Planning For An Overnight Boomtown

"Commercial and housing markets are among the most hotly contested. Professional firms chased from New Orleans are setting up offices in former grocery stores. Housing prices are soaring as evacuees bid them up with all-cash offers. Apartments and other rentals are nearly impossible to find.

...City officials acknowledge this burgeoning city also will inherit the urban headaches often associated with breakneck growth, including crowded schools, overtaxed municipal services and gridlocked traffic. Just going five miles across town these days takes 20 minutes.

..In a city running short on space, housing is the most precious commodity. Several homes have been sold sight unseen, for $400,000 and $500,000 cash. One went for $1 million in cash, real estate agent Dorsey Peek says. 'It's like nothing I've seen in 29 years,' she says."