Everything about New Orl Ans Louisiana totally explained
New Orleans (locally /ˌnuːˈɔːlɛnz/;
French:
La Nouvelle-Orléans ) is a major
United States port city and the largest city in
Louisiana. It is the center of the
New Orleans metropolitan area.
New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the
Mississippi River. It is coextensive with
Orleans Parish, meaning that the boundaries of the city and the
parish are the same. It is bounded by the parishes of
St. Tammany (north),
St. Bernard (east),
Plaquemines (south), and
Jefferson (south and west).
Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north, and
Lake Borgne lies to the east. cuisine, architecture, music (particularly as the birthplace of
jazz), and its annual
Mardi Gras and other celebrations and festivals. The city is often referred to as the "most unique" city in America.
History
Beginnings through the 19th century
La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans) was founded in 1718 by the
French Mississippi Company, under the direction of
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. It was named for
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of France at the time; his title came from the French city of
Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the
Spanish Empire in the
Treaty of Paris (1763) and remained under Spanish control until 1801, when it reverted to French control. Most of the surviving architecture of the Vieux Carré (
French Quarter) dates from this Spanish period.
Napoleon sold the territory to the United States in the
Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, and
Creole French. Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city.
The
Haitian Revolution of 1804 established the second republic in the Western Hemisphere and the first led by blacks. Refugees who were white and free people of color both arrived in New Orleans, often bringing slaves with them. While Governor Claiborne and other officials wanted to keep out more free black men,
French Creoles wanted to increase the French-speaking population. As more refugees were allowed in Louisiana, Haitian émigrés who had gone to
Cuba also arrived. Nearly 90 percent of the new immigrants settled in New Orleans. The 1809 migration brought 2,731 whites; 3,102 free persons of African descent; and 3,226 enslaved refugees to the city, doubling its population. Sixty-three percent of Crescent City inhabitants were now black, as Americans classified people.
During the
War of 1812, the
British sent a force to conquer the city. The Americans decisively defeated the British troops, led by
Sir Edward Pakenham, in the
Battle of New Orleans on
January 8 1815.
As a principal port, New Orleans had the major role of any city during the antebellum era in the
slave trade. Its port handled huge quantities of goods for export from the interior and import from other countries to be traded up the Mississippi River. The river was filled with steamboats, flatboats and sailing ships. At the same time, it had the most prosperous community of free persons of color in the South, who were often educated and middle-class property owners.
The population of the city doubled in the 1830s, and by 1840 New Orleans had become the wealthiest and third-most populous city in the nation. It had the largest slave market. Two-thirds of the more than one million slaves brought to the Deep South arrived via the forced migration of the internal slave trade. The money generated by sales of slaves in the Upper South has been estimated at fifteen percent of the value of the staple crop economy. The slaves represented half a billion dollars in property, and an ancillary economy grew up around the trade in slaves - for transportation, housing and clothing, fees, etc., estimated at 13.5 percent of the price per person. All this amounted to tens of billions of dollars during the antebellum period, with New Orleans as a prime beneficiary.
The
Union captured New Orleans early in the
American Civil War, sparing the city the destruction suffered by many other cities of the
American South.
Twentieth century
In the early 20th century, New Orleans was a progressive major city whose most portentous development was a drainage plan devised by engineer and inventor
A. Baldwin Wood. Until then, urban development was largely limited to higher ground along natural river levees and
bayous; Wood's pump system allowed the city to expand into low-lying areas. Over the 20th century, rapid
subsidence, both natural and human-induced, left these newly populated areas several feet below sea level.
New Orleans was vulnerable to flooding even before the age of negative elevation. In the late 20th century, however, scientists and New Orleans residents gradually became aware of the city's increased vulnerability. In 1965,
Hurricane Betsy killed dozens of residents, even though the majority of the city remained dry. The rain-induced
1995 flood demonstrated the weakness of the pumping system; since that time, measures were taken to repair New Orleans's hurricane defenses and restore pumping capacity.
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina approached the city at the end of August 2005, most residents had evacuated. As the hurricane passed through the
Gulf Coast region, the city's
federal flood protection system failed, resulting in the worst
civil engineering disaster in American history. Floodwalls and
levees constructed by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed below design specifications and 80% of the city flooded. Tens of thousands of residents who had remained in the city were rescued or otherwise made their way to shelters of last resort at the
Louisiana Superdome or the
Morial Convention Center. Over 1,500 people died in Louisiana.
Hurricane Rita
The city was declared off-limits to residents while efforts to clean up after
Katrina began. The approach of
Hurricane Rita in September 2005 caused repopulation efforts to be postponed, and the
Lower Ninth Ward was reflooded by Rita's storm surge.
Post-disaster recovery
The Census Bureau in July 2006 estimated the population of New Orleans to be 223,000; a subsequent study estimated that 32,000 additional residents had moved to the city as of March 2007, bringing the estimated population to 255,000, approximately 56% of the pre-Katrina population level. Another estimate, based on data on utility usage from July 2007, estimated the population to be approximately 274,000, or 60% of the pre-Katrina population. These estimates are somewhat smaller than a third estimate, based on mail delivery records, from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center in June 2007, which indicated that approximately two-thirds of the pre-Katrina population had returned to the city.
