I visited New Orleans once and remember being utterly wowed by the neighborhoods in the Garden district around the Tulane campus. The houses were such like I've never seen before. They were vibrant and colorful, beautifully creole, and almost indicative of a separate universe. They looked like they were pulled directly from Gone With the Wind or might have even housed Mark Twain. The clearest image I have of New Orleans is row after row of beautiful mansions in the Garden District. One after the other, all unique, and all almost magically growing out of the Louisiana landscape.

My visit was some years before Katrina and at the time of the storm the only image I could create was of mass destruction to the garden district. I envisioned high water marks and 100 foot high trees crashing through one-of-a-kind ceilings. I imagined the colors were lost in the brown murky waters and I think I saw Mark Twain drowning.

It struck me then, after imaging a gardenless district, that neighborhoods can be art too.  I used to scoff at  those historical landmark signs, the ones that indicated nearby was some decrepit old shack which may or may not have housed a second-cousin to either Leopold or Loeb. But neighborhoods like the Garden District should be preserved, they should be marked as historical sites, not just because they do have stories histories, but because they are just aesthetically pleasing. To wipe out the Garden district with tacky souveneir stores and fast food chains sounds like a worse fate than storm waters.

But what qualifies as something worth preserving? Is it merely the wealth of the neighborhoods that dictates which neighborhoods are saved? Over the last few years Harlem has undergone a rapid amount of gentrification. The culture and history that fostered some of the most important African American movements in our country is eroding at the hands of big businesses and chains. How can we protect Harlem when it doesn't have the money and status as the Garden District inhabitants? Harlem is just as worth saving as the Garden District and is just as beautiful in its own way? But how come its voice is drowned in a bureaucratic hurricane?

While some neighborhoods like the Garden District are destined to stay roughly the same because of wealthy lobbyists, others like Harlem are disappearing. So take notice now, because if you wait long enough it may be gone and you'll never know what you've missed.