BETH SIEGEL (Mt. Auburn Associates) - Optimists say that because the French Quarter remains intact, New Orleans’ tourist economy will survive. Pessimists suggest that the city might need to be leveled. Pragmatists recommend that city officials look to Houston to learn how to develop a “real economy.” Few leaders consider that restoring the city’s cultural economy must be part of the recovery equation.
After a year of working in Louisiana, Mt. Auburn Associates believe that culture — abundant, renewable and clean — is Louisiana’s metaphorical oil. Our study, Louisiana: Where Culture Means Business focuses on creating new jobs, new enterprises and a better quality of life for the producers of that culture: Louisiana’s people. Sponsored by Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu and released four days before Katrina hit, it found that cultural enterprises provided tens of thousands of jobs and accounted for 10% of the New Orleans economy — a number that excludes related jobs in the tourism industry and also surpasses that of the oil, gas and chemical industries.
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