Can New Orleans Heal Its Old Problems By Rebuilding?

New Orleans real-estate developer Pres Kabacoff "hopes that the study produced over the last year, dubbed Operation Rebirth, will become a road map to create the new New Orleans. The study, which seeks to reinvigorate rundown stretches of the city, envisions an "Afro-Caribbean Paris," with garden-lined boulevards, an African-American cultural district, a modern trolley system and 25,000 revitalized homes -- houses that were left to rot long before Katrina arrived.

...New Orleans, known for its small neighborhoods, is more likely to opt for more intimate proposals, such as the proposed New Orleans Upriver Greenway Corridor. A study paid for by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Trust for Public Land, finished just before Katrina struck, calls for a $15 million to $85 million revitalization of a mile-long stretch of the Mississippi waterfront. The plan envisions taking over dilapidated cargo wharves to create a ribbon of parks and recreation along what's now an inaccessible industrial waterfront."

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