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Outside the tourist zone, New Orleans remains a city of indolence and ruin. On the edges of the Central Business District, fires are erupting in abandoned buildings, at least three in the last week. The smoke curling under the highway overpasses has an ugly chemical smell. The Lower Ninth Ward is still mostly empty, vast and mute. But there is hustle and energy in the baking heat, in places like the parking slabs near Home Depot and Lowe’s, where Hispanic, black and a few white laborers gather every morning for work.

I came here to talk to day laborers, because I had been told that this was the worst place in America to be one. The money was good after Katrina, in August 2005, and the work pace was frantic. Men were recruited for jobs that were plentiful, though seldom as good as promised. Conditions were dangerous and sickening. A glut of workers soon lowered wages for everyone. Intimidation and abuse were common, often by contractors, sometimes by cops.

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