Fresh FBI statistics show that with 64 killings per 100,000 people in 2008, New Orleans had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation, well ahead of second-place St. Louis, which had 47 murders per 100,000 people. — Associated Press
That’s my hometown! New Orleans, murder capital of America! It’s held that distinction, off and on, for years now. In the early 1980s, after a spate of tourist killings, I suggested to the tourism commission (a client of the ad agency I worked for) that it produce and distribute maps to visitors to warn them about the dangerous areas adjacent to the French Quarter and the business district. They were unreceptive — their sole objective being to lure tourists into the city, not scare them away with concern for their safety. Talk about “collateral damage.” Their indifference was chilling.
A couple of years later I did a series of ads (free-lance) for a commercial real estate development firm that wanted to encourage New Orleans businesses to relocate to Slidell, a small town about a half hour to the east. I took the title of the famous song “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” and used it for a headline, but focused on the problems in the city rather than the attractions. Moving to Slidell would mean less crime, less congestion, lower prices, etc., and who would miss all that? I have to admit I felt a tad disloyal as I developed the ad campaign attacking my hometown, but my hometown didn’t feel like my hometown anymore, and the problems that had developed were only made worse by the official approach of ignoring them.
When my wife and I moved back to New Orleans in 1992, after a six-year absence, the murder rate was so bad that one disgusted citizen had taken to posting the YTD total in the window of his bar on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. The tourist commission was outraged and wanted him “ordered” to stop. I sent him a complimentary copy of my cartoon book, Only in New Orleans, and thanked him for trying to light a fire under the lard asses in city hall.
When we first arrived in St. Louis back in 1995, after our second exodus from New Orleans, I cited its status as murder capital of America as one of my reasons for leaving — only to discover from a local relative that St. Louis was a contender for the title. Fifteen years later, my old and new hometowns are still competing for this dubious distinction.
