New Orleans

VI

Economy

The New Orleans economy has traditionally relied heavily upon manufacturing and shipping—both river barge and ocean vessel traffic—although tourism and gambling have grown in importance in recent decades. Extensive dock facilities line the banks of the Mississippi River; the Gulf of Mexico section of the Intracoastal Waterway, which skirts the mainland from Texas to Massachusetts; and the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a deep channel completed in 1963 that provides a shortcut to the Gulf of Mexico. Exports from the city include grains, clothing and textiles, food, and petroleum products. Imports, many of which come from Latin America, include cocoa, coffee, crude petroleum, rubber, and steel. Starting in the 1980s, however, the Port of New Orleans experienced a drop in business due to competition from railroads, the trucking industry, and oil pipelines. Supertankers, an increasingly important component in ocean shipping, are too large to come up the Mississippi River. These vessels commonly dock at East Coast ports and then ship their freight by rail to the interior of the United States. New Orleans officials responded to these challenges with programs to enhance the city’s docking facilities and to improve rail connections to the wharves. Six railroad lines now serve the port. Although damaged by Katrina, the city’s port facilities recovered quickly after the storm.

The city’s industrial base has been highly diversified. The leading industries have included shipbuilding, petroleum refining, food processing, and the manufacture of clothing, construction materials, wood products, primary metals, and petrochemicals. Additionally, a facility located just outside of New Orleans produces equipment for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Large manufacturers—especially the oil and natural gas firms and the makers of transportation equipment—soon returned to their pre-Katrina levels of employment. But smaller manufacturers, including food processors, were slow to return to the area.

Despite its importance to the economy, manufacturing has caused problems. Waste from the petrochemical plants that occupy the banks of the Mississippi from Baton Rouge, the state capital, to New Orleans, has risen in past years and threatens the area’s drinking water and the supplies of river fish.

Before Katrina New Orleans was a major tourist destination. Visitors enjoyed the city’s jazz music, architecture, sights, and fine food. Cruise ships and casinos docked along the riverfront, conventioneers flocked to meetings and trade shows, and the annual Mardi Gras festivities drew huge crowds. The New Orleans Convention Center, damaged by the storm, reopened in November 2006, and tourists began to return to the city. Although hotels and restaurants began to reopen, they (and other facilities) faced the problem that their employees had no place to live.

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New Orleans and its suburbs are linked by a remarkable system of bridges. The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which connects New Orleans and St. Tammany Parish, spans 39 km (24 mi), making it the longest above-water highway bridge in the world. The Huey P. Long Bridge, 6 km (4 mi) long, crosses the Mississippi River from the western part of New Orleans. Traffic on U.S. Highway 90, which follows the Old Spanish Trail from Florida to California, passes over this bridge. The Greater New Orleans Bridge connects New Orleans with communities on the other bank of the Mississippi.

The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport handles commercial and passenger air traffic to and from all parts of the world. The New Orleans Lakefront Airport on Lake Pontchartrain serves smaller craft, and the Alvin Callender Naval Air Station is an installation used by reserve units of the armed forces.

VII

Government

A mayor-council system was adopted in 1954 and governs New Orleans. The mayor heads the executive branch of municipal government, and a council of five district and two at-large members form the legislative branch. The mayor and seven council members serve four-year terms in office. The chief administrative officer assists the mayor in the executive branch of city government and coordinates the activities of the various municipal departments. Several independent boards and commissions within Orleans Parish direct specialized governmental functions, such as the Sewerage and Water Board and the Orleans Parish School Board. The Orleans Levee Board and the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans (the Dock Board)—two vital governmental organizations for a city that is largely below sea level and depends mightily upon its port for economic prosperity—are actually Louisiana state agencies.

VIII

History

Small villages of the Quinapisa and Tangipahoa peoples occupied the site of present-day New Orleans when the first European visitor, French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, arrived in 1682. In 1699 another French explorer, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, visited the site. Recognizing the potential of the location, Bienville established a settlement there in 1718 after he became governor of the French colony of Louisiana. He named it Nouvelle-Orléans, for the duc d’Orléans, regent of France. In 1721 French engineer Adrien de Pauger laid out the first town plan, a rectangular grid of 66 squares (today's French Quarter). The following year the town became the capital of French Louisiana. In 1763 France divided Louisiana between England and Spain, and New Orleans became the capital of Spanish Louisiana.

Unhappy with Spanish administration—notably, new trade regulations that included the forced importation of Spanish wine—French businessmen and soldiers rebelled in 1768 and 1769, but were swiftly subdued. Under Spanish rule, trade between New Orleans and Spanish colonies in the Caribbean flourished, especially in such products as tobacco, seafood, foodstuffs, and pork. Despite damaging fires in 1788 and 1794, the town grew more prosperous. In 1800 New Orleans was secretly returned to France, although this was not made official until 1803. In that year France transferred the city to the United States through the terms of the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1805 New Orleans became an incorporated city, and in 1812 it became the capital of the new U.S. state of Louisiana. The city was the state capital from 1812 to 1830. In 1830 state legislators moved the capital to Donaldsonville in hopes of keeping the state government and its officials away from the distractions of New Orleans nightlife. However, New Orleans was capital again from 1831 to 1849, at which time its growing economic and political power prompted the rest of the state to pressure the Louisiana government to move the capital. In 1849 the capital was transferred to Baton Rouge.

When the British and Americans were fighting in the War of 1812 (1812-1815), Major General Andrew Jackson and his troops were sent to defend the city of New Orleans from British attack. Leading a ragtag force of pirates, Creoles, blacks, and regular troops, Jackson defended the city against British invasion in the Battle of New Orleans. When the British attacked the Americans, Jackson’s forces held their positions and launched an artillery and musket assault that devastated the enemy. The British commander, Sir Edward Pakenham, was killed in the barrage, and the British were forced to retreat.

