You’d think the fastest growing city in the United States would be a bustling, exciting place.

In places, it is. But a heavy cloud of discouragement still hovers over New Orleans.

The population of New Orleans grew nearly 14 percent from July 2006 to July 2007, according to info the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

That rate of growth is evidence that displaced residents have made their way back to New Orleans. But the population is still only about half of what it was before Hurricane Katrina ripped through the city in 2005, tearing homes off their foundations and scattering thousands.

If half of the population has returned, every other house is vacant. That’s pretty much the environment I observed when I visited New Orleans in June with a group from my church. We worked on rehabbing homes and restoring hope for people in the storm’s tragic aftermath.

We were enthralled by heroic stories of survival from people who lived on bridges for two days awaiting rescue. One man traded his shoes for keys to a Cadillac. Another ferried neighbors to safety in a borrowed boat. And we heard plenty from people who feel forgotten by their fellow citizens.

Some of the homes have been rebuilt to be better than they were before. Subdivisions are also dotted with bare slabs of concrete where houses have been demolished.

Yet, nearly three years after the hurricane, most of the houses are somewhere in between, empty shells with boarded windows and sagging porches wrapped in renegade vegetation. Other houses have been gutted and reroofed, but progress has stalled waiting on plumbers or electricians or contractors who demanded payment up front then skipped town.

Even determined homeowners who have committed to rebuilding the city are daily confronted with discouragement. Houses still bear spray painted tags left by National Guard members searching for victims. Electric boxes on empty houses have become targets for copper thieves and abandoned buildings tempting playgrounds for children.

It’s unlikely parts of the city will ever be rebuilt and that’s probably a good thing for residents and taxpayers. We worked in the Eighth Ward, a neighborhood adjacent to the devastated Ninth Ward. Though none of the houses have basements, they’re all built up several feet. Neighbors told us two feet of floodwater was nothing unusual. One afternoon, it rained heavily and within half an hour, huge pools of water collected in the flat, sub-sea level city.

No doubt, New Orleans is well on the road to recovery, but it will be a longer, steeper road than many expected.