Several major tourist events and other forms of revenue for the city have returned. Large conventions are being held again, such as those held by the
American Library Association and
American College of Cardiology. College football events such as the
Bayou Classic,
New Orleans Bowl, and
Sugar Bowl returned for the 2006-2007 season. The
New Orleans Saints returned that season as well, following speculation of a move. The
New Orleans Hornets returned to the city fully for the 2007-2008 season, having partially spent the 2006-2007 season in
Oklahoma City. In March 2007 a local group of investors began conducting a study to see if the city could support a Major League Soccer team. New Orleans successfully hosted the
2008 NBA All-Star Game, and
Tulane University hosted the first and second rounds of the
2007 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The Superdome played host to the
2008 BCS National Championship Game in January 2008.
Major events such as
Mardi Gras and the
Jazz and Heritage Festival were never displaced.
Geography
New Orleans is located at (29.964722, −90.070556) on the banks of the
Mississippi River, approximately upriver from the
Gulf of Mexico. According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of, of which, or 51.55%, is land.
The city is located in the
Mississippi River Delta on the east and west banks of the Mississippi River and south of
Lake Pontchartrain. The area along the river is characterized by ridges and hollows.
New Orleans was originally settled on the natural
levees or high ground along the Mississippi River. In fact, when the capital of French Louisiana was moved from
Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, the French colonial government cited New Orleans' inland location as one of the reasons for the move as it would be less vulnerable to hurricanes. After the
Flood Control Act of 1965, the US Army Corps built floodwalls and man-made levees around a much larger geographic footprint that included previous marshland and swamp. Whether or not this human interference has caused
subsidence is a topic of debate. A study by the
Geological Society of America reported
beneath much of the Mississippi Delta has been highly stable for the past 8,000 years with negligible subsidence rates.}}
On the other hand, a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers claims that "New Orleans is subsiding (sinking)":
The climate of New Orleans is
humid subtropical, with short, generally mild winters and hot, humid summers. In January, morning lows average around, and daily highs around . In July, lows average, and highs average . The lowest recorded temperature was on
February 13,
1899. The highest recorded temperature was on
August 22,
1980. The average precipitation is annually; the summer months are the wettest, while October is the driest month. Precipitation in winter usually accompanies the passing of a cold front.
Hurricanes pose a severe threat to the area, and the city is particularly vulnerable because of its low elevation. According the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, the city is the most vulnerable in the country when it comes to hurricanes. Since 1965, portions of New Orleans have been flooded by four different storms:
Hurricane Betsy,
Hurricane Georges,
Hurricane Katrina and
Hurricane Rita.
New Orleans experiences snowfall only on rare occasions. A small amount of
snow fell during the
2004 Christmas Eve Snowstorm. On
December 25, a combination of rain, sleet, and snow fell on the city, leaving some bridges icy. Before that, the last
white Christmas was in 1954 and brought . The last significant snowfall in New Orleans fell on
December 22,
1989, when most of the city received 1–2 inches (2–5 cm) of
snow.
Cityscape
The
Central Business District of New Orleans is located immediately north and west of the Mississippi River, and was historically called the "American Quarter" or "American Sector". Most streets in this area fan out from a central point in the city. Major streets of the area include
Canal Street, Poydras Street, Tulane Avenue and Loyola Avenue. Canal Street functions as the street which divides the traditional "downtown" area from the "uptown" area.
Every street crossing Canal Street between the Mississippi River and Rampart Street, which is the northern edge of the French Quarter, has a different name for the "uptown" and "downtown" portions. For example, St. Charles Avenue, known for its street car line, is called Royal Street below Canal Street. Elsewhere in the city, Canal Street serves as the dividing point between the "South" and "North" portions of various streets. In the local
downtown means "downriver from Canal Street" while
uptown means "upriver from Canal Street". Downtown neighborhoods include the French Quarter,
Treme, the 7th Ward,
Faubourg-Marigny,
Bywater (the Upper Ninth Ward), and the Lower
Ninth Ward.
Uptown neighborhoods include the Warehouse District, the Lower Garden District, the
Garden District, the Irish Channel, the University District,
Carrollton, Gert Town, Fontainebleau, and Broadmoor. However, the Warehouse and
Central Business Districts, despite being above Canal Street, are frequently called "Downtown" as a specific region, as in the Downtown Development District.
Other major districts within the city include Bayou St. John, Mid-City, Gentilly, Lakeview, Lakefront, New Orleans East, and
Algiers.
Architecture
shotgun house (originating from New Orleans) and the
California bungalow style. Creole townhouses, notable for their large courtyards and intricate iron balconies, line the streets of the
French Quarter. Throughout the city, there are many other historic housing styles: Creole cottages, American townhouses, double-gallery houses, and Raised Center-Hall Cottages.
St. Charles Avenue is famed for its large
Antebellum homes and its mansions in various styles such as
Greek Revival,
Colonial, and
Victorian styles such as
Queen Anne and
Italianate. New Orleans is also noted for its large, European-style Catholic cemeteries, which can be found throughout the city.
For much of its history, New Orleans' skyline consisted of only low- and mid-rise structures. The soft soils of New Orleans are susceptible to subsidence, and there was doubt about the feasibility of constructing large high rises in such an environment The 1960s brought the
World Trade Center New Orleans and
Plaza Tower, which demonstrated that high rises could stand firm on New Orleans' soil.
One Shell Square took its place as the city's tallest building in 1972. The oil boom of the early 1980s redefined New Orleans' skyline again with the development of the Poydras Street corridor. Today, New Orleans' high rises are clustered along
Canal Street and Poydras Street in the
Central Business District.
