A NEW New Orleans

Giving priority to basic infrastructure may not appeal to those who would prefer to patch the structural problems and spend money on rebuilding New Orleans as a museum, or by adding splashy concert halls, art museums and other iconic cultural structures. Ultimately, the people of the New Orleans region will have to decide whether to focus on resuscitating the Big Easy \o7zeitgeist\f7 -- which includes a wink-and-nod attitude toward corruption -- or to begin drawing upon inner resources of discipline, rigor and ingenuity.

Some may argue that such a shift would diminish New Orleans' status in cultural folklore as a corrupt but charming waif. Yet that old ghost is probably already gone. Even a rebuilt, reconfigured Latin Quarter would no doubt seem more Anaheim than anti-bellum. In contrast, a \o7new \f7New Orleans -- a city with a thriving economy, a city of aspiration as well as memory -- would in time create its own cultural efflorescence, this time linked as much to the future as the past. This should be the goal of the great rebuilding process about to begin.