The tent city is the first thing I notice - or don't notice, I should say. When I visited New Orleans in March, I drove past dozens (maybe hundreds) of tents huddled under the freeway at Claiborne and Canal. Now, when I walk under the overpass on the way from my Mid-City digs to the French Quarter, the stretch of sheltered concrete is empty.

I take it as a sign of progress.

Elsewhere, with that one glaring change under my belt, I start looking for more signs. I ride the St. Charles Avenue streetcar - itself, running longer hours than it did last time - through my old stomping grounds, the Garden District, and I swear I notice more lit-up storefronts, more new restaurants, fewer boarded-up buildings. A vintage early morning/late night breakfast joint - the Trolley Stop - is back in business, with limited hours. On my last visit, it was derelict.

Everywhere I go, I see signs advertising the recent accomplishments of contractors, painters; signs thanking donors for their generous contributions to the restoration of a given street's live oaks; signs on freshly spruced-up buildings, saying "New Ownership" or "Under New Management". I like being able to see tangible, positive change.

But not all the changes I see are good ones.

"It's gotten worse, just since you've been gone," a bartender from the French Quarter tells me over coffee. He's talking about the crime rate. On my last visit, I saw the city through his eyes, and it was a flawed but beautiful picture. He knew every street performer and folk artist in Jackson Square; he waxed eloquent about his favourite spots to watch the sun rise or set from the Quarter's narrow streets; he told me there was no place else he'd rather be.

Today he tells me he's moving to Mid-City in November, after his lease on Dumaine is up. And after Mid-City?

"I'm tired of looking over my shoulder," he says. "It'll push me out of New Orleans... eventually."