New Orleans

===20th century===
[[File:EsplanadeBurgundy1900.jpg|right|thumb|[[Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans|Esplanade Avenue]] at Burgundy Street, looking lakewards (north) towards [[Lake Pontchartrain]] in 1900]]
[[File:RationingBoardNOLAVachonC.jpg|right|thumb|1943 waiting line at wartime Rationing Board office in New Orleans]]
[[File:Nixon in New Orleans August 1970 - Royal at Iberville Streets heading to Canal Street.png|thumb|[[Richard Nixon]] in New Orleans, August 1970. Royal at Iberville Streets, heading to Canal Street.]]

New Orleans' economic and population zenith in relation to other American cities occurred in the antebellum period. It was the nation's fifth-largest city in 1860 (after New York, [[Philadelphia]], [[Boston]] and Baltimore) and was significantly larger than all other southern cities.<ref name="Lewis-2003–175">Lewis, Peirce F., ''New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape'', Santa Fe, 2003, p. 175.</ref> From the mid-19th century onward rapid economic growth shifted to other areas, while New Orleans' relative importance steadily declined. The growth of railways and highways decreased river traffic, diverting goods to other transportation corridors and markets.<ref name="Lewis-2003–175" /> Thousands of the most ambitious [[Person of color|people of color]] left the state in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] around [[World War II]] and after, many for [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]] destinations. From the late 1800s, most censuses recorded New Orleans slipping down the ranks in the list of largest American cities (New Orleans' population still continued to increase throughout the period, but at a slower rate than before the Civil War).

In 1929 the [[1929 New Orleans streetcar strike|New Orleans streetcar strike]] during which serious unrest occurred.<ref>{{cite web |title=July 1, 1929: Streetcar Workers Strike in New Orleans |url=https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/streetcar-workers-strike-new-orleans/ |website=Zinn Education Project |access-date=July 16, 2023 |archive-date=July 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716050306/https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/streetcar-workers-strike-new-orleans/ |url-status=live }}</ref> It is also credited for the creation of the distinctly Louisianan [[Po' boy]] sandwich.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mizell-Nelson |first1=Michael |title=1929 Streetcar Strike - Stop 4 of 9 in the Streetcars and their Historian Michael Mizell-Nelson tour |url=https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/514 |website=New Orleans Historical |language=en |access-date=July 16, 2023 |archive-date=July 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716050250/https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/514 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Mizell-Nelson |first=Michael |title=Po-Boy Sandwich - Stop 6 of 7 in the French Quarter Street Food tour |url=https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/480 |access-date=2023-07-16 |website=New Orleans Historical |language=en |archive-date=July 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716050144/https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/480 |url-status=live }}</ref>

By the mid-20th century, New Orleanians recognized that their city was no longer the leading urban area in the South. By 1950, [[Houston]], [[Dallas]], and [[Atlanta]] exceeded New Orleans in size, and in 1960 [[Miami]] eclipsed New Orleans, even as the latter's population reached its historic peak.<ref name="Lewis-2003–175" /> As with other older American cities, highway construction and suburban development drew residents from the center city to newer housing outside. The 1970 census recorded the first absolute decline in population since the city became part of the United States in 1803. The [[New Orleans metropolitan area|Greater New Orleans metropolitan area]] continued expanding in population, albeit more slowly than other major [[Sun Belt]] cities. While the [[Port of New Orleans|port]] remained one of the nation's largest, automation and [[containerization]] cost many jobs. The city's former role as banker to the South was supplanted by larger peer cities. New Orleans' economy had always been based more on trade and financial services than on manufacturing, but the city's relatively small manufacturing sector also shrank after World War II. Despite some economic development successes under the administrations of [[DeLesseps Story Morrison|DeLesseps "Chep" Morrison]] (1946–1961) and [[Victor H. Schiro|Victor "Vic" Schiro]] (1961–1970), metropolitan New Orleans' growth rate consistently lagged behind more vigorous cities.

