An economist visits New Orleans

In An economist visits New Orleans, Tyler Cowen addresses the economics of immigrant labor:

Latino migration follows an economic logic. Immigrants are prominent in the construction sector; 40 percent of the workers who rebuilt the Pentagon after Sept. 11 were Latino. So, if you are looking to rebuild, you will hire Latinos, many of them illegal. New Orleans is a low-services, low-infrastructure, clean-up and construction-intensive city and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Most of the low-wage (often African-American) labor that served the city before Katrina struck left New Orleans afterward and did not return. Just as Chinese immigrants worked on the railroads out West, Irish immigrant laborers built much of the Erie Canal, and Italian immigrants put together much of the New York subway system, so will Latinos rebuild New Orleans.
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In October, Mayor Ray Nagin asked, "How do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?" The answer: Do not rebuild.