7. New Orleans

A streetcar is seen in downtown New Orleans. In another sign that New Orleans is reinventing itself by restoring its past, the city announced plans to spend up to $90 million to lay streetcar tracks down river from the French Quarter, a working-class and Creole side of the Big Easy immortalized by Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

July 13, 2012