Tourism and culture
According to current travel guides, New Orleans is in the top ten of the most visited cities in the United States, and tourism is a major staple in the area's economy. 10.1 million visitors came to New Orleans in 2004, and the city was on pace to break that level of visitation in 2005. Annually, tourism in New Orleans is a $5.5 billion industry and accounts for 40 percent of New Orleans' tax revenues. Tourism employed 85,000 people, making it New Orleans' top industry. The city's annual large events such as
Mardi Gras, the
Sugar Bowl, the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (known by locals as "Jazz Fest"), the
Voodoo Music Experience,
Southern Decadence, and the
Essence Music Festival help fuel its mammoth tourism industry. Events held less frequently, such as Super Bowls and portions of NCAA tournaments, also contribute.
Prior to Katrina in the Greater New Orleans Area, there were 265 hotels with an inventory of 38,338 rooms. In May 2007, there were over 140 metro area hotels and motels in operation with over 31,000 rooms in inventory..
A
CNN poll ranking US cities was released in October 2007, ranking New Orleans first in eight categories, behind only
New York City, which ranked first in 15. According to the poll, New Orleans is the best US city for live music, cocktail hours, flea markets, antique shopping, nightlife, "wild weekends," "girlfriend getaways," and cheap food. The city also ranked second for gay friendliness, overall food and dining, friendliness of residents, and people-watching, behind
San Francisco, California,
Chicago, Illinois,
Charleston, South Carolina, and New York City, respectively. However, among the top 25 U.S. travel destinations as established by the poll, the city was voted last in terms of safety and cleanliness and near the bottom as a family vacation destination. "We weren't surprised to see New Orleans' great performance," said Amy Farley, a senior editor at
Travel + Leisure, which printed the complete results in its November issue. "New Orleans is legendary for its great after dark scene."
In 2007, Louisiana began to offer tax incentives for music and theatre productions, leading many to begin referring to New Orleans as "Broadway South". This will likely become an important aspect of the city and region's economy in the near future, most notably further boosting the tourism industry.
New Orleans has many major attractions, from the world-renowned
Bourbon Street and the
French Quarter's notorious nightlife to
St. Charles Avenue (home of
Tulane and
Loyola Universities), the historic
Pontchartrain Hotel, and many stately 19th century mansions.
Magazine Street, with its many historic antique shops and boutique stores, is also popular tourist attraction.
Favorite tourist scenes in New Orleans include the French Quarter (known locally as "the Quarter" or Vieux Carré), which dates from the French and Spanish eras and is bounded by the Mississippi River, Rampart Street, Canal Street and Esplanade Avenue. The French Quarter contains many popular hotels, bars, and nightclubs, most notably around Bourbon Street. Other notable tourist attractions in the Quarter include
Jackson Square,
St. Louis Cathedral, the French Market (including
Café du Monde, famous for
café au lait and
beignets), and jazz at
Preservation Hall.
Also located in the French Quarter is the old
New Orleans Mint, formerly a branch of the
United States Mint, which now operates as a museum. Located on
Royal Street is
The Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum and research center housing art and artifacts relating to the History of New Orleans and the
Gulf South.
Near the Quarter in the neighboring Warehouse District sits the
National World War II Museum, opened on
June 6,
2000, as the National D-Day Museum, dedicated to providing information and materials related to the allied invasion of
Normandy, France. Also nearby is
Confederate Memorial Hall, containing the second largest collection of Confederate memorabilia in the world in the oldest continually operating museum in Louisiana.
To tour the port, one can ride the
Natchez, an authentic
steamboat with a
calliope which cruises the Mississippi the length of the city twice daily.
Art museums in the city include the
Contemporary Arts Center, the
New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) in
City Park, and the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art.
Audubon Park, the
Audubon Zoo, and the
Aquarium of the Americas are also located in the city. New Orleans is also noted for its many beautiful cemeteries. Some notable cemeteries in the city include
Saint Louis Cemetery and
Metairie Cemetery. Significant gardens include
Longue Vue House and Gardens and the
New Orleans Botanical Garden. Gardens are also found in places like City Park and Audubon Park. City Park still has one of the largest (if not
the largest) stands of oak trees in the world.
There are also various points of interest in the surrounding areas. Many wetlands are in close proximity to the city, including
Honey Island Swamp.
Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetery, located just south of the city, is the site of the 1815
Battle of New Orleans.
Entertainment and performing arts
Greater New Orleans is home to numerous celebrations, including
Mardi Gras and the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. New Orleans' most popular celebration is
Carnival, officially beginning on the
Feast of the Epiphany, which locals sometimes refer to as "
Twelfth Night". The Carnival season is often known (especially by out-of-towners) by the name of its last day,
Mardi Gras (
French for "Fat Tuesday"), which is held the Tuesday before the beginning of the
Catholic liturgical season of
Lent, which commences on
Ash Wednesday.
The largest of the city's many musical festivals is the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Commonly referred to simply as "Jazz Fest", it's one of the largest music festivals in the nation, featuring crowds coming from all over the world to experience music, food, arts, and crafts. Despite the name, it features not only jazz but a large variety of music, including both native Louisiana music and internationally-known popular music artists. Along with Jazz Fest, New Orleans'
Voodoo Music Experience (known as Voodoo Fest) and
Essence Music Festival are both large music festivals featuring local and internationally known music artists.
