re: How would you improve Baton Rouge?

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A hundred or so middle class white kids, were bused to Valley park around 76,

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And a few years after that private schools started popping up all over Baton Rouge. Parkview Baptist, Bishop Sullivan (St. Michael), Chapel Trafton (Dunham), Christian Life, Family Christian Academy to name a few plus all of the existing private schools got bigger.

Desegregation in EBR public schools had a huge influence in destroying the city.

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.

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7. Remove annual vehicle inspection requirements and instead require 5 year driving exam renewals.

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I like this one!

For real, tangible change you would need which would mean a cultural philosophical change in those that are absolutely happy with status quo. And that ain’t happenin

Speed bumps. Every fifty feet. Both ways on Siegen Lane.

Solving the panhandler problem is simple. Would take some communication among law enforcement, with no arrests required.
Just push them west to the next parish. West Baton Rouge would usher them to iberville, and so on, until they all in up in California. Let them deal with it. Any that doubled back or refused to go would only then be jailed.

SWB says the community word at least 5-6 times every time she gets in front of a microphone.

110 floor library that has a cantilever design that spans directly over the state capitol.

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4. Install HOV lanes from Oneal lane to downtown.

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Sorta. Instead of HOV lanes, we have “Truck Lanes” where we separate the 18 wheelers from passenger vehicles. Have it begin in Walker and it run until west of Lafayette. I’d support widening I-10 across the Atchafalaya Basin just too add these lanes.

Also, make Government St. 2 lanes again. The city disparately needs more/better east-west thoroughfares… especially when the I-10 widening project begins.