Oh goodness..you make it sound like Utopia that it is definitely NOT and will be a long time coming. Just ask the 71 year old retired school teacher who was wrestled to the ground last year on Bourbon Street, had his lights knocked out by two of New Orleans finest because he Nlooked" like someone they were looking for. They are now both looking for new jobs. No, New Orleans is NOT the same. If you will research the present day city you will see what I mean. Crime is no where under control. During Katrina New Orleans police were filmed "appropriating" Wal-Mart TV's and DVD's.(and were never prosecuted.) Along with the "fine' dining (and we used to eat at the Rib Room in the Omni Royal Orleans at least once a month) goes uncontrollable crime. You can sign your American Express card for a "fine" dining experience and walk out the door and be cut up for fish bait...it happens every day. I'm not a pessimist; I want New Orleans to be what it was pre-Katrina. And yes, it had its share of crime as any major city does but I wouldn't arrive expecting rose petals on Canal Street. Just take one of those now infamous 9th ward tours and I think you'll see where I'm coming from. It's all so easy to avoid the obvious when you want to. This isn't bad publicity~ it's a sincere reality check. No one wants New Orleans back to what it was more than I do; we're working hard but not quite there yet...
I hate to make this comparison, but ... I think perhaps New Orleans has a "Green Zone", rather like Baghdad. The Green Zone isn't completely safe by any stretch, but it's *safer* to enough of an extent that it's ... on a par with Philadelphia and other moderate-crime big cities. Living in Philadelphia (400+ murders/year, many in "nice neighborhoods", some right in major transit stops) instead of New York, Chicago, etc, my standards for "city safety" are probably a lot lower than many people's. But the police presence was huge in the Quarter when I was there.
Now, many of the great restaurants are outside this area. My group went to Jacque-Imo's, highly HIGHLY recommended, but the neighborhood was ... at the time at least, and probably still, pretty durn sketchy. We drove, there were nine of us, and we went straight from the closely-parked vans into the restaurant and back out again, and it wasn't dark out. If any of those conditions weren't met (including if there were only two of us instead of nine, and especially if we left after dark even if parked close by), *I* would probably have felt unsafe, and that's saying something.
If you stay in the Green Zone, don't wander after dark, and generally Don't Be Stupid (go anywhere alone), I don't think you're putting your life on the line any more than anywhere else. If you stray, well, I agree Had8ley's warnings definitely apply. Maybe the Green Zone extends to the Garden District, the Waterfront, maybe it doesn't; that I really can't speak to. But I felt like the Quarter was pretty solid, given the police presence. (Of course, the police presence indicates strongly that the city feels it would be unsafe with fewer police....)
For the record, though, on two separate weekends our group of nine appeared to be *the only guests* at a six-story hotel in the Central Business District, a block and a half from the Quarter. The concierge and staff knew us all by name when we checked in, addressed us by name every time we came through the lobby, thanked us profusely for our business, and in five days of staying there I never saw another guest. That was a little strange, ok, a lot strange. And sad. On the other hand, *fantastic* service and they upgraded us all to luxury suites when we'd reserved regular rooms, because, well, why not?