For the last three decades, Noah Lewis has run his property and casualty firm from offices in New Orleans East.

The insurance business, he said, is like a canary in the coal mine for the broader local economy: When you're writing policies for car repair shops, beauty salons, and a host of other small enterprises, you get a street-level sense of how the numbers are stacking up, and his sense is things are on the wrong track.

Over the years, Lewis has watched his part of the city steadily deteriorate. The population has been roughly halved since the mid-1990s, to around 75,000. The median household income level is less than half that in Orleans Parish, which itself is about 30% below the national average, and trails. And home values there have trailed the city average.

"We are kind of tha

See Full Page