Rarely do you see citizens show up to council meetings to support a vendor, especially in New Orleans. But such is not the case with French Quarter residents and the affection they hold for IV waste.
Yesterday, the council granted an 18-month extension for Sidney Torres’ French Quarter contract.
As reported in Nola.com by Joni Hess, residents and business owners attended the meeting to advocate for the trash company. Hess quotes one of them who said, “I'm a little angry that I'm here today, because we shouldn't be having to do this… Please, please listen to the residents and keep IV Waste.”
It’d be easy to read this, say “How quaint," and end it there.
But if the leaders of New Orleans (and Louisiana) don’t look at these examples earnestly and learn from them, our longstanding freefall will inevitably continue.
The lesson to be learned, just to be abundantly clear, is this: Quality city services matter. Without them, cities decay.
Sure, maybe for us, a single quality city service may seem like a radical exception. We have a tendency to marvel and gape when things go right. However—for those considering moving here, filing business permits here, or starting a family here—for the people who are mulling the question, “Should I commit… Is New Orleans worth it?” These folks are likely coming from a place that, unfortunately for us, provides a handful of reasonably functioning city services and departments.
Let us remember, even on a good day, New Orleans faces a downhill battle. We're landlocked. Because of that, we have an artificially inflated cost of living. Our room for growth hinges on renovating, rebuilding, and re-engineering aged structures. Our insurance premiums will always be higher due to the hurricanes and floods.
But it’d be unfair to lay all the blame on New Orleans. When you broaden the scope to Louisiana, you find a state lagging behind the national trend of red states attracting families and businesses from blue states.
From 2019-2024, 840,000 married families with children moved from blue states to red states, according to the Family Structure Index 2026 report. In comparison, 470,000 moved the other way. Within the same timeframe, red states gained 600,000 children, while blue states lost roughly the same number due to lower birth rates and outmigration.
These trends are true. But the sad reality is that they aren’t true for Louisiana.
Why? It’s not exactly rocket science.
Prime-age adults with young families look for a couple of very specific things, mainly a lower cost of living and fewer barriers to home ownership. And these locational qualities have only grown in value as the number of adults (25-54) who own their homes has fallen from 67% in 1980 to 48% in 2025. So it’s no surprise that people are willing to uproot themselves and head down the modern-day Oregon Trail for greener pastures. Take South Carolina, for example; they climbed from 45th to 28th in family stability over the past decade and were the fastest-growing state from 2024 to 2025.
It's clear that the Bayou State's pastures just aren’t green enough. And the closer you inch toward the Big Easy, the less green they become.
Returning to IV Waste and our city's relationship with functionality, ease of administration is one of those things you just can’t count out. The ability to accomplish things like turning on your water when you move—the ease of dealing with utilities, zoning issues, and obtaining building permits—all of this is key to whether individuals who want to move choose New Orleans and Louisiana.
Regionally, for a long time, in just about every category, we used to be ahead of Mississippi. That's not the case anymore. They've taken some very forward-leaning measures to support ease of administration, lower costs, and reduce tax burdens. Now, it’s a lot more attractive there than it is in Louisiana, especially if you’re looking to settle down in a larger city.
My point isn’t to sound like Chicken Little. I don't think the sky is falling. Really, I'm attempting to express optimism, because yesterday, New Orleans pastures just got a little greener.
These small but significant steps—like a continued partnership with IV Waste—matter a lot to residents of one of the world's most historic neighborhoods. Tearing down the Lindy Boggs atrocity matters to businesses looking to set up shop. These are real steps that will improve our standing in the eyes of those considering this place as their home. If you don’t think that’s true, you’re kidding yourself.
The less that folks have to see Google results about disruptions in the procurement of services or water main breaks or worrying if Tuesday’s trash collection is going to happen due to contract negotiations, the better off we look. And we need to look good.
Let’s face it: New Orleans is burdened by many challenges that are outside of our control. So what that means, in the end, is that we have to shine everywhere else.
