New Orleans Neighborhood Takes Recovery Into Its Own Hands

"Lakeview, a 7,000-home mostly white enclave in a city that is predominantly black, has emerged as a success story in the reconstruction of New Orleans through entrepreneurs and strong civic organization that existed long before the storm."

"In contrast, hard-hit black middle-class neighborhoods in eastern New Orleans do not have the same financial means and civic organization, and are not drawing nearly as much private investment. As a result, their recovery is crawling."

"A civic organization in Lakeview has compiled its own data on rebuilding, finding in a February survey that 67 percent of Lakeview's lots were in some stage of transformation. Seventeen percent were newly inhabited, just over 26 percent were under repair, and 23 percent had been demolished to pave the way for rebuilding."

"In contrast, neighborhood leaders in eastern New Orleans, which encompasses four ZIP codes to Lakeview's one, are just now undertaking a house-to-house count."