A

Growth and Prosperity

Between 1810 and 1850 steamboat traffic on the Mississippi River made the city one of the busiest ports in North America. By 1840 New Orleans was the fourth largest city in the United States. This new growth and prosperity attracted a large influx of immigrants, mainly Anglo-Americans, Germans, and Irish. These immigrants swelled the city's population, contributed to urban growth, and added to local tension. Conflict between the Creoles and the newcomers led to the division of New Orleans into three separately governed municipalities in 1836. Though the city officially reunited under a single government in 1852, the ethnic conflict continued in often-violent political disputes until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

At the outset of the Civil War, New Orleans was the largest city in the South, a center for the cotton trade, and a major exporter of goods from the Midwest. Although slavery was widespread in New Orleans at this time, commerce formed the economic base of the city. Because of this, many New Orleans merchants initially opposed the secession of Louisiana from the United States because they feared that it would disrupt commercial ties with the North. After the war began, however, the city’s inhabitants readily embraced the Confederate cause. New Orleans was a major port and military center for the Confederacy. However, in April 1862 a Union fleet captured the city, and it remained a Union stronghold for the rest of the war.

In May 1862 General Benjamin F. Butler became the military governor of New Orleans. Many of the city’s inhabitants resisted his policies and the Union occupation of the city. Butler’s harsh treatment of the native population caused his dismissal as governor seven months later. Under the leadership of his Union successors, living conditions in the city improved, and new trade regulations restored commercial prosperity.

During Reconstruction, the process of rebuilding that followed the Civil War, Republicans controlled city government and eliminated several areas of racial segregation—most notably in education and public transit. After Reconstruction ended in 1877, the Democrats gained power in the city and reinstituted segregation by creating separate black and white facilities. The Democrats established a political organization known as the Old Regulars under the leadership of John Fitzpatrick and Martin Behrman. The Old Regulars worked to enhance the city’s economy and improved municipal sanitation and the water supply. They also used their extensive influence to maintain political control in New Orleans, while at the same time forming alliances with rural political leaders to protect their interests in state government and to preserve racial segregation in Louisiana.

In the 1880s Louisiana sugar and cotton planters brought in Italian laborers to work on plantations. However, many of these Italians preferred to live and work in New Orleans and became active in local industry. This influx of Italian immigrants created tensions. When the local police chief was murdered, people suspected a criminal group known as the Italian Mafia. This event provoked strong anti-Italian sentiment among the native population and led to the lynching of 11 Italians in 1891.

B

New Orleans in the 20th Century

In the late 19th century, shipping activities in the city declined with the demise of the steamboat, but by the end of World War I (1914-1918), river barges contributed to a substantial commercial rebound. Also during the early 20th century, engineer A. Baldwin Wood developed powerful pumps that allowed the draining of swampland within the city and opened vast new sections of New Orleans for settlement. For many years the geographic location of the city on muddy subtropical lowlands that were surrounded by water prevented its growth. The rising waters of the Mississippi River frequently flooded the city, and heavy rainfall enlarged the swamps. However, Wood’s pumps along with canals, a line of levees, and the Bonnet Carre Spillway—which diverts runoff from the Mississippi into Lake Pontchartrain—allowed the city to grow.

In 1934 New Orleans Democrats opposed Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long and his statewide political organization, which he controlled first from his position as state governor and then from the U.S. Senate. Long's forces in the state legislature subsequently undermined the power of the Old Regular Democrats and installed Robert S. Maestri, a Long associate, as mayor of New Orleans in 1936. Maestri improved the city’s fiscal machinery and tax collection early in his administration, but during World War II (1939-1945) city services faltered badly and criminal activity increased. After the war, reform Democrat deLesseps S. Morrison became mayor and ended the reign of the old political machines.

During the administrations of Morrison (1946-1961) and his successors Victor H. Schiro (1961-1970) and Maurice “Moon” Landrieu (1970-1978), an era of commercial and industrial growth ensued that supported the completion of a series of major public works programs. Building projects included new bridges and overpasses, a new city hall and municipal court complex, a main public library, the Poydras Street commercial corridor, the Louisiana Superdome, the Aquarium of the Americas, and the renovation of the French Quarter as a tourist attraction.

As the racial composition of the city started to change during the 1950s, blacks attained a more prominent role in municipal government. In 1960 New Orleans public schools began to desegregate. In 1978 Ernest “Dutch” Morial became the city’s first black mayor.

During the 1990s race remained an issue in New Orleans. Drug use, high crime rates, and dilapidated housing persisted in predominantly black neighborhoods. Furthermore, the departure of many residents for the suburbs eroded the city’s tax base. In 1991 the city council sparked a major controversy when it voted to prohibit racial and gender discrimination in Mardi Gras organizations, a bastion of the white upper class. Several carnival krewes (private organizations that sponsor parades and other events), including Comus, the oldest, abandoned their annual parades rather than integrate. Additionally, legislation called for the renaming of all public schools that had been named for slave owners, including George Washington.

At the turn of the century, New Orleans faced many social and economic challenges. To be competitive, many people believed that the city needed to diversify its economy and increase its commercial aggressiveness or risk losing business to other port cities. Additionally, the city faced questions of racial relations, poverty, and crime. For example, about a fifth of New Orleans residents lived below the poverty line, and those living in poverty were overwhelmingly African American. However, the city remained a popular tourist destination, well known for its food, music, and colorful annual events.