====Civil Rights movement====
During the later years of Morrison's administration, and for the entirety of Schiro's, the city was a center of the [[Civil Rights movement]]. The [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] was founded in New Orleans, and lunch counter sit-ins were held in [[Canal Street, New Orleans|Canal Street]] department stores. A prominent and violent series of confrontations occurred in 1960 when the city attempted school desegregation, following the Supreme Court ruling in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954). When six-year-old [[Ruby Bridges]] integrated [[William Frantz Elementary School]] in the [[Ninth Ward of New Orleans|Ninth Ward]], she was the first child of color to attend a previously all-white school in the South. Much controversy preceded the [[1956 Sugar Bowl]] at [[Tulane Stadium]], when the [[1955 Pittsburgh Panthers football team|Pitt Panthers]], with African-American fullback [[Bobby Grier (Pittsburgh Panthers)|Bobby Grier]] on the roster, met the [[1955 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team|Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets]].<ref name=fcflu>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Cs9RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=C2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4796%2C5131560 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |last=Sell |first=Jack |title=Panthers defeat flu; face Ga. Tech next |date=December 30, 1955 |page=1 |access-date=December 30, 2020 |archive-date=February 25, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225072207/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Cs9RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=C2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4796%2C5131560 |url-status=live }}</ref> There had been controversy over whether Grier should be allowed to play due to his race, and whether Georgia Tech should even play at all due to Georgia's [[List of governors of Georgia|Governor]] [[Marvin Griffin]]'s opposition to racial integration.<ref name="Mulé">Mulé, Marty – [http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_01392.shtml A Time For Change: Bobby Grier And The 1956 Sugar Bowl] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610185435/http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_01392.shtml |date=2007-06-10 }}. Black Athlete Sports Network, December 28, 2005</ref><ref>Zeise, Paul – [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05280/584401.stm Bobby Grier broke bowl's color line. The Panthers' Bobby Grier was the first African-American to play in Sugar Bowl] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309113920/http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05280/584401.stm |date=March 9, 2012 }} Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 07, 2005</ref><ref>Thamel, Pete – [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/sports/ncaafootball/01grier.html?ex=1293771600&en=8a6a5b2ca5956881&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Grier Integrated a Game and Earned the World's Respect] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102053133/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/sports/ncaafootball/01grier.html?ex=1293771600&en=8a6a5b2ca5956881&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss |date=January 2, 2015 }}. New York Times, January 1, 2006.</ref> After Griffin publicly sent a telegram to the state's Board Of Regents requesting Georgia Tech not to engage in racially integrated events, Georgia Tech's president [[Blake R. Van Leer]] rejected the request and threatened to resign. The game went on as planned.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2019/11/14/20914927/rearview-revisited-segregation-and-the-sugar-bowl-georgia-tech-pittsburgh-bobby-grier-1955-1956-game |publisher=Georgia Tech |title=Rearview Revisited: Segregation and the Sugar Bowl |author=Jake Grantl |date=2019-11-14 |access-date=2019-11-14 |archive-date=November 14, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114161717/https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2019/11/14/20914927/rearview-revisited-segregation-and-the-sugar-bowl-georgia-tech-pittsburgh-bobby-grier-1955-1956-game |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Civil Rights movement's success in gaining federal passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] and the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]] renewed constitutional rights, including voting for blacks. Together, these resulted in the most far-reaching changes in New Orleans' 20th century history.<ref>Germany, Kent B., ''New Orleans After the Promises: Poverty, Citizenship and the Search for the Great Society'', Athens, 2007, pp. 3–5</ref> Though legal and civil equality were re-established by the end of the 1960s, a large gap in income levels and educational attainment persisted between the city's White and African American communities.<ref name="ReferenceA">Glassman, James K., "New Orleans: I have Seen the Future, and It's Houston", ''The Atlantic Monthly'', July 1978</ref> As the middle class and wealthier members of both races left the center city, its population's income level dropped, and it became proportionately more African American. From 1980, the African American majority elected primarily officials from its own community. They struggled to narrow the gap by creating conditions conducive to the economic uplift of the African American community.

New Orleans became increasingly dependent on tourism as an economic mainstay during the administrations of [[Sidney Barthelemy]] (1986–1994) and [[Marc Morial]] (1994–2002). Relatively low levels of educational attainment, high rates of household poverty, and rising crime threatened the city's prosperity in the later decades of the century.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> The negative effects of these socioeconomic conditions aligned poorly with the changes in the late-20th century to the economy of the United States, which reflected a post-industrial, knowledge-based paradigm in which mental skills and education were more important to advancement than manual skills.

====Drainage and flood control====
{{See also|Drainage in New Orleans}}

[[File:LPD18USSNewOrleansPassingNewOrleans.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|A view of the [[New Orleans Central Business District]], as seen from the [[Mississippi River]] {{USS|New Orleans|LPD-18}} in foreground (2007)]]

In the 20th century, New Orleans' government and business leaders believed they needed to drain and develop outlying areas to provide for the city's expansion. The most ambitious development during this period was a drainage plan devised by engineer and inventor [[A. Baldwin Wood]], designed to break the surrounding swamp's stranglehold on the city's geographic expansion. Until then, urban development in New Orleans was largely limited to higher ground along the natural river levees and [[bayou]]s.

Wood's pump system allowed the city to drain huge tracts of swamp and marshland and expand into low-lying areas. Over the 20th century, rapid [[subsidence]], both natural and human-induced, resulted in these newly populated areas subsiding to several feet below sea level.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Kusky, Timothy M. |title=Why is New Orleans Sinking? |publisher=Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Saint Louis University |date=December 29, 2005 |url=http://www.eas.slu.edu/People/TMKusky/original%20files/Why%20is%20New%20Orleans%20Sinking.pdf |access-date=June 17, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060623092455/http://www.eas.slu.edu/People/TMKusky/original%20files/Why%20is%20New%20Orleans%20Sinking.pdf |archive-date=June 23, 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Larry |last=O'Hanlon |url=http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060327/neworleans_pla.html |title=New Orleans Sits Atop Giant Landslide |publisher=Discovery Channel |date=March 31, 2006 |access-date=June 17, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614211349/http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060327/neworleans_pla.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=June 14, 2006}}</ref>

New Orleans was vulnerable to flooding even before the city's footprint departed from the natural high ground near the Mississippi River. In the late 20th century, however, scientists and New Orleans residents gradually became aware of the city's increased vulnerability. In 1965, flooding from [[Hurricane Betsy]] killed dozens of residents, although the majority of the city remained dry. The rain-induced [[May 8th 1995 Louisiana Flood|flood of May 8, 1995]], demonstrated the weakness of the pumping system. After that event, measures were undertaken to dramatically upgrade pumping capacity. By the 1980s and 1990s, scientists observed that extensive, rapid, and ongoing [[Coastal erosion|erosion of the marshlands and swamp surrounding New Orleans]], especially that related to the [[Mississippi River–Gulf Outlet Canal]], had the unintended result of leaving the city more vulnerable than before to hurricane-induced catastrophic [[storm surge]]s.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}