Why New Orleans Matters

In the wake of hurricane Katrina New Orleans faces losing a lot that has made this city a great and unique American city. This book hits the high points concernig why New Orleans matters and needs to be salvaged. I have lived here for 27 of my 57 years and frankly don't want to live anywhere else. The city charmrd me with it's culture, history, love of food, festiveness, and most of all just plain uniqueness. It's like no other city on earth, not to say it's perfect, it's not and that only adds to the magnetism. A good read I would reccomend to everyone. Jan Jenevein proud New Orleans area resident.

Piazza has delivered a moving polemic on New Orleans culture and history that extends in its wider concerns to considerations of what makes a community and, understanding that, our nation. Piazza's voice is clear, engaging and subtle. That his book, in the fine American tradition of pamphleteering, was produced so hard upon devastating personal circumstances, one can regard it, in its literate way, as an example of divine speech; a voice larger than the speaker, a gift of the gods all would do well to attend.

I loved this book. It brought back the wonderful memories we have of this fascinating place-not only the food and music but the arcitecture of the area, the graciousness of the people, and the feeling that it would never change. But it has, and works like this make us aware that we must all work together to help preserve what's left of New Orleans and rebuild in a manner that will not only serve those with full wallets but those of us who live in the areas that were not so affluent. Mr. Piazza seems to understand the need to rebuild with everyone in mind. Why New Orleans Matters is an easy yet difficult book to read; we gave it to many friends for Christmas so they could share in the joy and sorrow we had while reading it. Let's hope that everyone involved in the rebuilding reads this book, so New Orleans doesn't become another plastic playground with garish lights and highway posters.

Although I'm not a native New Orleanian and have never lived in the Crescent City for more than six weeks at a time, I love it passionately and go there as often as possible. Hurricane Katrina has blown a hole in my heart. I read Tom Piazza's Why New Orleans Matters straight through in one evening, all the time exclaiming at the fact that Piazza's experiences so closely paralleled my own. This book should be required reading for anybody involved in planning the rebuilding of the city, and especially for those who advise against rebuilding it at all. I have become increasingly angry and frustrated by legislators and out-of-town planning professionals who just don't see why the place they mispronounce "New Or-LEENS" is worth the investment, given its precarious location and the fact that so many of it's citizens are poor. As one such "expert" wrote, "The city of New Orleans should be abandoned to the sea that is going to take it anyway, and those who are displaced should be assimilated into the rest of the United States." Tom Piazza explains why New Orleans is unique, how the precious and delicate fabric of its French-Spanish-African traditions, its architecture, cuisine, second-line parades, Mardi Gras Indians, brass bands, street musicians, speech patterns, neighborhoods, spirituality, its very look and smell and feel, cannot be treated like some ordinary urban planning problem to which generic "smart growth" and "New Urbanism" solutions apply. Mr. Piazza fears, and so do I, that the result will be a giant, sanitized theme park, a "grotesque caricature of everything that made New Orleans real and beautiful in the first place." In curing the body of the city, we risk killing its soul.

I was born in New Orleans almost six decades ago. I pride myself in having never left the City under threat of a hurricane. And, so, there was no difference with this one the Weather Service named Katrina. A long time ago, I was a police officer and the sense of duty to your City and to your Community stays with you. And so, I stayed and along with my parents that I took in to my Uptown Apartment, we weathered the storm. It was a tough night but we made it through and on Monday morning felt we were victorious. Even after the levee failed, we remained in the city until Wednesday, August 31, 2005. The rest is history. I visited the City in September and early October and made my final return in the middle of October to do my part in the rebuilding. This past Saturday (November 19, 2005), I was at the Garden District Book Store to purchase a number of novels by Poppy Z. Brite as gifts to people who assisted me in my travels after Katrina. I was introduced to Tom Piazza and decided to purchase his novel WHY NEW ORLEANS MATTERS. I am so happy I did. Mr. Piazza is an outsider (a person not born in New Orleans) but this guy sure has it right for his adopted City. He writes about and fully understands New Orleans and the people of New Orleans. And, he does so as if he was born here and spent his whole life walking the streets and enjoying the great experience of living here and at the same time noting the negatives. Mr. Piazza takes you on a tour of the places the locals hang out. He does it in such a way as to enliven your senses. Whether it is about the architecture, the culinary wizardry of our chefs and cooks, the music, the people, he gets it right. It is not a rosy picture he paints at all times but some of our warts are there and cannot be denied nor does the author cover them up. This novel was written as the Katrina story unfolded and is still being made each and every day. The novel also in graphic detail tells of the return to the City and what we found and what we experienced. At least, he did not go into too much detail on the ugly side of a city destroyed by water. The smell of my refrigerator will never leave my memory. The lost of human life is so depressing and hurtful. And, we also lost so many of our pets that, to many, were important segments of our larger family. The one thing that stands out for me in this very good book about New Orleans and the four legged dog named Katrina is that Mr. Piazza list so many things that make New Orleans so different and so grand. But, in the end, it is not the buildings, the restaurants or the food, the music per se but it is the people who make up the culture of New Orleans. And, that is the reason that it is absolutely mandatory that the rebuilding of this unique City start with the return of the citizens that make the culture so vivacious and life so meaningful and in need of preserving. New Orleans matters because the people of New Orleans matter.