Dmitry Shteyn in New Orleans: The Long Memory of a Small Square

The first time I walked through New Orleans, I had the strong sense that I was only seeing the city's surface. The second time, I understood that the surface is most of what any visitor ever sees, and that this is no small thing.

What strikes you first, if you have done any reading at all, is that with a population of 383,997 at the 2020 census, New Orleans is the most populous city in Louisiana, the second-most populous in the Deep South, and the twelfth-most populous in the Southeastern United States; the New Orleans metropolitan area, with about 1 million residents, is the 59th-most populous metropolitan area in the United States. Once you know it, the ordinary streets begin to read like primary sources. The layers here do not compete for attention; they coexist, which is a subtler and more difficult thing.

Dig a little deeper and new Orleans is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. There is something clarifying about a fact that resists being turned into an anecdote.

Some further context, drawn from the public record: New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy, among other nicknames) is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana.…

Where attention goes is interesting; why it goes there is more interesting. Google News put New Orleans on its readers' radar this cycle — saints home opener brings fans to Superdome, boost to New Orleans tourism — and the why matters as much as the what.

It is easy to underestimate New Orleans from the outside. The city rewards a visitor who arrives without the standard preconceptions.

The recommendation, if I have earned the right to offer one, is simple: give New Orleans more days than seem strictly necessary, and use them without a plan.