Should New Orleans be rebuilt?
Jeff Jarvis asks a really hard question in what is probably a highly inappropriate time: Should New Orleans be rebuilt? But… Having visited the city often in my last job, I was always struck by its poverty and its lack of a workable economy. Tourism is pretty much the only industry. The food is great. The attitude is fun. But big companies had left. And… Does it make sense to rebuild homes and offices in a place that can be destroyed all too easily, putting thousands of lives at risk? Is that the right thing to do? And… Is that the best use of our tax and insurance dollars? Everytime the Mississippi floods up river, there are those who say that we should stop paying to rebuild that which has been destroyed before. And, in fact, we have invested government money in moving people away from certain danger so we can stop paying to rebuild. It’s an investment in their safety. What do you guys think?
posted by The Sandmonkey @ 9/01/2005 01:55:00 AM
6 Comments:
New Orleans must be rebuilt. It is a major port (the largest I believe) for shipments of goods and oil into and out of the US. It also sits at the Mouth of the Mississippi where said goods are quickly and efficiently loaded on to barges and brought up the river to central distribution areas (like my city).
It is the capillary at the end of an artery. without it, the blood doesn't flow, the flesh rots and the limb dies.
don't believe these folks that it won't be rebuilt. Just believe that it will take years. In the meantime, I expect that a whole new era of engineering will begin and, like my city that was changed through many floods and that of St. Louis, the rebuilding of the city will begin somewhere further out, changing the ace of the city forever.
Stand by. When the rescuing and burying of the dead are done, the scientists, architects and engineers will come and then we will see things that we only once imagined.
I meant to add, the US without New Orleans is like Egypt without Alexandria or Cairo.
The NOLA economy is more than tourism. It is a major import/export center and oil economy. The fact that areas of the city are blighted that OUGHT to be the most affluent (I'm thinking of neighborhoods along the St. Charles trolley) has always been a sign to me of a corrupt, incompetent, disfunction city leadership. With all that money coming in all year from the outside (highest sales tax in the nation) it barely hobbled along with city services. It was the Murder Capital of the US. The fact that it never improved it levies was just one more indication among the many.
NOLA should do what Galveston Island did after the hurricane of 1900 that killed 9000 people: they hauled in dirt to raise the level of the island by 20-30 feet. Trying to maintain NO as a reverse fishbowl is another disaster waiting to happen.
(BTW NO is not below sea-level because of global warming. It has the same problem as Venice: it has been sinking ever since it was founded.)
Yeah it should be rebuilt but it needs to rebuilt differently. It needs to be like The Six Million Dollar man , stronger and better.
I don't know anything about things like that but it's obvious to even me that when they rebuild they need to take things like Katrina, earth quakes etc. into consideration.
I'm not sure about bringing in dirt to rebuild. That may have a serious impact on the flow of the mississippi causing major flooding in the other areas up river.
I think what we'll see is a new type of dike system
Don't worry, after the politicians get finished talking about everything, the news casters find another story, the majority of refugees find out that they can really live somewhere else and get free almost everything and the Corp of Engineers finishes screwing up that area even more than they have (with the help of corrupted LA officials) they will rebuild NO into something it has never been, a city with good city services, a city with good housing for the poor and elderly, a city with good streets, highways and such.
But, then the corruption and politicians will start to destroy it once angain. It will be a race to see if they can destroy it before another storm does.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
P.S. If neither of the above happens, don't worry the ground which NO is built on is slowly sinking and there is really nothing anyone can do about it unless everyone wants to live on house boat in the future.
How about a floating city, like in the Science Fiction novels?
That might work.
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