When tourists talk about N.O. being a cesspool full of drunks, they are right. It is full of drunken tourists.
They also mean the Downtown Area within a mile or less of the French Quarter.
I was born in N.O. and raised about 20 miles west of there. No sane human being would live in downtown N.O., or Detroit, or D.C. or Philadelphia. The smaller towns around N.O. started having their own Mardi Gras parades years ago, so their citizens could enjoy the culture of Southeast LA, without having to have their children assaulted. Most people who live outside of N.O.in LA avoid Downtown unless they work there, and then they get the heck out before dark.
That is correct.
However, when I visited downtown NO about 10 years ago, I saw a bum drinking a beer that was thrown out in a trash dumpster. That image of NO has never left my mind.