People who want cities to succeed post-COVID should be heartened by the news out of New Orleans: a spunky, no-holds-barred movement to boot the second-term mayor, LaToya Cantrell, out of office.
The “No LaToya” recall campaign may be New Orleans’ last chance to avoid reaching a tipping point. It’s still missing 15% of its tourist jobs, and crime is rampant: A random attacker stabbed two people Saturday in the French Quarter.
The United States has had a bad time since 2020, but New Orleans has really had a bad time. This year, 203 people have been murdered, a third above last year and more than double the pre-COVID level.
The killings bring the murder rate to an unheard-of high. In a city with a population shy of 400,000, the current pace is an annual murder rate of 70 per 100,000, multiple times the national average.
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post