Other major events in the city include
Southern Decadence, the French Quarter Festival, and the
Tennessee Williams Literary Festival.
Throughout the Greater New Orleans area, various ethnic groups have retained their distinctive language traditions to this day. Although rare,
Kreyol Lwiziyen is still spoken by
Louisiana Creole people. Also rare, an archaic Louisiana-Canarian Spanish dialect is spoken by the
Isleños people, but it can usually only be heard by older members of the Isleños population.
New Orleans has always been a significant center for
music, with its intertwined European, Latin American, and African-American cultures. New Orleans' unique musical heritage was born in its pre-American and early American days with a unique blending of European instruments with African rhythms. As the only North American city to allow slaves to gather in public and play their native music (largely in
Congo Square, now located within
Louis Armstrong Park), likely due to the more relaxed attitudes of French and Creole slave owners as compared to their Anglo-American neighbors, New Orleans give birth to an indigenous music:
jazz. With New Orleans' large, educated, and influential Creole, Haitian, and free black population, these African beats intertwined with trained musicians and the city's now famous brass bands gained wide popularity and remain popular today. New Orleans musical traditions also borrow heavily from Acadiana to the west, home of
Cajun music and
Zydeco music, as well as the
Delta blues from its hinterlands in the Mississippi Delta.
The city created its own spin on the old tradition of military
brass band funerals. Traditional New Orleans funerals feature sad music (mostly dirges and hymns) on the way to the cemetery and happy music (hot jazz) on the way back. Such traditional musical funerals still take place when a local musician, a member of a club,
krewe, or benevolent society, or a noted dignitary has passed. Until the 1990s most locals preferred to call these "funerals with music", but out-of-town visitors have long dubbed them "
jazz funerals". Younger bands, especially those based in the
Treme neighborhood, have embraced the term and now have funerals featuring only jazz music.
Decades later, New Orleans was home to a distinctive brand of
rhythm and blues that contributed greatly to the growth of
rock and roll. A great example of New Orleans' sound in the 1960s is the #1 US hit "
Chapel of Love" by
the Dixie Cups, a song which had the distinction of knocking the Beatles out of the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100. New Orleans became a hotbed for
funk music in the 1960s and 70s. By the late 1980s it had developed its own localized variant of
hip hop called
bounce music which, while never commercially successful outside of the
Deep South, remained immensely popular in the poor African-American neighborhoods of the city through the 1990s.
A cousin of Bounce,
New Orleans Rap has seen commercial success locally and internationally. Also, a form of
southern rock or
cowpunk has become popular across college campuses throughout the United States. New Orleans bands which helped originate this wave include
The Radiators,
Dirty Dozen Brass Band,
Rebirth Brass Band,
Better Than Ezra,
Cowboy Mouth,
Rising Sun and
Dash Rip Rock. Notable aspects of the New Orleans music scene are
Lil Wayne,
Master P,
Birdman,
Juvenile,
Cash Money Records, and
No Limit Records. Throughout the 1990s many
sludge metal bands started in the New Orleans area. Heavy Metal in New Orleans has avoided the standardisation of the style by MTV and other Media. Bands like
Down,
Eyehategod,
Soilent Green,
Crowbar and
Acid Bath have incorporated styles such as
Country, Dixie Rock,
Punk, and
NWOBHM to create an original and heady brew of swampy and aggravated Metal.
New Orleans is the southern terminus of the famed
Highway 61.
Film
In an effort to diversify its economy, Louisiana began offering tax incentives for movie production companies in 2002. This led to a substantial increase in the number of films shot in the New Orleans area giving it a new nickname - "Hollywood South". Many big-budget and critically acclaimed feature films have been made in and around New Orleans, such as
Ray,
Runaway Jury,
The Pelican Brief,
The Skeleton Key,
Hard Times,
Glory Road,
All the King's Men,
Déjà Vu,
Last Holiday,
Waiting...,
Failure to Launch,
Stay Alive,and many other full-length films and documentaries.
Hollywood stars
Brad Pitt and
Angelina Jolie have made New Orleans their home with the purchase of a home in the French Quarter, and a new movie studio complex is to be built in the
Treme neighborhood.
K-Ville, a
cop drama series set in post-Katrina New Orleans, has been picked up for the
Fox Network's 2007-08 prime-time schedule, according to sources in Hollywood, a move that was expected pump millions of dollars of location production money into the local economy. The show stared
Anthony Anderson (
The Shield,
The Departed) and
Cole Hauser (
The Cave,
Paparazzi). The show was canceled, mid-season, after a very short production run due to the Hollywood Writer's Strike.
Food
New Orleans is world-famous for its food. The indigenous cuisine is distinctive and influential. From centuries of amalgamation of local Creole, haute Creole, and New Orleans French cuisines, New Orleans food has developed. Local ingredients, French, Spanish, Italian, African, Native American, Cajun, and a hint of Cuban traditions combine to produce a truly unique and easily recognizable Louisiana flavor.
Unique specialties include
beignets, square-shaped fried pastries that could be called "French doughnuts" (served with coffee and chicory, known as
café au lait);
Po'boy and Italian
Muffaletta sandwiches; Gulf oysters on the half-shell, boiled
crawfish, and other
seafood;
étouffée,
jambalaya,
gumbo, and other Creole dishes; and the Monday favorite of red beans and rice (
Louis Armstrong often signed his letters, "Red beans and ricely yours"). New Orleans residents enjoy some of the best restaurants in the United States that cater specifically to locals, and visitors are encouraged to try the local establishments recommended by their hosts.
