Elected officials have failed to keep the Big Easy clean, with trash lining the streets — a failure that has helped fuel the city's crime surge, a lifelong resident told Fox News.
"Our politicians need to concentrate more on making us look better," Mary Murdock, who co-owns Betsy's Pancake House in mid-city, said. "It's like your house. You want your house to look good if somebody's coming."
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Violent crime has spiked dramatically in New Orleans in recent years. The city had the most homicides per capita among major U.S. cities in September, briefly earning it the title of the nation's murder capital. Carjackings and homicides in the Big Easy have more than doubled since 2019.
There are people that "won't come into the city because of the crime," Murdock previously told Fox News. The restaurant owner added that her business lost some of its customers due to the crime.
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Meanwhile, the city's roads have become riddled with potholes in recent years, with garbage covering the sidewalks, Murdock said.
If city officials work to clean up trash and fix the roads, people are going to want to treat the city with respect, Murdock said. The restaurant owner said that improving the city's upkeep won't by itself stop the violent crime surge, but it will at least encourage residents and visitors to hold the city in higher regard.
"When you come across Jefferson Parish into New Orleans lines you can tell immediately the difference in the area," she told Fox News.
Some studies have shown that violence and at least the perception of safety improved after eliminating detritus.
In Philadelphia, neighborhoods where vacant lots were cleaned up saw a 29% reduction in gun violence, according to a 2018 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Of the 445 nearby residents sampled in the research, 58% said they felt safer once the lots were cleaned.
Meanwhile, a New Orleans road restoration project uptown has faced repeated delays in the last few years and won't be finished until late summer 2024 at the earliest, according to RoadWorkNOLA.gov. Residents told a local CBS affiliate that the road work has led to trash build-up along the street. One resident said she felt she was living on a "pig farm" as mud and garbage accumulated on the road.
Elected officials need to "pay more attention to the little details like the roads," Murdock said. "They're torn up and they're not fixing them."
But government leaders can't clean up the cities trash and crime alone, Murdock said. She called on residents to take better care of their city too.
"I think as New Orleans people, we need to bring the love back to where we love our city," Murdock told Fox News. "In order for people to love us, we have to give love out."
"If we keep trashing our city, everybody else is gonna trash our city too," Murdock said.
To watch Murdock's full interview, click here.
