New Orleans is a beacon of hope and transformation
Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu, to an audience of professionals at the American Planning Association conference (The Times-Picayune, 4/19/2010):
The people of New Orleans succeeded. Those American citizens showed great resilience and great faith … and they succeeded in doing everything they were supposed to do. But we as a government — federal, state, local — we as a business community, we as an association of individuals that pretend to talk about smart growth conceptually, really have not done the job that needs to be done. … If we want to regain our moral authority on the international stage … then we have to come back to the very place that was a symbol of our dysfunction and transform it into a symbol of function.
