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.If thecity enforcement process is measured in eternities, civil litigation is not swifteither.An action filed in 1998 by VCPORA against an illegal hotel expan-sion is still in process as of this writing (2009).100 During the litigation, thenonconforming use goes on and each passing year further cements the defen-dant s claim to potential economic injury and loss of customer goodwill.In 1994, the city implemented a revised parking plan that increased thenumber of parking meters and expanded freight zones.Now even residentswith bona fide parking stickers had thirty-one fewer parking spaces.101If Quarter life in the late seventies to mideighties had been enjoyable forpeople of average means, that era was now ending.Many residents felt theirconcerns were being sublimated to the cause of tourism, and residential qual-ity of life was being sacrificed to the needs of tourists.In some ways, this wasan echo of the pre- and post-Storyville eras, when whorehouses and saloonsroared full-blast next to helpless homeowners.In May of 1994, the Times-Pic-ayune quoted Mary Morrison, now the senior member of the original tweed1978 1994: the long slide down 177and beads set:  It s a much harder place to live now.We have the feeling thatthe city fathers and the business community are not interested in the residen-tial character of the French Quarter.We re just losing ground everywhere.Ohyeah, the residential character must be maintained they all say that.But wecan t get much support for maintaining it, I can tell you that.What they sayand what they do are two different things. 102These pressures on Quarter life did not abate, and the city rarely rouseditself to enforce existing statutes.The commercial aspect of the Vieux Carréwas changing, and so was the residential.Within a few years, money wouldrain down the Quarter, and the character of residential life would changedramatically.Moving OutThe Quarter has long had a reputation as a village of transients, as well asa place of very long-time residents.In the early part of the twentieth cen-tury, upward mobility was the chief reason for immigrants to leave.Therehas always been a shifting population, with as many reasons for arriving, andleaving, as each soul.Between 1980 and 1990, the Vieux Carré said farewell toabout sixteen hundred people, ending the decade with about four thousandresidents.103 The Quarter was not the only neighborhood losing people.By1990, one of every six housing units in New Orleans was vacant, the highestvacancy rate of any major American city.Urban pioneers in neighborhoodslike Bywater saw hard-won gentrification erode as owners and renters fled.Abandoned properties attracted squatters, who often dealt drugs out of thehouses, and the resulting shabbiness snowballed into more derelict, people-less properties.104One must be very strong to live in New Orleans and even stronger tolive in the Vieux Carré.For many working-class people, the initial blush ofeasy answers and widespread camaraderie gives way to dullness from boozeand/or drugs, a grind of never-changing struggle for the daily dollar, and thedown-at-the heels flats available to those with little money.Even those ofgreater means get discouraged as they try to keep their properties up in theface of the unforgiving climate, vandalism, and slothful bureaucracy.Every-one, regardless of station, must develop a strong stomach for governmentallassitude, corruption, noisome trash, human folly played out in public, andthe abject poverty just outside the old ramparts.178 1978 1994: the long slide downFor bar workers, stable employment could be elusive.Bar servers mustsurvive the influence of the dispensed goods legal and not mercurial own-ers, drunken patrons, officialdom looking for handouts, and clueless tourists.Even after corporations and their human resource departments took overmost taverns, bar service remains intrinsically a hard life.It has traditionallybeen the province of the young, who still see a wide road ahead, and the past-middle-aged, who realize that this is their narrow path for the remainder oflife.Even for those who have economic stability, life as a resident105 can wearas well as comfort.The Vieux Carré reassurance of little change can become anagging sense of limbo in a place exactly between heaven and hell and havingmany signal traits of both.If the decision to move to the Quarter was before soaring propertyvalues quick, trivial, and often made with the toss of a drink, the decision tomove out is rarely so casual.The Quarter exerts a hold on people, long afterthey move away.Leaving is often the result of growing up.Two young amours may poolresources and find a house downriver, or even embrace suburban domestic-ity.The attractions of Quarter life for singles may suddenly become a liabilityfor keeping a relationship.106 The Quarter, despite its international cachet, hasnot been perceived as a  hip, happening place for several years [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]