Spent some time in New Orleans and the recovery is slow. 

President Hides Warnings in Address to the Nation 
In the rebuilding process, there will be many important decisions and many details to resolve, yet we're moving forward according to some clear principles. In the long run, the New Orleans area has a particular challenge, because much of the city lies below sea level.

Death of an American City
We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

Christmas Story: New Orleans, Louisiana, And New York Times
The Times rightly notes that it would be remarkable if this country allowed the City of New Orleans to shrivel and die which is occurring given the lack of federal response.  The paper mentions that we can rebuild a foreign nation, give tax breaks to the rich but we cannot take care of our own people from the New Orleans area who are hanging on to the vine.

Louisiana, Gulf Coast, New Orleans Get Unfair Rap
The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, much of which has largely been disregarded in talks to rebuild Katrina ravaged areas, are no more corrupt than those in any other area of the United States.

Wealthy Blacks Oppose Plans for Their Property
Since September, hundreds of displaced residents from New Orleans East, the neighborhood that was home to the largest concentration of the city's black elite, gather there for a small taste of the camaraderie and community that they sorely miss. But the residents - whose ranks include lawyers, judges and a few elected officials - are also anxiously mobilizing to save their low-lying corner of the city, which some planners argue should revert to marshland.

Katrina Debris Barely Touched
More than three months after Hurricane Katrina, Robinson and thousands of other workers cleaning up the unfathomably vast mess seem barely to have scratched the surface. With so much debris from Katrina and Hurricane Rita - more than 100 million cubic yards, enough to fill the Louisiana Superdome 22 times over - they could be doing their dirty job for two years or more. Cost: as much as $4 billion.