We appreciate Senator Conrad Appel’s sincere efforts to bolster the well-being of New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana.  Would that others would imitate the sacrifice of his time, attention, and labor for la Louisiane rather than zombie-scrolling through social media for endless hours.

And we appreciate The Hayride for hosting essays with various points of view, which allows us to exchange ideas in search of the best ones.

That is what we would like to do with one of Sen Appel’s recent essays:  examine some of its ideas and their implications.

The main one is that a growing population and growing wages are the sine qua non, the indispensable requirements, for a community’s flourishing:

‘What better measures could there be for our region or the state to measure how well our policies are working than the positive metrics of growing wages and growing population.

‘ . . . A growing population, reflective of a positive economic climate, is like fertilizer to a garden, not enough and the garden withers, plenty and the garden delivers bountiful crops.

‘Growing wages and growing population – two related and beautiful concepts, are the only way out of the economic malaise that we have been mired in for decades. . . .

‘There can be nothing more critical for the future of the New Orleans Region, in fact the whole state, than to be able to see a future of growing wages and growing population. There can be no greater opportunity than now to change course and seek that Nirvana that so many other southern cities have achieved by doing so’ (‘Growing Wages, Growing Population,’ thehayride.com).

This is a bold statement – that population and economic growth for a city or State, apart from any other metaphysical considerations, is ‘Nirvana’.

We do not believe that history bears this out.  Looking at recent years first, population growth in the cities of Red States is actually very detrimental to their overall well-being as all the Leftist, Yankeefied immigrants overwhelm the voting power of the native conservatives in the rural regions:

‘Everyone knows the old line: there are no blue states, only red states with blue cities. But we often forget that those cities act as the geographical organized minority. A handful of urban strongholds can dominate an otherwise conservative state. Any state where the rural population is equal to or less than the urban population is easy pickings for the Left. Look at North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. The Left has been weaponizing internal migration for decades, and their trees are bearing fruit.

‘Millions have fled liberal strongholds, California, New York, Illinois, the usual suspects, and resettled in red states. On the surface, it looks like a win: blue states losing people, red states gaining them. But a significant portion of these transplants drag their politics with them. They vote exactly as they did in the cities they fled, and the cycle repeats’ (John Slaughter, ‘Internal Invasion,’ texasjohnslaughter.substack.com).

He backs this up with data from some of the Southern States, but North Carolina receives the most detailed analysis:

‘This trend is already “purple-ing” once-reliable red states. North Carolina is a prime example. A historically conservative state, now being shaped by an influx of outsiders. Over 46% of North Carolina’s residents today were born out of state (nearly 5 million people), up from just 23% in 1980. More newcomers to North Carolina come from New York than from anywhere else. As the state’s demographer put it:

‘“People come from different parts of the country with different ideas, different cultural norms… That certainly changes who we are as a state.”

‘North Carolina’s growth is 91% driven by migration, which means the character of the state is being imported. And these newcomers don’t scatter; they cluster in the urban centers (Charlotte, Raleigh, the Research Triangle), which have shifted from moderate or Republican-leaning to solidly Democrat in a single generation. Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) now has roughly 88,000 New York–born residents, and Wake County (Raleigh) has another 79,000. It’s no wonder Charlotte and Raleigh vote blue… and together, they can dominate statewide elections.

‘Between 2011 and 2021, more than 10,000 Californians, 9,000 New Yorkers, and 2,000 Massachusetts residents registered to vote in North Carolina. That’s a bloc of over 20,000 voters from deep-blue states, more than enough to swing a close race. Trump carried North Carolina in 2020 by about 74,000 votes. It doesn’t take much, a small shift in the electorate and North Carolina is blue, with each transplant the noose tightens’ (Ibid.).

For this reason alone – the cultural destruction of conservative Christian States by Leftist invaders from the North and the West Coast – we cannot agree with Sen. Appel that a growing population is a sign that a community is improving.

But there are other reasons to dispute the notion that wages and population are the only metrics that ought to be considered when thinking about the progress of a place.  The ancient sages like Aristotle thought that a more wholistic approach to community life was more fitting.  Cultivating virtue was especially important to them, something that is in short supply in many US cities today:

‘In Aristotle’s Politics (Book VII), the philosopher presents an intricate exploration of the city, not merely as a physical location but as a functional entity designed to foster happiness and virtue among its citizens. This conceptualization aligns remarkably with modern understandings of urbanism, where cities are viewed as dynamic spaces that blend social, cultural, political, and aesthetic life. Aristotle’s reflections offer profound insights into how the governance, structure, and purpose of a city contribute to the well-being of its inhabitants—an idea still relevant in contemporary discussions about urban life.

‘Aristotle begins by emphasizing that the success of a city is measured not by its wealth or military power but by the happiness and virtue of its citizens. He writes, “A city is composed of such persons who are capable of being ruled and of ruling with a view to the virtuous life, and a city ought to be organized for the sake of such lives.” This statement reflects Aristotle’s belief that the city is not merely a location but a function—an organized community where the pursuit of virtue is the primary goal. In this sense, the city’s purpose is to serve its people, ensuring their happiness through a well-structured political system. . . .

