The armpit of New England

All the news and pictures coming out of New Orleans in recent weeks have made the region's poverty a major issue in the Hurrican Katrina saga. I was surprised to discover, however, that New Orleans is hardly the most impoverished city in the country. My own hometown of Hartford, CT, is actually poorer than New Orleans, according to a study cited in this Boston Globe story. (Yes, I have been reading the Globe since moving up here, but not for long).

To be sure, it is easy to read too much into the ''Southernness" of Katrina, and some historians warn that such a focus simply reinforces what they see as the centuries-old effort to use the South as a scapegoat, focusing on its ills while ignoring what are in fact national problems. There are other parts of the country, they note, that are just as poor-according to the 2000 Census, for example, Hartford, Conn., is poorer than New Orleans.