Sports
Professional sports teams include the
New Orleans Saints (
NFL), the
New Orleans Hornets (
NBA), the
New Orleans VooDoo (
AFL), and the
New Orleans Zephyrs (
PCL). There is also an all-female flat track roller derby team,
Big Easy Rollergirls, and an all-female football team,
New Orleans Blaze. The
Louisiana Superdome is the home stadium of the Saints and hosts the annual Sugar Bowl and other prominent events. The
New Orleans Arena is the home of the Hornets and many events that aren't large enough to need the Superdome. New Orleans is also home to the
Fair Grounds Race Course, the nation's third-oldest thoroughbred track, and the
Zurich Classic, a golf tournament on the
PGA Tour.
In 2008 New Orleans hosted the NBA All-Star Game. The game showcased the Hornets own
Chris Paul and
David West.
Economy
New Orleans is the home to one of the largest and busiest ports in the world, accounts for a major portion of the nation's refinery and production of petroleum, has a top 50 research university (in
Tulane University) as well as half a dozen other institutions of higher education, and is renowned for its cultural tourism.
New Orleans is an industrial and distribution center and the busiest
port system in the world by gross tonnage. The
Port of New Orleans is the 5th-largest port in the United States based on volume of cargo handled, second-largest in the state after the
Port of South Louisiana, and 12th-largest in the U.S. based on value of cargo. The Port of South Louisiana, also based in the New Orleans area, is the world's busiest in terms of bulk tonnage, and, when combined with the Port of N.O., it forms the 4th-largest port system in volume handled.
Like
Houston, Texas, New Orleans is located in proximity to the
Gulf of Mexico, and the many oil rigs lie just offshore. Louisiana ranks fifth in oil production and eighth in reserves in the United States. It is also home to two of the four
Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) storage facilities: West Hackberry in Cameron Parish and Bayou Choctaw in Iberville Parish. Other infrastructure includes 17 petroleum refineries with a combined crude oil distillation capacity of nearly 2.8 million barrels per day, the second highest in the nation after Texas. Louisiana has numerous ports including the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), which is capable of receiving ultra large oil tankers. With all of the product to distribute, Louisiana is home to many major pipelines supplying the nation: Crude Oil (
Exxon,
Chevron,
BP,
Texaco,
Shell, Scurloch-Permian,
Mid-Valley,
Calumet,
Conoco,
Koch,
Unocal, Dept. of Energy, Locap),
Product (TEPPCO, Colonial, Plantation, Explorer, Texaco, Collins), and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Dixie, TEPPCO,
Black Lake, Koch, Chevron,
Dynegy,
Kinder,
Dow, Bridgeline,
FMP,
Tejas, Texaco,
UTP). There are a few energy companies that have their regional headquarters in the city, including
Chevron and
Shell Oil Company.
The city is the home and worldwide headquarters of a single
Fortune 500 company:
Entergy Corporation, an energy and infrastructure providing company.
Freeport-McMoRan, the city's other Fortune 500 company, merged its copper and gold exploration unit with an Arizona company and relocated that division to Phoenix, Arizona. Other companies with a significant presence or base in New Orleans include the worldwide headquarters of the
Entergy and its subsidiaries, Freeport-McMoRan,
AT&T,
IBM, Navtech,
Harrah's (downtown casino),
Popeye's Fried Chicken,
Zatarain's,
Whitney Bank (corp. HQ),
Capital One (banking HQ), Tidewater (Corp. HQ), McMoran Exploration, and Energy Partners (corp.HQ).
The
federal government has a significant presence in the area. The
NASA Michoud Assembly Facility is located in the eastern portion of Orleans Parish, known as New Orleans East, and is operated by
Lockheed-Martin. It is a large manufacturing facility where external fuel tanks for space shuttles are produced, and it also houses the
National Finance Center
, operated by the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 484,674 people, 188,251 households, and 112,950 families residing in the city. The
population density was . There were 215,091 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 67.25%
African American, 28.05%
White, 0.20%
Native American, 2.26%
Asian, 0.02%
Pacific Islander, 0.93% from
other races, and 1.28% from two or more races. 3.06% of the population were
Hispanic or
Latino of any race.
The last population estimate before Hurricane Katrina was 454,865 as of
July 1,
2005. A population analysis released in August 2007 estimated the population to be 273,000, 60% of the pre-Katrina population and an increase of about 50,000 since July 2006. A September 2007 report by The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, which tracks population based on U.S. Postal Service figures, found that in August 2007, just over 137,000 households received mail. That compares with about 198,000 households in July 2005, representing about 70% of pre-Katrina population.
A 2006 study by researchers at
Tulane University and the
University of California, Berkeley determined that there are as many as 10,000 to 14,000
undocumented workers, mostly from
Mexico, currently residing in New Orleans.
Janet Murguia, president and chief executive officer of the
National Council of La Raza, stated that there could be up to 120,000 Hispanic workers in New Orleans. In June 2007, one study stated that the hispanic population had risen from 15,000 pre-Katrina to over 50,000.
