Our neighborhood council has fought for years to stop a new mega-Safeway from going in in our neighborhood. The project goes completely against a large number of the basic, guiding principles of our comprehensive neighborhood plan. The short of it is, other than shouting loudly, we couldn’t do anything to stop it. Apparently, the comprehensive neighborhood plan that volunteers spent four years writing, and that the city council approved, has more weight as a doorstop than as a binding planning document.

On the upside, I do think the neighborhood council has served a good purpose in terms of simply getting people together in one room to discuss serious issues. If it weren’t for that, we’d only get together when somebody throws a kegger in the park and neighbors sneak in for free beer.

Not that, uh, I would know anything about that.

I don’t know whether neighborhood self-governance is achievable as long as the city or parish is expected to provide actual services (or not). I think that here in Atlanta, the NPUs do more in planning and making recommendations, while the existing structures in the various county and municipal governments ultimately decide and implement, based on those recommendations.

It seems to me that there is a pretty nasty vacuum of leadership starting in the White House and working it’s way down (not that there aren’t a few good people toiling aways hopelessly tucked in here and there). It’s an opportunity for leadership to emerge among local activists and for regular folks to make a big difference in what New Orleans is like ten years from now.

I believe that with enough of you trying, you can make this happen.