Nagin's remarks came as the hurricane's death toll climbed to 558 in his state, and 795 total.
Nagin gave a nod to state officials and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose officials he had sharply criticized last week for failing to move quickly to aid the city. At his side Thursday was Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who took over the federal relief effort from former FEMA director Michael D. Brown, who resigned Monday.
"There has been an uncommon display of unity among federal, state and local folks to put together a reentry plan," Allen said.
After business owners return this weekend, mostly to the French Quarter and the business district, residents of the west bank Algiers neighborhood will be allowed to return to their homes Monday "to live and clean up and do the things that are necessary," Nagin said.
Next Wednesday and Friday, the city's venerable Uptown section, which includes Tulane University and the affluent Garden District, will open.
"We will have life," Nagin said. "We will have commerce. We will have people getting into their normal modes of operation and the normal rhythm of the city of New Orleans."
Then, on Sept. 26, residents of the French Quarter will be allowed to return to the area's lofty warren of Napoleonic-era apartments. Despite some flooding, Nagin said, the area remained "mostly high and dry and good, but since it's so historic, we want to double- and triple-check before we fire up all the electricity in there."
Nagin acknowledged that the city's returning population would not surpass 250,000 until the city had replaced thousands of flooded and water-eroded homes -- a massive project that planners and officials said could take years.
A woman who identified herself as a resident of the Lower 9th Ward stepped up and asked Nagin when she could return to her neighborhood, where floodwaters receded in the last several days.
"Water was up to the roof [in that area] up until three days ago," Nagin replied. "That's most likely the area that will be opened up on the back end" of the city's rebuilding effort.
In Baton Rouge, New Orleans evacuee George Richardson, 40, brightened at the thought of returning home. "Like in 'The Wizard of Oz,' if I could clap my heels, I'd be home. If I had three wishes, that'd be one of them," said Richardson, a pathologist who has been sheltered since the flood at the Baton Rouge River Center.
