Armstrong Energy in Missouri hopes to open a company-backed RAM coal terminal in Alliance, La. on the west bank of the lower Mississippi River in 2014. But residents of Ironton, located just south of RAM's site, say they don't want their air quality to get any worse than it is now.

Residents of the Jefferson Parish town of Jean Lafitte, 25 miles south of New Orleans, hope a levee can be built soon after they were inundated by Isaac in August and a string of earlier storms.

Residents of Gert Town in the Sixteenth Ward of New Orleans say they see economic development on the outskirts of, but not inside, their community.

Mid City residents living within BioDistrict New Orleans worry that health and science entities might one day encroach on their neighborhoods, while Governor Bobby Jindal's health care cuts jeopardize the outlook for a BioDistrict lynch pin.