Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry suggests the state of Louisiana will dictate New Orleans's future, politically and economically, going forward.
"It used to be the saying was: where goes New Orleans, where goes the state," Landry said on Monday at a press conference after announcing a $40 billion expansion of its North Louisiana artificial intelligence data center. "Let me tell you what happened today. That has changed. Where goes Louisiana will determine the fate of New Orleans."
According to one, economic data suggest otherwise.
"We can look at it across a variety of metrics," Stephen Barnes, the director of the Kathleen Blanco Public Policy Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said. "(New Orleans is) still a huge driver and, really, ultimately, the largest concentration of economic activity in the state."
Barnes told WWL's Tommy Tucker that New Orleans continues to boost the Louisiana economy despite losing population and jobs post-Katrina. According to Barnes, all metrics show that New Orleans has more influence on the state economy than any other metro area in the state.
"New Orleans is somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of the state economy and a similar contribution in terms of the influence on the New Orleans economy on state tax revenues," Barnes said. "Our larger urban areas tend to draw people in, and there are economic benefits of bringing people together for business formation and entrepreneurship and innovation."
Barnes says the economic impact of the new Meta AI data center in North Louisiana touted by the governor will pale in comparison to that of New Orleans.
"That data center is hugely important for North Louisiana," Barnes said. "I think that one project is really valuable, but it's nothing like having a city like New Orleans year after year helping to support hundreds of thousands of jobs and contributing billions of dollars to the state economy."
