orleans to become another Houston?"

Despite the fact that New Orleans has perhaps the finest natural location in the country for commerce, the city's economy has stagnated for at least twenty years. Population has declined; unemployment is among the highest in the South; and New Orleanians have remained among the poorest in the nation. Little has changed since the 1970 Census, which showed that out of the fifty largest cities in the country, New Orleans had the highest percentage of families living below the federal poverty level: 21.6 percent, against 18.4 percent for second-place Newark. New Orleans also ranked last among the fifty cities in percentage increase in median family income between 1960 and 1970, and forty-third in median years of education per adult.

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The Superdome did not, however, turn out to be the greatest building in the history of man, or even the second greatest. It was beset with cost overruns and political scandals. Voters in 1966 were told that the Superdome would cost $35 million, the same as Houston's Astrodome, which it would dwarf; instead, the final figure was $165 million. The Dome was supposed to make an operating profit its first year; instead, it has shown a large deficit for each of its three years of operation, and no one today seriously thinks the Dome will ever come close to paying for itself. Last year's operating loss was $5.5 million, not including debt service, which runs to $10 million a year. In fact, the Dome costs $50,000 a day to keep open—whether it is used or not.

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