The City of New Orleans has little to do with the port operations. Stuff comes right up the river and/or canals and is offloaded and is on its way.
The city's main attraction is tourism, like last weeks NOLA Jazz Festival, the week before's NOLA French Quarter festival (which I attended and had a blast at this year), and Mardi Gras.
"New Orleans is home to one of the largest and busiest ports in the world. It also accounts for a major portion of the nation's refinery and production of petroleum, has a top 50 research university, Tulane University, as well as half a dozen other institutions of higher education, and is renowned for its cultural tourism.
New Orleans is also an industrial and distribution center. The Port of New Orleans is the 5th-largest port in the United States based on volume of cargo handled, second-largest in the state after the Port of South Louisiana, and 12th-largest in the U.S., based on value of cargo. The Port of South Louisiana, also based in the New Orleans area, is the world's busiest in terms of bulk tonnage and, when combined with the Port of New Orleans, it forms the 4th-largest port system in volume handled." |
