ABSTRACT
New Orleans was starting to crawl back from the grave in the early spring of 2006. The city's population was increasing rapidly throughout the first half of the year as residents began to return and more jobs became available. The major four-year universities—Tulane, the University of New Orleans, Loyola, Xavier, Southern University of New Orleans, and Dillard—reopened for the spring semester, albeit with 30,000 students instead of a full complement of 45,000. Many were surprised when Nagin was reelected on May 20 with about 52 percent of the vote. It was the narrowest margin of victory ever for an incumbent mayor in New Orleans. The New Orleans East Vietnamese community, the neighborhoods of Broadmoor, Lakeview, and Holy Cross, and portions of Gentilly coordinated their own independent planning processes. The Rockefeller Foundation had been working with the Greater New Orleans Foundation since the day’s right after Katrina.
