A City's Changing Face

"A lot of them are far away, and they don't know what is going on," said Jones, 55, whose two grown daughters and entire extended family have fled the Lower Ninth, mostly for Georgia. She evacuated to a shelter in Hammond, La., filtered back to New Orleans at the beginning of the year, and lives now with a disabled friend in a FEMA trailer across town. The lack of progress in re-creating her old neighborhood leaves her baffled and sad.

"If the levees are being rebuilt stronger than before, why can't we rebuild here?" she said. "It feels strange to me."

To Return or Not?

After fleeing the storm, black residents, especially poor ones from the Lower Ninth Ward and the city's public housing projects, were much more likely than whites to end up living far out of town, according to city, state and federal studies. After long bus rides, many ended up in cities such as Houston and Atlanta.

For these African Americans, generations-old networks of kinfolk, church folk and friends have been obliterated or transplanted to another state where distance and the cost of travel undermine their ability to come home, even for short visits.

Middle-class whites fled in their own cars and tended not to go so far, according to the studies. Many of them rented apartments, bought houses, or moved in with friends or relatives in the mostly white suburbs that developed as whites fled school integration. These New Orleanians have remained close enough to get building permits, deal with insurance agents, hire contractors and bird-dog the reconstruction of their houses.

"The people from Lakeview are not poor," said the Rev. Donald Dvorak, pastor at St. Dominic, the largest church in Lakeview, which is 94 percent white. "They all had the means to leave on their own terms and a place to go -- and the means to come back. That is the difference between us and the Lower Ninth Ward."

Out of 23 houses on the 6500 block of Memphis Street, three have been refurbished and are occupied. Owners of 10 others have firm plans to demolish and rebuild. Architects are finishing drawings for new and -- in some cases -- larger houses.

The block is a work in progress. Three houses are for sale, and seven owners have yet to decide whether they are coming home. The neighborhood's storm-drainage system is damaged and clogs up after heavy rain -- a worrisome reminder of what could happen when the hurricane season starts next month.

Still, the momentum of return now seems unstoppable.

"It's not a wager, it's a sure thing," said John Pippenger, an accountant and deacon at St. Dominic. He and his wife, Linda, bought a house on Memphis Street early this year to replace one that Katrina destroyed a few blocks away.

There is a large bulletin board in the back of St. Dominic church with a computer-generated map of Lakeview. It shows that more than 1,400 families have pledged to come home. Every Sunday after Mass, worshipers wander back to the map and the pledge list grows longer.

A Toll on the Polls

The post-storm difference between the Lower Ninth and Lakeview was starkly quantified by voter turnout in the first election since Katrina, a mayoral primary held April 22.