‘One of the most compelling aspects of Aristotle’s analysis is his approach to the size and population of a city. Rather than focusing on physical size or specific strengths like economic wealth or military might, Aristotle suggests that a city’s functionality is determined by the interconnection between its citizens and their pursuit of happiness and virtue. He asserts, “The best limit of the population of a city is that which is the largest number capable of being surveyed in a single view.” For Aristotle, this means that a city’s strength lies not in the magnitude of its population but in its capacity to function harmoniously, ensuring that citizens are actively engaged and virtuous. He adds, “Even if a state is populous, if it lacks order, it is not truly a city”’ (Hirbod Human ‘The Functional City: Aristotle’s Vision of Happiness and Governance,’ hirbodhuman.com).

In older conceptions, cities also served as a way to express profound religious truths:

‘Mircea Eliade famously argued that ancient cities were envisaged by their makers and inhabitants as intersecting and encompassing the three basic cosmic tiers of heaven, earth, and the underworld. This intersection would often take place at hierophanic or theophanic junctures, perhaps originally natural ones such as mountains, where the sacred was manifested. The hierophany prompted in turn a response on the part of human beings that organised themselves around these junctures. Examples of this sort of activity can be discerned in ancient Mesopotamia, where the first cities in the historical record, Eridu, Nippur, and later Babylon, were viewed as imagines et axes mundi (images and centres of the world). It was at these imagines et axes mundi that the cosmic realms were recapitulated and the gods revealed themselves. Thus, their principal temples, the ziggurats, were made to resemble mountains. In Egypt, the primordial mound that, illo tempore, was believed to have emerged from the watery cosmic abyss—the Nun—was recapitulated within temples that were the focal point of Egyptian cities, such as Hermopolis and Heliopolis.

‘For the Greeks, such perceptions of cities were manifested in Minoan and Mycenaean temple structures and palaces, before becoming popularised through Delphi and Troy. Rome took Greece’s attitude towards the city and amplified it more than any other, with many symbols in its Forum demonstrating that it was at the crossroads of the world and the cosmos (hence, Roma aeterna and Roma caput mundi). Jerusalem was considered as having been built over the abyss holding back the subterranean waters, and through its temple it reflected the theophanic imago et axis mundi symbolism expressed by the narrative of the garden of Eden which was embodied in its architectural design. For cities in Christendom, symbolic objects—icons and statues—were deployed both within churches and public spaces in order to manifest that civilisation’s worldview, which included the cosmic harmony punctuated by the sacred in particular places (the Holy Land, Rome), people (the cult of relics), and in every shrine. This gave Christians a sense of belonging to an ordered universe, which is especially manifested in domed Orthodox churches—the dome symbolising the cosmos—marked by the image of Jesus Christ as Pantokrator or ‘Master of All’ giving the blessing of peace in its centre; thereby denoting that Christ is the engenderer of peace, well-being, and salvation for the cosmos that had been recapitulated in this space.

‘Modern cities, on the other hand, are not mainly conditioned by religious structures, temples or churches that recapitulate the cosmos within which the sacred is revealed. They are instead shaped by economic and materialistic forces: by glass and metal skyscrapers belonging, for the most part, to corporations that advertise their products in various ways through electronic billboards and signs. This reflects a financially driven utilitarian mentality that is distinct from—and contrasts to—representations of the cosmos and God that prevailed in ancient and medieval cities’ (Mario Baghos, ‘Religious Symbolism and the Modern City, Part One: From the Reformation to Today,’ thesymbolicworld.com).

The city reaches its zenith with the coming of Christian monasticism, when monks and nuns literally (and often miraculously) turned barren wildernesses all over the world into cities dedicated wholly to the worship of God, to victory over the devil and his demons, and to union with the All-Holy Trinity, Who is praised and glorified forever.  Derwas Chitty gives an overview of this incredible development in Egypt and the Holy Land in his little book The Desert a City.

With apologies to Sen Appel, we cannot assent to his proposition that growing wages and growing population by themselves are signs of progress for a city or State.  There are other metrics that are much more important that ought to be considered first, such as virtue, cultural vibrancy and continuity, and religious life.

We would likewise question the desirability for growth in New Orleans and other cities at the present moment while those cities remain dangerous spiders’ nests of crime and poisonous ideologies.  Forceful measures ought to be taken first to eradicate all traces of harmful ideologies – Marxism/communism, DEI, LGBT, etc. – and to round up the criminals before we try to bring growth to these cities that they will be unable to utilize in a beneficial, constructive way.

State governments will have to do a lot more than they are doing now to prepare the cities for true progress – taking over schools and city governments, sending in more police officers and National Guard soldiers, expelling NGOs, protecting churches, encouraging missionaries to spread the Gospel to city folk, etc.  That will probably be a long and difficult process; they ought to begin it sooner, not later.

A good city is a wonderful thing, a physical manifestation of good traditions, a repository of virtues, etc.  But it takes more than the rough materials of money and population to build one.  The falsely named Enlightenment has blinded us to that truth for many years now, but Christ gives sight to the blind.