The
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has stated that some public housing developments, which were originally going to be torn down, are going to be re-opened temporarily; the public housing developments will be redeveloped in phases. On March 21, 2007, the
House of Representatives passed a bill blocking any demolition of housing developments until HUD shows solid plans for redevelopment, informing HUD that they must contact all former developments on August 1, 2007 and that the buildings must be livable by October 2007. The House's measure must be approved by the
United States Senate. Developers who take advantage of federal tax credits to build other low income and affordable housing, along with residents' continued receipt of federal grant money, should help residents to return to the region.
Religion
New Orleans is notably absent from the
Protestant Bible Belt that dominates religion in the
Southern United States. In New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast area, the predominant religion is
Roman Catholicism. Within the
Archdiocese of New Orleans (which includes not only the city but the surrounding Parishes as well), 35.9% percent of the population is Roman Catholic. The influence of Catholicism is reflected in many of the city's French and Spanish cultural traditions, including its many parochial schools, street names, architecture, and festivals, including
Mardi Gras.
New Orleans also famously has a presence of its distinctive variety of
Voodoo, due in part to
syncretism with Roman Catholic beliefs, the fame of voodoo practitioner
Marie Laveau, and New Orleans' distinctly Caribbean cultural influences. However, the exotic image of Voodoo within the city has been highly exploited by the tourism industry out of proportion to the small number of serious adherents to the religion.
Dialect
New Orleans has developed a distinctive local dialect over the years. This dialect is neither
Cajun nor the stereotypical
Southern accent so often misportrayed by film and television actors. It does, like earlier Southern Englishes, feature frequent
deletion of post-vocalic "r". One dialect is similar to the
New York "
Brooklynese" dialect to people unfamiliar with it. There are many theories to how this dialect came to be, but it likely resulted from New Orleans' geographic isolation by water and the fact that New Orleans was a major port of entry into the United States throughout the 19th century. Many of the immigrant groups who reside in Brooklyn also reside in New Orleans, with
Irish,
Italians (especially Sicilians), and
Germans being the largest groups, as well as a very sizeable
Jewish community.
One of the strongest varieties of the New Orleans accent is sometimes identified as
Yat, from the greeting "Where y'at?" This distinctive accent is dying out generation by generation in the city itself but remains very strong in the surrounding Parishes.
Government
New Orleans has a
mayor-council government. The city council consists of five council members who are elected by district and two at-large councilmembers. Mayor Ray Nagin was elected in May 2002 and was reelected in the
mayoral election of May 20, 2006.
The
New Orleans Police Department provides professional police services to the public in order to maintain order and protect life and property. The Orleans Parish Civil Sheriff's Office
serves papers involving lawsuits and provides security for the Civil District Court and Juvenile Courts. The
Criminal Sheriff, Marlin Gusman, maintains the parish prison system, provides security for the Criminal District Court, and provides backup for the New Orleans Police Department on an as-needed basis.
The city of New Orleans and the
parish of Orleans operate as a merged city-parish government. Before the city of New Orleans became co-extensive with Orleans Parish, Orleans Parish was home to numerous smaller communities. The original city of New Orleans was composed of what are now the 1st through 9th wards. The city of Lafayette (including the Garden District) was added in 1852 as the 10th and 11th wards. In 1870, Jefferson City, including Faubourg Bouligny and much of the Audubon and University areas, was annexed as the 12th, 13th, and 14th wards.
Algiers, on the west bank of the Mississippi, was also annexed in 1870, becoming the 15th ward. Four years later, Orleans Parish became coextensive with the city of New Orleans when the city of
Carrollton was annexed as the 16th and 17th wards.
New Orleans' government is now largely centralized in the city council and mayor's office, but it maintains a number of relics from earlier systems when various sections of the city ran much of their affairs separately. For example, New Orleans has seven elected tax assessors, each with their own staff, representing various districts of the city, rather than one centralized office. A constitutional amendment passed on
November 7,
2006, will consolidate the seven assessors into one by 2010.
» See also:
Crime
New Orleans has a high violent crime rate. Homicides peaked at 421 in 1994, a rate of 86 per 100,000 residents.
The homicide rate rose and fell year to year throughout the late 1990s, but the overall trend from 1994 to 1999 was a steady reduction in homicides.
From 1999 to 2004, the homicide rate again increased. New Orleans had the highest homicide rate of any major American city in 2002 (53.3 per 100,000 people) and again in 2003 (275 homicides). The homicide rate for the entire
New Orleans metropolitan area was 24.4 per 100,000 in 2002.
After Hurricane Katrina, media attention focused on the reduced violent crime rate following the exodus of many New Orleanians. Conversely, a number of cities that took in Katrina evacuees had a significant increase in their murder rate. Houston, for example, had a 25% increase in murders from the previous year. Captain Dwayne Ready stated, "We also recognize that Katrina evacuees continue to have an impact on the murder rate." Police have not kept records of how evacuees have affected crime rates other than homicide.
There were 22 homicides in July 2006, the same as the monthly average for the city from 2002 until Hurricane Katrina. There were 161 homicides in 2006.
On Thursday,
January 11,
2007, several thousand New Orleans residents marched through city streets and gathered at City Hall for a rally demanding police and city leaders tackle the crime problem. Mayor
Ray Nagin said he was "totally and solely focused" on addressing the problem. The city of New Orleans implemented checkpoints starting in early January 2007 from the hours of 2 a.m and 6 a.m. in high-crime areas, and, as of
January 20,
2007, they'd made over 60 arrests and issued more than 100 citations.
