<p>People need to keep in mind that roaches simply live in New Orleans. The same is true with lizards and mosquitos as well as many other animals. If students keep food contained and their rooms clean it will help minimize the problem for that specific locale. One of the reasons Louisiana calls itself ‘the sportsman’s paradise’ is due to the rampant wildlife. One of the reasons for the rampant wildlife is the sheer number of insects on which birds and the like can feed. The city never really gets cold enough to kill off the bugs. New Orleans is in a tropical environment with all of the problems (and perks) of a tropical environment. </p>
<p>Dorm-wise, as Fallen has listed, several may or do need to be replaced. The problem is you can’t tear down all of those at one time. You have to keep enough up and running to fill the housing need. TU also didn’t want to have multiple dorms torn down while it was also building a brand new UC and business school among other buildings. If the campus had done all of the construction that I’ve seen happen over the last 15 years or so at once, it would have looked like 1940’s Europe. It’s simply not a large enough campus to do that.</p>
<p>People (myself certainly included) just get a little tired of the onslaught of negativity written about the city as well as the university. I’m a New Orleanian and can tell you it’s one thing to hear my neighbor complain about crime. It’s an entirely different story when someone who went to New Orleans once 5 years ago for a weekend pretends to be an expert on the crime problem in New Orleans. (Which is grossly overblown by the way.) Zai’s comments, though no where near as disparaging, comes across as the same ilk.</p>
<p>And again it’s one thing if someone tries to ‘be local’ and talk about how when they were in the city they rode the “trolley” everywhere as the ‘locals do’. We locals just smile and realize the person enjoyed the STREETCAR and appreciates the romanticized version of our hometown. It’s sort of New Orleans’ version of the ‘I love New York’ t-shirts.</p>
<p>It’s another thing when the national media said the city should be abandoned and moved to another location RIGHT after Katrina and so very few so much as batted an eye at the comments. </p>
<p>None of this is really about Zai’s comment as an isolated, honest comment/complaint. It’s all in presentation as they say. I agree 100% with Fallenchemist’s last point that with all of the derision aimed at TU and Nola on CC, you have be careful on a public forum about how you describe things. My guess is since Zai was commenting on dorms for future Tulane students, Zai was merely trying to help out parents and HS kids in their decision about where to live once they get here. The problem is the presentation might scare away potential students or parents from considering the school before they visit.</p>