to diversify the economy by developing the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District in New Orleans East, now called the New Orleans Regional Business Park. Downtown New Orleans underwent an impressive building boom, with multiple office towers constructed to house the headquarters, or large regional offices, for companies such as Freeport-McMoRan, Pan American Life Insurance, Exxon, Chevron, Gulf Oil, Amoco, Mobil, Murphy Oil and Texaco. By the mid-1980s these firms, with other large employers, such as Royal Dutch Shell, Louisiana Land and Exploration and McDermott International, employed thousands of white collar workers downtown, with thousands more employed by others providing services to them. Due to a multitude of factors, including the Oil Bust (1986), inexorable corporate mergers and downsizings, and less-than-effective support from subsequent administrations' economic development departments, none of these firms, or their successors, maintain a large presence in New Orleans today — apart from Shell and Pan American Life Insurance. Morial won his second term in a March 1982 runoff election with fellow Democrat, Ron Faucheux, a young white Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from New Orleans East. Morial prevailed, 100,703 votes (53.2 percent) to Faucheux's 88,583 (46.8 percent). Faucheux later became a nationally known political consultant and pundit. By Morial's second term the city's economy was slowing and increased conflict with the City Council led to a decrease in the ability of the Morial administration to govern effectively. The 1984 World's Fair, which transpired midway through Morial's second term, was an embarrassing financial debacle that was negatively remarked upon nationally. The World's Fair declared bankruptcy while still operating and failed to pay many contractors, mortally wounding numerous New Orleans-based design and construction companies. More generally, the financial failure of the World's Fair severely undermined the community's morale and ominously presaged the hard times of 1986's Oil Bust. Later life and death After serving two terms as mayor, Morial was prevented by the city charter from seeking a third term. He twice tried to convince voters to change the charter to allow him to run again, but both proposals were soundly defeated. Morial's political strength did not end after he left City Hall in 1986. He considered running for mayor again in the election of 1990, and his sudden death in 1989 of a heart attack during the election campaign influenced Mayor Barthelemy's re-election, since Morial died before he could endorse an opponent. Morial was 60. Legacy New