Editing Ray Nagin (section)

==First term==
The 2004 ''Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of the City of New Orleans'', as certified by CPA firm KPMG, highlighted many significant accomplishments of the Nagin administration. New Orleans gained 4,500 jobs that year. U.S. Census Bureau figures showed about 38,000 New Orleanians had risen out of poverty as the national average increased. According to ''The American City Business Journal'', per capita income in New Orleans was rising at the fastest rate in the nation. ''Southern Business and Development'' named New Orleans number eight on the list of "come back kids" in the south. New Orleans had back-to-back record tourist years, 10.1 million in 2004. A Yahoo/''National Geographic Traveler'' poll named the city its number one family destination. Since 2002, the area had seen over $400 million of film productions, including movies like the Oscar-award winning ''Ray'', starring Jamie Foxx, and ''All the King's Men'', featuring Sean Penn. According to ''MovieMaker Magazine'', New Orleans was the 4th best place to film a movie and had earned the title "Hollywood South".

In November 2004, the Nagin administration passed the city's largest bond issue, $260 million. New Orleans also jumped from 69th to 38th on Intel's list of "Most Wired Cities". The city's website went from being unranked to the 4th best in the nation.

As Hurricane Ivan threatened the Gulf of Mexico
in September 2004, Nagin urged New Orleanians to be ready for the 
storm. He advised evacuees to have some "Benjamins" ($100 bills) handy 
and urged those planning to stay not only to stock up on food and water 
but also to make sure they had "an axe in the attic". This was a reference to the many people trapped in their attics by rising floodwaters when Hurricane Betsy
hit the city in 1965. Nagin issued a voluntary evacuation call at 6 pm 
on September 13, and the interstates quickly filled as some 600,000 
metro New Orleanians left. Traffic was so heavy that some trips took 12 
hours or more. The hurricane missed the city.

===Hurricane Katrina===
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina entered the Gulf of Mexico. Early on Friday, August 26, Mayor Nagin advised New Orleanians to keep aclose eye on the storm and prepare for evacuation. He then made severalpublic statements encouraging people to leave and advising that if theydid not evacuate, "We will take care of you". By 10 a.m. Saturday, a mandatory evacuation was called for low-lying areas in the surrounding parishes—St. Charles, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, and Jefferson—and a voluntary evacuation for St. Bernard Parish. Nagin had, however, ignored federal and state offers of help and a recommendation to evacuate the city.

In addition to the parishes' announcements, President George W. Bush declared a federal state of emergency for Louisiana.

In accordance with the regional evacuation plan, New Orleans, along with the surrounding areas of Jefferson and St. Charles parishes, were given formal voluntary evacuation orders around 50 hours from landfall. This phased approach along with "contraflow", wherein all incoming interstate highway lanes are reversed outward, ensured that additional vehicles moving onto already congested roads would not create massive gridlock. The local newspaper reported that Nagin stopped short of ordering a mandatory evacuation because of concerns about the city's liability for closing hotels and other businesses.

After receiving a late night Saturday call from Max Mayfield, head of the National Hurricane Center,Nagin was advised that Katrina was headed to New Orleans. He ordered the city attorney to prepare legal documents for a mandatory evacuation of the city, the first in New Orleans' almost 300-year history. On Sunday, August 28<sup>th</sup> at 9:30 a.m., the mandatory evacuation order was signed and communicated to the public. The Superdomewas opened as a shelter of last resort and police went throughout the city with loudspeakers alerting all remaining citizens to go to key pickup points for free bus rides. By Sunday evening 80% of New Orleanians and visitors were evacuated or relocated.

After the hurricane hit, the federally built and maintained levees collapsed throughout the city. 80% of the city flooded, some areas as high as 20 feet, over rooftops. Food and water became scarce. Looting was common. After hearing reports on his wind up radio, Nagin criticized the federal and state response on WWL radio and his passionate outburst went viral.

==="Chocolate City" speech===
Shortly after Katrina devastated New Orleans, there were calls for moratoriums on rebuilding certain neighborhoods.
Two weeks after Katrina struck, Nagin took a weekend trip to Dallas to reunite with his family. While there, he was asked to meet with leading New Orleans businessmen to discuss the city's future. Nagin says he made it clear at the meeting that everyone had a right to return home, a claim contradicted by some businessmen in attendance.
Many of the initial proposals to rebuild New Orleans focused on rebuilding areas with the highest likelihood of economic return. Many groups expressed concern that this might radically change the racial make-up of the city.

The land deemed most economically viable was mostly city land above sea-level, in which the most economically-advantaged and white citizens resided; the majority of New Orleanians, especially black residents, lived in the outer edges of the city, where land was mostly below sea-level and deemed less economically viable. Nagin disavowed such proposals, and in response to residents' concerns, he used the phrase "Chocolate City" to signal that New Orleans would remain a majority black city. He first used the phrase during a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration speech in New Orleans on January 16, 2006 and repeated the metaphor several times. This was seized upon and parodied by some 
commentators, cartoons, and merchandising. Various designs of T-shirts with satirical depictions of Nagin as Willy Wonka were sold in the city and on the Internet.

Nagin also said that New Orleans "will be a majority African-American city because this was what God wants it to be." Some people found the implication of Nagin claiming to know God's will to be as troubling as the racial aspects of his speech.He then condemned Washington D.C., by saying God "sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and 
it's destroyed and put stress on this country", suggesting God's disapproval of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In an interview with Tavis Smiley broadcast on Public Radio International on January 13<sup>th</sup>, 2006, Nagin said he used the phrase "chocolate city" in reference to a time in the 1970s when African Americans were just starting to exercise political power in places like Washington, D.C. The term had been used in many of Nagin's previous speeches and welcoming addresses to visitors of the city. The idea reportedly originated with the song "Chocolate City" by the popular 1970s funk group ''Parliament''.