It’s no secret that I don’t get out much. I’ve been in New Orleans for a con­fer­ence the past few days. The con­fer­ence itself (NRPA) has been great, but I’m not plan­ning to talk shop on my per­son­al weblog. What’s been rev­e­la­to­ry to me is that I have room in my heart to love more cities than just Cleve­land. I’ve roamed over the French Quar­ter, Marigny, Gar­den Dis­trict, et al.; and, like Cleve­land neigh­bor­hoods, they’ve all had dis­tinct, unique per­son­al­i­ties. They’re all peo­ple I want to get to know bet­ter.

The best restau­rants in Cleve­land would be mid­dle of the pack in New Orleans and the music (as much as I love Cleve­land’s music scene) is incom­pa­ra­bly bet­ter. There is no road rage — cars don’t have near­ly the mar­ket share.

I’ve been told that it’s a very dif­fer­ent city since Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na, but what’s clear is that New Orleans is a city that’s nev­er doubt­ed itself and Cleve­land remains a city that does­n’t know what it wants to be.

Lafayette Park, New Orleans
Lafayette Park, New Orleans