The money will also be used to beef up mental health services, to help combat the post-traumatic stress that many in the city are still experiencing eight months after Hurricane Katrina.

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So far, many public estimates have said that perhaps a tenth of the tens of thousands of people who are trapped in the city might suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, a disease that raises the risk of suicide sixfold.

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Others, such as Terry Nichols Clark, of the University of Chicago, stress the pleasures of the city as a reason to live there: entertainment, they say, can replace manufacturing in the post-industrial city, providing both jobs and fun.

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