4.24.10 Tchoupitoulas?

Street Names by Donald A. Gill, an excellent New Orleans book, that tells the history behind every street name.

12.26.09 Happy in Louisiana, thank you....

Ahh so Louisiana ranks as the happiest state, NY is #46-  

Louisiana ranks as happiest state

By The Associated Press

December 18, 2009, 2:33PM

People in sunny, outdoorsy states -- Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida -- say they're the happiest Americans, and researchers think they know why.

A new study comparing self-described pleasant feelings with objective measures of good living found these folks generally have reason to feel fine.

The places where people are most likely to report happiness also tend to rate high on studies comparing things like climate, crime rates, air quality and schools.

The happiness ratings were based on a survey of 1.3 million people across the country by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It used data collected over four years that included a question asking people how satisfied they are with their lives.

Economists Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick in England and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., compared the happiness ranking with studies that rated states on a variety of criteria ranging from availability of public land to commuting time to local taxes.

Probably not surprisingly, their report in Friday's edition of the journal Science found the happiest people tend to live in the states that do well in quality-of-life studies.

Yet Oswald says "this is the first objective validation of 'happiness' data," which is something he says economists have been reluctant to use in the past.

"Very loosely, you could say that we prove that happiness data are 'true,' -- such data have genuine objective informational content," he said.

"Moreover," Oswald added, "it is interesting to uncover the pattern of life-satisfaction across one of the world's important nations."

Ranking No. 1 in happiness was Louisiana, home of Dixieland music and Cajun/Creole cooking.

Oswald urged a bit of caution in that ranking, however, noting that part of the happiness survey occurred before Hurricane Katrina struck the state, and part of it took place later. Nevertheless, he said, "We have no explicit reason to think there is a problem" with the ranking.

Rounding out the happy five were Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona.

At the other end of the scale, last in happiness -- is New York state.

As if to illustrate the problem, residents attending a meeting Wednesday in rural Queensbury unleashed their anger and cynicism at a state government they described as corrupt, self-dealing and too quick to increase taxes. It was a tirade that had one lifelong resident saying he was ready to flee "this stinkin' state."

Oswald suggested the long commutes, congestion and high prices around New York City account for some of the unhappiness.

He said he has been asked if the researchers expected that states like New York and California, which ranked 46th, would do so badly in the happiness ranking.

"I am only a little surprised," he said. "Many people think these states would be marvelous places to live in. The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy."

Besides being interesting, the state-by-state pattern has scientific value, Oswald explained.

"We wanted to study whether people's feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality -- of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, etceteras -- in their own state. And they do match."

Oswald and Wu used data from CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System collected from 2005 to 2008. The survey, launched in 1984, collects information on a variety of health measures.

The research was supported by Britain's Economic and Social Research Council.

The Times Picayune, 'Louisiana ranks as happiest state."

10. 22. 09 Gulf of Mexico and River Independent

NEW ORLEANS — The health of the Gulf of Mexico depends on, and is interdependent with, the health and management of the Mississippi River Delta and coastal Louisiana, speakers told the federal Ocean Policy Task Force on Monday.
Robert Twilley, professor with the department of oceanography and coastal sciences at LSU, said the aggressive loss of wetlands in Louisiana needs to be met with an equally aggressive adaptation of how the river is managed.
The sediment carried by the river is needed if a sustainable coastal landscape is going to be developed, he said.
Although the coast can’t be rebuilt to what it once was, “we can built a smarter coastal footprint,” Twilley said.
Paul Harrison, senior director for Mississippi River for Environmental Defense Fund, agreed and said it’s important for the task force to understand that the health of the Gulf of Mexico is tied to the health of the Mississippi River delta.
Improving the health of the coastal area in turn depends on reconnecting river resources with the coastal wetlands, Harrison said, and doing so will take a coordinated federal effort among many agencies.
If federal agencies don’t deal with the collapse of the delta ecological system, then the solutions of how the Gulf of Mexico will be managed will be much different, he said.
The task force was formed earlier this year by President Barack Obama to develop a national ocean, coastal and Great Lakes policy as well as come up with recommendations on ecosystem planning.
More than 300 people attended the task force’s fifth regional meeting where the panel heard from state officials, scientists and coastal nonprofit organization representatives.
Mark Davis, director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at Tulane University, urged the task force to remember that the upriver health contributes to coastal and ocean health.
“Oceans don’t begin and end with blue water,” Davis said.
The river is managed as a navigation portal and through a number of federal acts “but we don’t manage it as a river,” Davis said.
Denise Reed, professor with the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of New Orleans, said although there’s not as much sediment coming down the river as there was historically, there’s still a substantial amount — enough to fill the Louisiana Superdome 11 times every year.
Reed said that sediment is needed to help sustain and build marsh as it was once done before the levees were built.
“The future of coastal Louisiana is intimately related to how we decide to manage the lower Mississippi River,” Reed said. ......
from:  'Panel: Gulf, river interdependent' by Amy Wold, The Advocate

10.17.09

Vintage but relevant.