Although the city has lost more than 40% of its pre-Katrina population, the city has recaptured an infamous unwanted title as the nation's "murder capital", according to the
FBI. By November 2007, local media reports claimed homicides had already eclipsed the previous year's numbers. The city recorded a total of 209 homicides in 2007.
Education
Schools
New Orleans Public Schools is the city's school district and one of the area's largest (along with the Jefferson Parish School District). It is widely recognized as the lowest performing school district in Louisiana. According to researchers
Carl L. Bankston and Stephen J. Caldas, 12 of the 103 schools in New Orleans showed reasonably good performance at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Following Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana took over most of the schools within the system (all schools that fell into a nominal "worst-performing" metric); about 20 new charter schools have been started since the storm, educating 15,000.
The Greater New Orleans area has approximately 200 parochial schools, with the vast majority being run by the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. The prevalence of very good parochial schools has been both a cause and a consequence of the troubles in the public schools. Because so many middle class students have been enrolled in non-public schools, middle class support for public education has been relatively weak. At the same time, the apparent low quality of public schools in New Orleans has encouraged middle class families to educate their children in private or parochial schools. This has contributed to major underfunding of the public school system.
Colleges and universities
A large number of institutions of higher education exist within the city, including
Tulane University and
Loyola University New Orleans, the city's major private universities. The
University of New Orleans is a large public research university in the city.
Dillard University,
Southern University at New Orleans, and
Xavier University of Louisiana are among some of the leading historically black colleges and universities in the United States (Xavier is the only predominantly black Catholic university in the US).
Louisiana State University Medical School is the state's flagship public university medical school which also conducts research.
Our Lady of Holy Cross College,
Notre Dame Seminary, and the
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary are several smaller religiously affiliated universities. Other notable schools include
Delgado Community College, the
William Carey College School of Nursing, the Culinary Institute of New Orleans,
Herzing College, and Commonwealth University.
Libraries
There are numerous academic and
public libraries and archives in New Orleans, including
Monroe Library at Loyola University, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at
Tulane University, the Law Library of Louisiana, and Earl K. Long Library at the University of New Orleans.
The
New Orleans Public Library includes 13 locations, most of which were damaged by Hurricane Katrina. However, only four libraries remained closed in 2007. The main library includes a Louisiana Division housing city archives and special collections.
Other research archives are located at the
Historic New Orleans Collection and the
Old U.S. Mint.
An independently operated lending library called
Iron Rail Book Collective specializes in radical and hard-to-find books. The library contains over 8,000 titles and is open to the public. It was the first library in the city to re-open after Hurricane Katrina.
Media
The major daily newspaper is the
The Times-Picayune, publishing since 1837. Weekly publications include
The Louisiana Weekly and
Gambit Weekly. Also in wide circulation is the
Clarion Herald, the biweekly newspaper of the
Archdiocese of New Orleans.
Greater New Orleans is well served by television and radio. The market is the 54th largest
Designated Market Area (DMA) in the U.S., serving 566,960 homes and 0.509% of the U.S. Major television network affiliates serving the area include:
WWOZ
(External Link), the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Station, broadcasts 24 hours per day of jazz, blues, Zydeco, and New Orleans music at 90.7 FM and at www.wwoz.org.
Two
radio stations that were influential in promoting New Orleans-based bands and singers were 50,000-watt WNOE-AM (1060) and 10,000-watt
WTIX-AM (690). These two stations competed head-to-head from the late 1950s to the late 1970s.
» See also: List of radio stations in Louisiana (New Orleans area)
Infrastructure
Transportation
Streetcars
New Orleans has three active
streetcar lines. The
St. Charles line is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in America, and each car is a historic landmark. The Riverfront line runs parallel to the river from Esplanade Street through the French Quarter to Canal Street to the Convention Center above Julia Street in the Arts District. The Canal Street line uses the Riverfront line tracks from the intersection of Canal Street and Poydras Street, down Canal Street, then branches off and ends at the cemeteries at City Park Avenue with a spur running from the intersection of Canal and Carrollton Avenue to the entrance of City Park at Esplanade near the entrance to the New Orleans Museum of Art.
The city's streetcars were also featured in the
Tennessee Williams play,
A Streetcar Named Desire. The streetcar line to Desire Street became a bus line in 1948. There are proposals to revive a Desire streetcar line, running along the neutral grounds of North Rampart and St. Claude, as far downriver as Poland Avenue, near the Industrial Canal.
Hurricane Katrina destroyed the power lines supplying the St. Charles Avenue line. The associated levee failures flooded the Mid-City facility storing the red streetcars which normally run on the Riverfront and Canal Street lines. Restoration of service has been gradual, with vintage St. Charles line cars running on the Riverfront and Canal lines until the more modern red cars are back in service; they're being individually restored at the RTA's facility in the Carrollton neighborhood. On December 23, 2007, streetcars were restored to running on the St. Charles line up to Carrolton Avenue, with the remainder of the route expected to be restored in 2008.
Buses
Public transportation in the city is operated by
New Orleans Regional Transit Authority ("RTA"). There are many
bus routes connecting the city and suburban areas. The
Jefferson Parish Department of Transit Administration operates Jefferson Transit which provides service between the city and its suburbs.
