NEW ORLEANS (CNN) – President Barack Obama held a town hall meeting Thursday at the University of New Orleans during his quick visit to the city.

The president said he wanted to hear about post-Hurricane Katrina progress and concerns of residents first hand.

“It has now been just over four years since that terrible storm struck the shores, and the days after it did this nation and all the world were a witness to the fact that the damage from Katrina was not caused just by the disaster of nature but also by the break down of government,” Obama said to an excited crowd at the University of New Orleans. “The government wasn’t adequately prepared, and we didn’t adequately respond.”

He also visited a school in the city’s flood-ravaged Ninth Ward.

At a town hall meeting at the University of New Orleans, he told the crowd his administration would not forget the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

“As we continue this recovery effort, I’ve made it clear that we will not tolerate the usual turf-wars between agencies, so we’ve prioritized coordination between all levels of government,” Obama said. “We’ve freed up over $1.5 billion in recovery and rebuilding assistance that had been tangled up in red tape for years.”

Some in the south have criticized the president for making such a short visit, for not taking the time to walk around, or even visit hard hit states like Mississippi.

One White House aide pointed out that during the presidents previous stops in the Crescent City, when he was senator, he was able to tour and get a sense of the damage, and now he wants to listen.

Obama visited New Orleans in 2008 when he was campaigning for the presidency and called for the cutting of government red tape that was slowing hurricane recovery.

The White House said that since the president took office there have been 35 trips to the Gulf Coast by more than 20 senior administration officials.