10.10.09 Louisiana with most economic momentum....

Louisiana earns top ranking among states for "economic momentum"

ising personal incomes and a robust energy sector have combined to make Louisiana the top state for "economic momentum," according to a new report that tracks economic conditions in every state.

The ranking by State Policy Reports, a Washington, D.C., newsletter affiliated with the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures, marks the first time in at least a decade that Louisiana has topped the "index of state economic momentum."

It's also the latest indicator that Louisiana has thus far been less affected by the ongoing national recession that has left many states with double-digit unemployment rates and plummeting home values.

But Marcia Howard, the editor of the report, said the state's ranking could prove fleeting and be at least somewhat inflated by the influx of hurricane-recovery dollars into the state since the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes.

"It's not that Louisiana is going gangbusters. It's just that it's the least weak right now and that could easily change," Howard said.

But Louisiana's top economic development official said the ranking is at least partially due to aggressive efforts to retain existing companies and recruit new ones.

"Overall this ranking is in line with our perspective about Louisiana's economy since the beginning of the national recession: By any reasonable measure, Louisiana's economy has outperformed the South and the nation since the recession began," Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret wrote in response to e-mailed questions.

The index is determined by measuring personal income, employment and population growth in each state and comparing it to the previous year.

At a time when many states are experiencing aftershocks from the financial crisis and the housing bubble that helped cause it, the states with the most economic momentum are those that derive much of their wealth from natural resources such as coal, oil and natural gas.

West Virginia, which ranks highest for personal income growth (Louisiana ranks fifth), is largely dependent on coal, while North Dakota, which is ranked second overall, has an economy dominated by oil and agriculture. The other two states in the top five -- Oklahoma and Texas -- also have oil-dependent economies.

Many of the states at the bottom of the list, such as Nevada and Florida, have been hard hit by the housing bust that have seen real estate values drop sharply from their 2007 peaks.
Louisiana ranked 49th nationally as recently as December 2007, 25th last December and sixth in the previous ranking, which came out in March.

Moret said Louisiana's economy has benefited from not having a strong durable-goods and financial sector, since those have been particularly hard hit by the current recession. But he said the state's economy could take a hit in the coming months from a decline in industrial construction jobs, as several large projects are almost finished.

"And many of our manufacturing facilities are still struggling with relatively weak national demand for their products -- so even though the national economy appears to be hitting a floor and about to head back up, we're not out of the woods yet," Moret wrote.

'Louisiana earns top ranking.' Jan Moller, Times Picayune

9.16.09 The little lily that could....

New Orleans' love affair with itself is one of the historical, parochial, unifying and sometimes cloying characteristics of this city. For instance, very few of us feel the need to append any facts, statistics or evidence to the perpetual claim that is ours: "The most interesting city in America."
It's a given. Always has been. And if you live somewhere else and are generally tired of our prideful self-regard -- particularly every time the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina rolls around -- then get over it. Because it's true.
To paraphrase the late 7th Ward vaudevillian, Ernie K-Doe: Sure, we're cocky. But we're good.
And make no mistake: This is no Katrina effect, no manifesto of the "new" New Orleans. Our perpetual conceit is -- to put it in the popular lexicon -- a pre-existing condition.
After all, it was 1879 when the newspaper columnist Lafcadio Hearn took note of New Orleans' chronic states of decay, insolvency, lawlessness and prurience, yet still proclaimed: "It is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio."
Nothing against Ohio, of course. It's just... well, it's just not here

'Hurricane Katrina may have amped it up,'  
Chris Rose, The Times Picayune
      

8.30.09

"New York doesn't care if you're there or not," says Monaghan, who grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Yale. "The city doesn't notice. Here, just the act of living here feels like a meaningful contribution.""
                      -  "Adventure calls workers to New Orleans." USA Today

8.14.09

"As labor markets crash, New Orleans is holding onto its jobs." Nola.com

"New Orleans: 1 of 10 Best Cities for Riding Out a Recession." BusinessWeek