learnandteachonline.com

It seems like some of the predictions you see are more like wishlists. Here's the Wikipedia entry I'd like to see in a few years:

Just when too many people were about to give up on New Orleans ever regaining its vitality following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. business community surprised the world and effected a breathtaking turnaround.

In early 2006, former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush announced a challenge to business leaders: loan us a few of your best employees for six months or a year, just the length of a maternity leave or an academic sabbatical, and don't be stingy about it.

Don't lend a junior purchasing manager, they warned; send us your sharpest most seasoned expense watcher, the one who will keep a lid on government contracts as a personal mission. Look around your organization and find creative matches, like engineers who rose through your ranks to manage other engineers but would love a chance to get their hands dirty again.

Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO, jumped on board almost immediately to reinforce the message that this was not just another "program." He said he intended to encourage, bully and even shame large and small corporations to get behind the effort. In a move that delighted amateur journalists across the globe, Welch called on bloggers to sniff out companies paying lip service to the project and heap praise on those making a difference.

By mid-2007, more than 80,000 corporate employees had served a tour of duty in New Orleans. An unexpected number -- about seven percent -- chose to move to New Orleans permanently. Most observers credit this migration with the sudden explosion of plant relocations and the establishment of regional offices in New Orleans. It's predicted that by 2010, New Orleans will overtake Atlanta as the city of choice for a company foothold in the south.

Another unanticipated by-product of the effort was a measureable improvement in race relations and the quality of life for African Americans in New Orleans. The cause? Sociologists point to the fact that temporary workers were urged to live in integrated neighborhoods. This obviated the need for school desegregation and engendered a culture of helping. As one chronicler put it, "It's a clearer task, and a more rewarding one, to help your neighbor or the parents of your children's friends."

Racial troubles have not vanished from New Orleans. Black and white critics have called the corporate help program a token do-gooders' plan and a gentrification scheme. The critics' voices tend to be muffled by the numbers: crime is down, business formation is up, homebuilding shows no end in sight.