A Thousand Mile Loop

The trip odometer rolled over onto 1,000 miles just as we pulled into Lansing on Monday. The pictures will be up on flickr soon. In the meantime, I've rediscovered the Slatin Report, an excellent online periodical about real estate.

Now that more than a year has passed we can safely ask, Who's rebuilding New Orleans? Hispanics, and probably in massive numbers. According to a Tulane study about half of the construction work is being done by Latino crews. Many of these workers came along with firms from Arizona, Texas, and California, their crews are primarily first and second generation immigrants from Mexico and Central America. It's unlikely that most of these workers will settle in New Orleans, but their sudden appearance is already changing the landscape.

"'We're seeing day-worker sites in New Orleans for the first time,' noted R. Kelley Pace, director of the Real Estate Research Institute." Observers in NOLA say that Hispanic laborers are doing some of the toughest and most dangerous jobs. Contractors aware of the questionable nature of their labor's citizenship are taking unscrupulous risks.

What kind of impact will this influx of Hispanic people mean for New Orleans? Before Katrina the area had about 6% Hispanic population, the hurricane might transform New Orleans into a new hub of Hispanic culture and business. It could bring the wave of immigration to the doorstep of the American South.

Also from the Slatin Report: People who think the new World Trade Center project is a fiasco. (Letters in response to Vision Not Accomplished.)