Monday, September 05, 2005
Carless poor
Since I'm carless poor (more or less by choice) and faced the possibility of evacuation in an ice-storm here several years ago, I have a distinct interest in this discussion of poor folks, cars, and busses.
Here's some condensed info from the US Census housing survey for New Orleans, 1995. The data separates the metro area into Jefferson, Orleans, and St. Tammany parishes.
All numbers in thousands or percents.
Note that Orleans, which ended up being the wettest, is also the poorest. About 50,000 of its households are listed as carless. Each household has 2.1 occupants on average, so this gives us about 110k carless people. Adding the other areas, we get about 130k carless in New Orleans.
Tonight's headlines indicate 500k refugees. We don't know how many of those got out by car, but I'd guess that most who drove their own cars have found their own housing with relatives or friends, and are not part of the government burden. So we can conclude that a significant part of the total refugee burden did own cars but chose not to leave.
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Tues. morning: Rush is reading the NO evacuation plan, which estimated 134k carless. They must have been using the same Census data!
Rush is, as usual, playing exclusively for the team, but his point is valid. The poor folks in NO were accustomed to letting their liberal gov't take care of everything. Then, when the chips were down, the mayor said "Take care of yourselves!"
That's good advice if it's given consistently, guiding people toward discipline and preparation. But when the local authorities have spent decades encouraging the welfare and criminal mentality, "Every man for himself" at the last minute is deadly. ¶ 8:24 PM
Here's some condensed info from the US Census housing survey for New Orleans, 1995. The data separates the metro area into Jefferson, Orleans, and St. Tammany parishes.
All numbers in thousands or percents.
Note that Orleans, which ended up being the wettest, is also the poorest. About 50,000 of its households are listed as carless. Each household has 2.1 occupants on average, so this gives us about 110k carless people. Adding the other areas, we get about 130k carless in New Orleans.
Tonight's headlines indicate 500k refugees. We don't know how many of those got out by car, but I'd guess that most who drove their own cars have found their own housing with relatives or friends, and are not part of the government burden. So we can conclude that a significant part of the total refugee burden did own cars but chose not to leave.
-----
Tues. morning: Rush is reading the NO evacuation plan, which estimated 134k carless. They must have been using the same Census data!
Rush is, as usual, playing exclusively for the team, but his point is valid. The poor folks in NO were accustomed to letting their liberal gov't take care of everything. Then, when the chips were down, the mayor said "Take care of yourselves!"
That's good advice if it's given consistently, guiding people toward discipline and preparation. But when the local authorities have spent decades encouraging the welfare and criminal mentality, "Every man for himself" at the last minute is deadly. ¶ 8:24 PM
