Dixie Transforming

Today was the first official day of my field work in New Orleans. The spirit of the city is optimistic: the wonder of Mardi Gras, the Saints’ recent Superbowl victory, a series of recent social justice victories, and the promise of a new mayor for the city – just to name a few that come to mind. There is a lot going on in New Orleans at the moment.

On the flip side, there is also a lot of rain in NOLA. It’s pretty damn cold, too! 38F and rainy is hard to come by in the Big Easy. From what I’ve gathered from my walks, folks down here do not really own proper winter coats. Most people just rely on light jackets and sweaters. I only saw a few umbrellas despite torrential downpour on Thursday and a good part of Friday.

Thursday I picked up my rental car down at the New Orleans Convention Center. This part of town is a stone’s throw from the Superdome where chaotic, unthinkable, and turbulent events took place the last weekend of August 2005.

Today, almost five years since the storm rolled in, the city is eerie with little signs of activity – perhaps on the account of the weather (freezing rain), or perhaps simply a result of Mardi Gras (most of the bars, daiquiri shops, and parade routes are a good 15 minute walk from here). A better explanation for the lonely streets is that convention business is slow.

New Orleans' convention center facilities

The economic downturn over the last 18 months has meant the trimming the fat from business expenses, and convention budgets are probably one of the first “perks” that disappear. This enormous meeting complex, filling perhaps 12 square blocks of New Orleans’ prime downtown waterfront property (7’ above sea level), was built to induce a steady stream of mid to high-class hotel, restaurant/bar business, gambling and themed excursion revenue. Unfortunately, as seen in other cities, convention business is over-relied on to deliver dollars to the city budget. The result: underutilized facilities that do a terrific job of reminding its residents that the times are tough.

When you think about it for just a minute, convention business is an oddity. These events attract a mass of visitors showing up for a span of anywhere between just 12 and 72 hours who spend the more or less the entire day inside one or more anonymous meeting halls. Then why the particular draw to New Orleans? Why not Phoenix? Why not Dallas, where costs are lower?  A possible answer:  In good times, cost does not matter as much to businesses, and they will accept a higher price in order to promote business down the road and keep employees in the position to remain profitable. In 2004, the Business and Convention Travelers Report ranked New Orleans as the 10th most popular U.S. city for conference and convention business.

I do not have any photos of this part of town due to the rain – I was simply not driven to take my camera out, but more will be posted shortly of another one of New Orleans’ big and ALWAYS successful economic engines: the parades of Carnival for Mardi Gras.