Nawlins will never be properly rebuilt until the graft and corruption are removed and that's probably not going to happen.
I was with a guy from the west bank last week whose neighbor was bidding some work in NO. He was told his $600 per unit bid included a $100 under table kickback to the local civil servant overseeing the project. Accurate story or not, this is how business has been done in NO and will continue.
Misappropriation of funds for levee repair is why the floods happened in the first place. NO politicians are incapable of getting anything done right and Nagin is just the puppet in power blasting the federal government, whining for more funds mishandle.
Big business and corporate money funding high end building projects and real levee repair are the only thing that could really put NO back together. Small homeowners and low income folks don't stand a chance in the climate of corruption.
With the amount of debris that is accumulating from demotlition, another hurricane hit would further turn NO into the world's largest landfill.