Sorry it’s a little late, but I just returned from a great conference in New Orleans on regional equity.  I hadn’t been back to NO post-Katrina, and though it has been two and one-half years, things are still pretty morbid in some neighborhoods.  And then again, the tourist-trap areas are up and running as if nothing had really happened.  The fact that millions of people are visiting the city without knowing the costs of our country’s ineptitude saddens more than the remnants of devastation still visible.  However the city still lives on, and while it does, I will have hope for a better world.  And with that hope I will list my top five favorite things about New Orleans, in no particular order.

- The Food.  I know its not the healthiest cuisine, but it may be the most flavorful.  I love etouffee, I love gumbo.  I love fried shrimp and the po’boys they come in, and I love crawfish like nobody’s business.  I could founder on New Orleans food.

- The Music.  Many people relate jazz to Chicago, but I will always have the music of New Orleans in my heart.  The Crescent City had a profound effect on jazz, particularly early on, and I can’t hear the Saints Go Marching In without being brought right back to the second line parades that followed funerals through the bumpy streets.  The music will always bring me back to the city.

- The Architecture.  The city, the entire city, is an unbelievable built environment.  Sure there are beautiful mansions in the Garden District and along St. Charles, and the French Quarter is a uniquely dense community with its own character.  But even the run-down neighborhoods, with shotguns and camelbacks, old wrought-iron fences and overgrown yards have such character and personality.  I could never get tired of the variety to be found in New Orleans architecture.

- The Accent.  Many visitors of New Orleans can find it a little hard to understand, but once you’ve been there a little while all but the thickest accents are discernible and fun.  I love the way people sound in New Orleans.

- The People.  Along with the way people sound, I just love the people of New Orleans.  Sure, they don’t know the meaning of fast food - in fact most people don’t know anything fast.  But if you lived in 99% humidity all year round you wouldn’t want to do anything fast either.  You just do what you do, and live easy, man.  I don’t know about now, as things have certainly changed, but when I lived in New Orleans nearly everyone was friendly, easy-going, and just happy to be alive.  And that is something that can’t be taught, can’t be planned, it just sort of happens.  That’s what makes (made) New Orleans the great place it is (was).

For the first time I visited New Orleans this past week as a tourist, and I can see how easy they fool most visitors into good-times and easy living.  But underneath that, there is still sadness, and loss, and devastation.  Two and a half years later and the war is still being fought in New Orleans, let’s not forget about them because they can put on a happy face.  Let us always remember.  And always remember the great things about the Crescent City.