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 NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Fed up with crime and political corruption, New Orleans' business leaders in 1952 organized to flush out the twin poisons they believed were harming economic development.
It was a time when illegal gambling and the Carlos Marcello crime family operated openly in a city that was a bustling business hub.
Fast forward 55 years. Gambling is legal and the mob has faded into obscurity. The city's economy is a shadow of its former self, thanks to the 1980s oil bust, an exodus of big businesses and the shattering blow of Hurricane Katrina, which ran off at least 2,000 employers.
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