Commentary: Our complex city holds promise, problems

We live in a complicated world. We live in a more complicated city.

The evidence of our complicated life is documented quite well in last week's issue of CityBusiness, right there on the front page and continuing all through our news.

First of all, office occupancy in the Central Business District is at one of its highest rate since the heyday of the oil and gas boom of the late 1970s and '80s. Our story documented the frenzy for downtown office space, and it's tied directly to our post-Katrina recovery.

Architects, engineers, planners, lawyers and management consultants have descended upon our city -- and the region at large - - to plan, plot and facilitate the redevelopment of New Orleans. These professionals are as critical to our future as the plumbers, electricians, carpenters and heavy equipment operators who have also descended upon our city.

The construction workers have moved in, too. And they should be happy to be here. In the latest national employment data released early this month, construction jobs across America were way down. The construction industry lost between 30,000 and 40,000 jobs nationwide in February alone. The New Orleans recovery, and the construction jobs created here, help offset those dramatic national losses.

We are finally seeing the positive impact of a full-blown economic recovery that is creating jobs and filling vacant offices.

There is another positive story from last week, too.

The Port of New Orleans is asking the state of Louisiana to fund or facilitate the funding of significant upgrades to our port system.

Over the next five years, the port system wants to spend more than $570 million upgrading its infrastructure and container and cruise ship facilities.

By 2020, the port would like to spend another $465 million to compete with other Gulf of Mexico ports for a burgeoning international trade bonanza expected to continue for years. Expansion and modernization plans for the Panama Canal, coupled with the import-export explosion in China, India and other Asian economies, will mean a bonanza for the most convenient and best- equipped ports in the southern United States.

Our port system still retains a competitive advantage because of its location and the access to rail and highway systems that complete the intermodal transfer systems that make present-day shipping efficient and expeditious.

But without these upgrades, our Port might lose out in the battle for freight and jobs. The story we ran last week paints a rosy future for international trade if we invest properly and a competitive quagmire if we don't.

A third story from last week isn't filled with any positive undercurrents.

In the second installment of our "Murder Inc." series, reporter Richard A. Webster outlines the huge economic and social costs we bear because of the murders and shootings that happen every day in our city.

The story details in grim statistics the money we pony up every time a gun is fired during the commission of a crime.

When a shooting victim dies, the costs associated with the crime can top $1 million. When the shooting victim lives, the cost to rehabilitate the victim and prosecute the perpetrator can easily be $2 million.

There are more tragic numbers.

Louisiana has more citizens in jail per capita than anywhere else in the world, 1,138 people per 100,000. The rest of our country has an incarceration rate of about 750 per 100,000 residents. These numbers are tragic on their face and incalculable in the cost to society.

It matters that we have to spend $300,000 keeping a young man in jail for his entire adult life, but it's even sadder when his family becomes wards of the state. One child in the welfare system for 15 years will cost another $180,000. If a prisoner has children, he can't support them. If he has financial obligations, those obligations are forfeited and his creditors pay for his forfeitures.

Add to these costs the incredibly high cost of health care for prisoners and these numbers can easily climb to more than a half million dollars, money that comes from our state budget.

These stories demonstrate in vivid detail how complex the issues are that face our city as we continue to struggle, then prosper, then pay for our future.

Copyright 2008 Dolan Media Newswires
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