As I read of the financial problems preventing the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board from maintaining its drainage obligations, I experienced a 20-year-old flashback.

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina civic leaders invited the prestigious Urban Land Institute (ULI) to do a plan for the reconstruction of a great American city that had suffered dual disasters. Dual disasters? Clearly Katrina was a natural disaster, though most would agree it was truly an engineering disaster. But just as devastating, was that by the time of Katrina in 2005 an economic disaster that was the loss of the energy industry and New Orleans’ failure to address it had resulted in economic stagnation that lingers today.

Besides physical destruction, subtle characteristics of disaster that ULI had to address were fiscal instability, outmigration of productive citizens and businesses, growing concentration of poverty, questions of the ability of the city to deliver fundamental services, and the very real belief that NOLA was a lost cause and would never recover.

In simple terms, ULI’s report questioned whether going forward without structural changes, New Orleans would have the physical and financial resources and the economy to recover its vitality. To match resources to reality, they recommended shrinking the footprint of the city by abandoning deteriorated, vulnerable, or destroyed areas and refocusing resources on a footprint to match the realities of a smaller, poorer population and a greatly diminished economy.

As I should have expected, this proposal was not pragmatically viewed, but instead through the lens of racial politics, culminating in the infamous meeting of black leaders with Mayor Nagin. The result of that meeting was his promise that New Orleans would be a “chocolate city”, a strong rejection of best practice in favor of local politics. This was a monumental decision that sent a message to the world that despite the opportunity presented to alter course for the betterment of the people, New Orleans would be governed by “it’s our turn” politics”.

History has proven that ULI was right. With a footprint, a population, and an economy far from that needed to fulfill the task, for twenty years the city has struggled to operate as a first-tier American urban center. Add to that the lingering reputation of the city’s sustainability, a weak tax base, and the extent of aging infrastructure and further decline has become inevitable.

The political nature of New Orleans since 2005 has been a predictable failure of social populism that fulfilled Nagin’s commitment, a city whose leaders focus on social demands over economic principles. Instead of cultivating the underpinnings of economic vitality, our version of social populism precludes the growth of resources to support primary city services, for example public safety, infrastructure, and education. Hence the Sewage and Water Board is unable to afford to maintain the drainage system, NOPD is grossly understaffed, schools are underfunded, potholes and crumbling sidewalks abound.

With the benefit of seeing the bad results of twenty years of choosing the wrong path, one would think that current leaders would conclude that it is time for change. So, what would such a change look like?

To cultivate the health of the city and prosperity of its citizens, city leaders need only concentrate on pro-economic growth. Every decision made must be inexorably linked to one question…will this lead to a growth economy? For every social or political demand of NGOs and “community organizers” a question must be posed…how will this help the economy? For every concern about the size and nature of government the question must be… are we just doing things the same old way to protect the status quo or is there a way to do them more efficiently and effectively?

Twenty years after ULI warned of the folly of ignoring reality, New Orleans languishes under the burden of a bad political decision and too many bad leadership choices. That doesn’t have to be the history of our next two decades. Opportunity to regain top tier status can be achieved if somehow, we stop deluding ourselves of the misguided belief that our undefined “culture” can overcome the drag of governing based strictly on sometimes corrupt, local politics. (A perfect case in point is the mayor’s push to patronize her ally with the trash collection contract in the French Quarter.)  Growth is rewarded by good vision and good decisions; it is defeated by “it’s our turn” politics. When decisions become based not on social populism, but instead on best practices and 21st century international economic realities, then we will see growth and the resources need to run a good city will follow.

Ignoring the reality that ULI offered in favor of local politics and an “it’s our turn” philosophy may have been the trigger for our malaise, but there is nothing that requires us to maintain that course. Twenty years from now we could be a growing, prosperous city in which high quality infrastructure is an expectation, or conversely, we may be worse off than today. It’s really up to the people to decide where we go next.