Ahem, I think that's the whole point of what we're saying.
No, the insuation that I have picked up is, all of New Orleans was a ghetto, when it was not. That 30% white population, almost none of that was poor. New Orleans before the storm had the distinction of being America's only major city with more people in private school than public school. The white areas of New Orleans tended to be more affluent than white areas in the metro at large, because people had extra expenses there they wouldn't in the suburbs. Many of those houses in Lakeview were fairly small, and you could get more for your money in the burbs, but people chose to live there because they wanted to be close to work, they could afford to send their kids to Catholic school, and often times, they had long family ties to the area. When we lived there, you could go into certain areas, and find that people were all somehow extended family, it was really close-knit.
What I have a problem with is when the whole city of New Orleans is judged by the actions of some trash out in the projects who do not serve as a representation of the whole city. It still costs you an arm and a leg to live in the Quarter, and living in Uptown has not really been all that cheap. In Uptown too, you find generation after generation who continously make a home there, and they are completely a world apart from the vagabonds you'd see walking around if you went too far in the wrong direction down Desire Street.