Endangered New Orleans
In 2006, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced that all20 historic districts in New Orleans were part of its Most Endangered Historic Places list. Nicolai Ouroussoff, New York Times architecture critic, believes it's almost too late to save many buildings in America's funkiest city. Ouroussoff reports that the federal government wants to knock down nearly all public housing projects in the city, even well-built, historically significant apartments constructed during the New Deal era.

"If the government gets its way, a rich architectural legacy will be supplanted by private, mixed-income developments with pitched roofs and wood-frame construction, an ersatz vision of small-town America. That this could happen in a city that still largely lies in ruins is both sad and grotesque," Ouroussoff writes.

The New York Times article is available here.