Decade after Katrina: Young adults, startups key to New Orleans' recovery

World

Decade after Katrina: Young adults, startups key to New Orleans’ recovery

New Orleans has unexpectedly emerged as one of the fastest-growing hubs for entrepreneurship in the country. Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, new businesses are launching at twice the rate they were before the storm, creating an influx of startups and venture capital funding virtually nonexistent pre-Katrina. A variety of factors have driven that growth, not the least of which has been the arrival of young newcomers. More than half have come from outside Louisiana.

Entrepreneurs interviewed by Yahoo Finance say they are attracted to New Orleans both because of the city’s financial appeal — labor costs are low and housing, while getting pricier, is still cheap relative to cities like San Francisco and New York — and the opportunity to be part of one of what is arguably one of the most dramatic comeback stories in the country. However, getting young people to stay is the true task at hand. City and state officials have made strides in sweetening the deal for new businesses, mostly in the form of tax incentives. From environmental concerns over the city’s declining coastal wetlands to systemic poverty and educational inequality, there is no shortage of problems for scrappy startups to tackle.