Roads
New Orleans proper is served by interstate highways,
Interstate 10,
Interstate 610 and
Interstate 510. I-10 travels east-west through the city as the
Pontchartrain Expressway. In the far eastern part of the city,
New Orleans East, it's known as the
Eastern Expressway. I-610 provides a direct shortcut for traffic passing through New Orleans via I-10, allowing that traffic to bypass I-10's southward curve. In the future, New Orleans will have another interstate highway,
Interstate 49, which will be extended from its current terminus in
Lafayette to the city.
In addition to Interstate Highways,
U.S. 90 travels through the city while
U.S. 61 terminates in the city's downtown center. In addition,
U.S. 11 terminates in the eastern portion of the city.
New Orleans is home to many bridges, The tolled
Crescent City Connection is perhaps the most notable. It serves as New Orleans' major bridge across the Mississippi River, providing a connection between the city's downtown on the eastbank and its westbank suburbs. Other bridges that cross the Mississippi River in the New Orleans area are the
Huey P. Long Bridge, over which U.S. 90 travels, and the
Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge, which carries
Interstate 310.
The
Twin Span, a five-mile (8 km)
causeway in eastern New Orleans carries I-10 across
Lake Pontchartrain. Also in eastern New Orleans,
Interstate 510/
LA 47 travels across the
Intracoastal Waterway/
Mississippi River Gulf Outlet via the
Paris Road Bridge, connecting
New Orleans East and suburban
Chalmette.
The tolled
Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, consisting of two parallel bridges, are, at in length, the longest bridges in the world. Built in the 1950s (southbound span) and 1960s (northbound span), the bridges connect New Orleans with its suburbs on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain via
Metairie.
Airports
The metropolitan area is served by
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, located in the suburb of
Kenner. New Orleans also has several regional airports located throughout the metropolitan area. These include the
Lakefront Airport,
Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans (locally known as Callendar Field) in the suburb of Belle Chasse and "Southern Seaplane," also located in Belle Chasse. Southern Seaplane has a runway for wheeled planes and a water runway for seaplanes. New Orleans' airport suffered some damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina, but as of April 2007 it contained the most traffic and is the busiest airport in the state of Louisiana, and it's the sixth busiest in the Southeast.
Rail
The city is served by rail via
Amtrak. The
New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal is the central rail depot, and is served by three trains: the
Crescent, operating between New Orleans and New York City; the
City of New Orleans, operating between New Orleans and Chicago; and the
Sunset Limited, operating through New Orleans between Orlando, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. From late August of 2005 to the present, the Sunset Limited has remained officially a Florida-to-Los Angeles train, being considered temporarily truncated due to the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina. At first (until late October 2005) it was truncated to a San Antonio-to-Los Angeles service; since then (from late October 2005 on) it has been truncated to a New Orleans-to-Los Angeles service. As time has passed, particularly since the January 2006 completion of the rebuilding of damaged tracks east of New Orleans by their owner CSX Transportation Inc., the obstacles to restoration of the Sunset Limited's full route have been more managerial and political than physical.
In addition, the city is also served by five of the seven
Class I freight railroads in North America:
Union Pacific Railroad,
BNSF Railway,
Norfolk Southern Railway,
CSX, and
Canadian National Railway. The
Kansas City Southern Terminal was shut down post Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans Public Belt provides interchange services between the railroads.
Recently, many have proposed extending New Orleans's public transit system by adding
light rail routes from downtown along Airline Highway through the airport to
Baton Rouge and from downtown to
Slidell and the
Mississippi Gulf Coast. Proponents of this idea claim that these new routes would boost the region's economy, which has been badly damaged by
Hurricane Katrina, and serve as an evacuation option for hospital patients out of the city.
Algiers Ferry
The
Canal Street Ferry connects the heart of New Orleans with the neighborhood of Algiers Point on the other side of the Mississippi River. This service has been in continuous operation since 1827. Pedestrians ride for free while automobiles are charged a fee. Service is from 6 am until midnight.
Utilities
Natural gas and electricity dominate the home heating market with similar market shares totaling about 47 percent each.
Sister cities
New Orleans has ten
sister cities:
Caracas, Venezuela
Holdfast Bay, Australia
Innsbruck, Austria
Juan-les-Pins, France
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Matsue, Japan
Mérida, México
Pointe Noire, Republic of the Congo
San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Orleans, Canada
Nicknames
The city's several nicknames are illustrative:
Crescent City alludes to the course of the Mississippi River around and through the city.
The Big Easy was possibly a reference by musicians in the early 20th century to the relative ease of finding work there. It also may have originated in the Prohibition era when the city was considered one big speak-easy due to the inability of the federal government to control alcohol sales in open violation of the 18th Amendment. The term was used by local columnist Betty Gillaud in the 1970s to contrast life in the city to that of New York City. The name also refers to New Orleans' status as a major city, and at one time "one of the cheapest places in America to live" and came into popular usage throughout the United States in the wake of the 1987 film The Big Easy, which was set in New Orleans.
The City that Care Forgot was given by American writer Mark Twain, and refers to the outwardly easy-going, carefree nature of many of the residents.
America's Most Interesting City appears on welcome signs at the city limits.
Hollywood South is a reference to the large number of films, big and small, shot in the city since 2002.
The Northernmost Caribbean City is a reference from the Boston Globe as well as other travel guides due in part to the similarities of culture with the Caribbean islands.Further Information
Get more info on 'New Orl Ans Louisiana'.
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