New Orleans lost 39,000 residents between 2020 and 2024, making it the fastest-shrinking metro area in the United States, according to US Census data.

Louisiana's largest city is plagued by anemic economic opportunity and slow job growth, rising housing and insurance costs, and persistent concerns about crime and crumbling infrastructure.

Giovanni Lincoln, a 44-year-old lifelong New Orleans resident, told the Daily Mail that New Orleans hasn't truly been the same since Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

The storm left 80 percent of the city underwater, killed 1,392 people and caused $125 billion worth of damage. 

Parts of the city have never been rebuilt and the population has never recovered to what it was pre-Katrina, roughly 485,000 people in the year 2000.  Latest US Census statistics show it had 362,701 residents in July 2024.

But according to Lincoln, another negative milestone for New Orleans was the COVID-19 pandemic, after which he claims he saw the city government consistently failing to meet the needs of its citizens.

'People are leaving in mass numbers because basic, essential services... have been lacking,' he said.

'As a resident, a homeowner and a landlord, I pay for trash to be picked up twice a week. I haven't been receiving that, yet they want to increase the bill,' he said, adding that the city is only picking up his trash once a week.

Lincoln also lamented the breakdown of the New Orleans Police Department, arguing that the record-low staffing leads to serious consequences for all residents.

'If something happens to you, you got a fear of whether the police are gonna come or not? That's where we're at in New Orleans,' he said. 

'The police have to decide which calls they're going to take. If I need an ambulance. Will the ambulance come? Because the ambulance has to decide whose situation is more severe.'