New Orleans Street Economy

Series produced by Sarah Holtz

Caption: PRX default Series image
PRX default Series image 

A series about people in New Orleans who make a living on the street.

New Orleans has one of the most vibrant and unique street economies, with everything from musicians to dancers to performance artists to poets and painters to the more hidden economies revolving around sex, drugs, and other hustles. Radio producer Sarah Holtz and journalist Kelley Crawford submerge themselves into those worlds with a recorder and unending curiosity to create the series Street Economy. With no real agenda, each episode encapsulates a moment of what it's like to making a living on the streets of New Orleans.


5 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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Despite strict rules that you can't illicitly sell things outside of Jazz Fest, there is a whole economy that exists just beyond the festival gates...

  • Added: Apr 28, 2017
  • Length: 04:40
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At the Really, Really Free Market, the concept of quid pro quo is banished. Sarah and Kelley talk with organizers and participants at a market wher...

Bought by KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio


  • Added: Jun 15, 2016
  • Length: 06:57
  • Purchases: 1
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At a second line parade in the 7th Ward, vendors and sellers prove to be hustling at a pace not many can keep up with.

  • Added: Apr 24, 2016
  • Length: 03:39
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In this episode of "Street Economy," radio producers Kelley Crawford and Sarah Holtz go to the streets in search of poetry -- literal poetry, not a...

  • Added: Mar 21, 2016
  • Length: 06:21
Caption: Fernando Lima, Credit: Daniel Grey
When a man working for the city of New Orleans runs over pianist Fernando Lima's gear, a confrontation and a conversation ensues about what it mean...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Feb 12, 2016
  • Length: 06:27
  • Purchases: 1