Chicago Tribune | An urban crisis: 2 distinct societies

Chicago Tribune | An urban crisis: 2 distinct societies: "To understand what went, and continues to go, wrong in New Orleans, we first need to understand what is happening there. There are two serious problems in New Orleans. The first is the aftermath of a tremendous natural disaster. The second is the most significant social unrest seen in an American city since the 1992 Los Angeles riots. What is making the New Orleans problem so difficult to solve is the deep connection between those two problems. Hurricane Katrina's wrath fell upon a city that suffers from a stark and deep division between two societies, separate and unequal. Wealthy, white New Orleans was largely able to escape Katrina; poor, black New Orleans largely wasn't.

The disaster now unfolding before our eyes is the inevitable consequence of this tragic social division."