He's not inaccurate in what he said. Five years later, in a much more confined geographic area and with more financial resources - I would have expected NYC to be much further along than it is.

I was in New Orleans this past Feb and was surprised by the amount of clean-up that had taken place. Ofcourse they gave priority to the business districts downtown and by the French Quarter as these areas produce additional revenues to fund other clean-up efforts. And yes it appears as though wealthier suburbs get attention prior to the poor areas (I assume political and other economic reasons for this too). But overall, considering the geographic scale of the damage, I'd say it's moving quite a bit faster than NYC.