This was maybe the best story I've read on Salon all year. It made me sad that y'all broke up, though.

Whenever I visit New Orleans I always think about

Take a closer walk with thee

Mary Anne Artigues

You made all the difference to me.

The title pretty much says it all.

I'm a New-Orleanian-in-exile (I moved away a long time before Katrina), and you captured the real essence of the city, good and bad, in this article.

I know you know the saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day." 80% of the city flooded. 80%. That has to be rebuilt. By individuals who have to fight with insurance and contractors and some having done this while in exile in a different city. And not to mention all of the other infrastructure that needs some honest review. Give us a break, please. Sarah, I hope that you don't honestly (or anymore) compare the rebuilding of New York after 9/11 to the rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina. One because 9/11 didn't destroy 80% of the city and two because the rest of the country did not even consider abandoning New York, the way New Orleans was often abandoned after Katrina. I enjoyed reading your perspective. I think you truly did get an honest view of my city. When you venture out of the confines of tourist tunnel vision, New Orleans really does become real. I too loved Chris Rose's columns after Katrina. He was a total dork before Katrina and he was transformed for all of us, and like all of us, and in many ways was speaking for all of us afterwards. I can't bring myself to watch Trouble the Water. Not just yet. I still get tight chested and overwhelmed by it all and I don't always want to trigger my memories. But anyone who has gone through a tragedy has to understand that.

With all respect to the tribulations of New Orleans and her citizens: does this city need any more f***ing people falling in love (in print) with it???

As I noted, I am sympathetic to the troubles of the city, but, folks, Detroit, Cincinnati and Philadelphia have bigger problems SANS hurricane than NOLA has with the impact. Ray Nagin visited Philadelphia two years ago. While here he, he, being a jerk off, as he is, made an off the cuff statement about Philadelphia being dirtier and worse than N.O. This did two things: pissed of the locals, quite rightly, and pointed out something of an important fact.

A number of cities have bigger problems than New Orleans and don't have fishwraps' singsongs, billions in past and returning tourism and a multi-billion dollar trinket market to stand on.

I have been to New Orleans once, for five days in Spring 2008. For me the city has all the charm of a unbathed used car salesman in a seersucker suit with one hand in your pocket. I arrived eager to see this undiscovered gem of a city that Harry Connick Jr and countless others had been droning about for the two and a half years since Katrina. What I found was unfriendly people, overpriced sub-mediocre food, and a parade of odors. My most vivid memory of New Orleans was standing in Jackson Square and realizing that the city smells exactly like a zoo.

No wonder the people weren't friendly towards you. With regard to the food, like a typical N.O. tourist, you clearly didn't know where to go, and that's not the city's fault. As far as odors, every big city I've ever been in has its share of those. I'm glad you won't be going back to N.O. The city doesn't need people like you. And as you may have noted, PLENTY of people love the place, so, as far as you're concerned, good riddance.

I'd only been to New Orleans twice, quick jaunts through the French Quarter, and what I knew about the city was a bucketful of Cajun clichés.

Cajuns traditionally don't have much to do with New Orleans - you seem to have meant Creole clichés. But since you're writing about your ignorance of New Orleans, I guess it works.

Of course the city hasn't been rebuilt yet, George Bush said it would be.

Just a few months before the flood. I was struck by how much of a dump it was. This is New Orleans? What’s the BFD with this?

Faux. Everything just appearance. An alcohol fueled façade. Manufactured “music” that would make the Blues Brothers proud. Blues Brothers 2000, that is.

This city isn’t worth saving. Let it burn (flood).

I moved from NOLA after my home flooded in the storm. Chris Rose’s book is beautiful, cathartic, and sometimes hilarious.

I think most people who have a bad time in the city stick to the French Quarter tourist traps. You’re not going to have a great local dining experience at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, but whenever I pass the place it’s full of people.

Lovely story. I love the city, and you show both the good and the bad. I’ve seen the Katrina fatigue (which I can understand) and occasional outright hostility (which I don’t understand). Frankly, I think the hostility comes from fear. It’s as if showing compassion makes you vulnerable, and admits that decent and real human beings suffered, here in America – and that maybe, just maybe, something bad could happen to you one day, in your town, here in America, too. How hard would it be to say, “Man, that sucks?” For some, apparently, that is way too hard, so they put up those emotional defenses and they better hope that they never need some compassion. Because they won’t have earned it.

I am married to a native New Orleanian who moved away many years ago due to the lack of professional job opportunities. We now live in comparatively soulless Dallas (I grew up here). His family is still there, we married in the St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, and travelled there frequently prior and post Katrina.

He has been spending the past three years working at restoring homes, etc. in New Orleans post Katrina and I have been incredibly frustrated at the lack of progress on even the simplest things. You pegged it perfectly in that the cultural expectation in New Orleans seems to be that nothing will go right, nothing will be done expeditiously, nothing will be accomplished in a timely fashion. That expectation forces it to happen on all fronts. The smallest repair work that would take a week to accomplish in Dallas is a two month ordeal in New Orleans. My Dallas mind has really had a hard time understanding this apparent lack of effort; but it's really just the expectation that they have and no ones finds it necessary to reach above that. My husband goes into every endeavor making sure he calls everyone at least five times, goes to city hall himself to get anything done (they never respond to phone calls), and simply assumes that whatever time estimate anyone tells him will take at least three times longer.

I wonder sometimes if those that were displaced for a while got a chance to see that progress does happen differently in other cities. It was mentioned in that New York Times article to which you referred that a student was temporarily in school in Denver and his grades and learning improved tremendously. Now that family is back in New Orleans demanding more of the N.O. school system. Good for them! If there is any warped silver lining to the unfortunately displacement of so many, I hope that not putting up with such a disfunctional government is part of it. And from there maybe they find a balance between the laid back attitude (which my admittedly uptight Dallas brain really loves) and still accomplishing the full rebuilding of this city.