In the wrinkled edifices of the French Quarter and the worn-out storefront walls along Canal Street, a legacy of decay in New Orleans intrudes on the mossy city. It is a sense of things that have nearly fallen apart and stayed nearly-fallen-apart for decades.
For much of the last 20 years, the city was wilting in plain sight. In the 1990s, a period during which the U.S. added 21 million jobs, New Orleans didn't just lose jobs; it also lost people. With tourism filling the void left by manufacturing, wages fell way behind the national average. It was place to bring a bachelor party, but not a bachelor's degree, and certainly not a business.
And then, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit. Days later, 80 percent of New Orleans was underwater. More than 1,200 people were dead. In a year, the city lost more than 90,000 jobs -- more than the number employed by the local education, transportation, and manufacturing sectors,combined -- and $3 billion in wages disappeared. A city already in decline had suffered perhaps the worst natural disaster in American history.
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