With New Orleans looking like a ghost city debates have started about the future of the hard-hit metropolis. According to Business Week broadly three visions about the new New Orleans are starting to take shape. In the first one, New Orleans recovers primarily on the basis of cultural heritage (in particular: music). Creative industries and the creative class play a dominant role in this regeneration model.

Not denying the benefits from creative industries, the second vision goes a step further. New Orleans should first and foremost invest in the basics (infrastructure, education, safety).

The third vision suggests that the scale of the rebuilding of the city should be limited. New Orleans has experienced a net loss of population since the 1960s and there is no reason to assume that large-scale rebuilding will suddenly reverse that trend. Moreover, without extensive (and no doubt highly expensive) precaution measures to prevent future imundation it seems unwise to rebuild a ‘larger metropolis’.

You can read the article in Business Week by clicking here.