Why Can't New Orlerans Be Bigger And Better Than It Was Before?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I am trying to approach this in a ideologically neutral way...

Of course your first priority is to establish order and make sure there is shelter and food for the tens of thousands who have been displaced most of whom who are poor....


And to stop any more water from pouring into the city...


After that a massive private-public works operation could be started to build a twenty first century levee system, a new infrastructure, and housing...


I am sure a nation with a $2.338 trillion budget can afford it...

[Spinzonner]

1. Better yet

let's build it in an even more vulnerable place just to prove what we can do and how much money we can spend on it

:sarcasm:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. It's A Major Destination And People Call It Home...

Is your suggestion that we abandon New Orleans and create a Louisianan diaspora?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. And By Your Measure

I am not a geologist but I'll bet if we applied your standard of vulnerability major parts of the earth that folks now inhabit would be declared uninhabitable...

[illflem]

6. You mean like Ponce de Leon

who declared after "discovering" Florida that it was uninhabitable?

[Ediacara]

7. No, actually, that's incorrect

Buildings can be built to largely withstand earthquakes and even tsunamis. Flooding however.... New Orleans is sinking into a wetland because it's heavy, the Gulf is rising. Building the city bigger and better doesn't make a city weightless, and doesn't stop the gulf from rising...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Once Again I'm Not A Geologist

but Florida isn't exactly Denver when it comes to being above sea level....

[Spinzonner]

9. Leave it for whatever industrial/economic necessities it

provides and where a minimum number of people will be put at risk in case of a similar future event without the incredible difficulties of evacuation.

The industrial fixtures could be hardened and protected in whatever a cost effective way was appropriate.

Why do you assume that the toxic remediation that will be necessary to make it habitable as a city will be cost effective and complete in any reasonable time ? Such a diaspora may well be necessary even on a temporary basis. Why not make it permanent. Or do we plan to have New Orleans refugee camps ?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Because This Country Has Money Coming Out The Wazoo

We spent $300 billion in Iraq...


I'll bet for a fraction of that we could repair the infrastructure of New Orleans, build housing for the poor*, and provide folks in the area with jobs and hope in the process...


This is a chance to do something good...



*I wouldn't build public for rent housing again which are essentially glorified bantustans but would build single family homes and condominium style apartments for those qualified where they owned the property they inhabit... That's why you don't see homes built by Habitat For Humanity run into the ground... When people own something they take better care of it because it belongs to them...

[Spinzonner]

12. I don't think we should spend lots of money foolishly

if not stupidly, just because we've done it before and to prove we can do it again.

Which is not to imply that you are stupid for wanting to rebuild/restore New Orleans.

I just think it's a bad investment to which there are other, wiser alternatives.

You haven't really addressed or even acknowledged the possible long and short terms toxic, environmental concerns.

Learn from mistakes - such as mis-siting a city - don't repeat them. This is an opportunity borne of a necessity to address the question.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. First Of All

There is not a chance in the world that New Orleans will be "abandoned" and its people relocated so the challenge to us is to ensure it is done right...


I know this a chat board but so much of what we discuss here is impractical and never going to happen...


For instance, there's a poll here-"Should New Orleans Be Rebuilt?"


Regardless of your opinion or my opinion New Orleans will be rebuilt... The challenge is to do it right or as right as possible...

I see all this talk about looting...I don't countenance looting but if I had to live in those bantustans where they house the American poor in a land of plenty I might be a looter myself... I have nothing so what do I have to lose...

[screembloodymurder]

28. If NO is worth rebuilding, why not let private investors cough up the

money?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. There Would Have To Be Private-Public Cooperation.

nt

[merbex]

2. I want to help too, but shouldn't geography be considered?

Nothing is going to change the fact that this city is below sea level

[marysdance]

11. Infinite Possibility

I am living in Holland...and the folks here have, over many centuries, developed incredible technology that allows abundant living here in the "hollow lands". They have created space for whole cities using this technology. Amsterdam is an example..as is Manhattan in good old NYC.

Bigger and better...

In these times of shifting paradigms, it can be expected that we will see our physical realities shifting too. We are so much wiser than we were as NO evolved into what it was until just a short while ago. We could rebuild intentionally...with an eye for the future.

They are reporting now that NO is essentially a toxic waste dump after Katrina..I would assert that it was and has been a toxic waste dump for decades. We have a chance now to correct that.

Just my opinion, folks. No one has to agree. The possibilities are unlimited... we need to keep our thinking on the results we want to obtain.

Peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. I Like Your Spirit...

I respect nature and the environment but I am not willing to live at its whim...

And anybody communicating from the comfort of their home over a cable modem is obviously not willing to live at its whim either...

[Spinzonner]

14. And how is it you know that, under climate change

Holland isn't under a fate to become an inland sea in the not terribly distant future ?

Just because you can - at considerable expense - do something, doesn't mean it is wise to do it given other alternatives.

[LunaSea]

20. Holland should have been underwater a long time ago..

and yet...there it is.
Bet its still there when half of Florida is gone.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. Exactly...

New Orleans is going to be rebuilt... It's too valuable a tourist destination for the state to abandon...


I would like them to rebuild it sans the shantytowns...

[screembloodymurder]

40. They don't get many Cat 5 hurricanes

If they did, they would be underwater.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

42. Neither Does Louisiana

Fortunately hurricanes of that magnitude are extremely rare...

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

25. Pripyat, Louisiana

It is callus and cold to look at situations in these terms, but we have to face some hard realities of of a reconstruction effort.

1. Where New Orleans sits would require a massive infrastructural investment. Every artery into the city has been destroyed. It must be redesigned and rebuilt completely. Katrina has shown quite drastically that the area is infrastructurally unable to deal with a storm of megaton-style potential. Any future infrastructure would have to be.

2. The city needs a massive sea wall around it. Such technology is doable and within reach, but it will require a sizable investment, perhaps even a trillon-dollar investment.

3. There are the matters of hospitals, schools, law enforcement, emergency management and other vital public services. As of this moment, that have been largely destroyed. Assets have been destroyed. Physical structures have been destroyed. In this sort of disaster, the social infrastructure is even more frail than the physical one. We saw evidence of that when thousand lined up at the Superdome and had to wait up to four hours to get in.

All this leads to my fourth point. When you add up the cost of reconstruction between New Orleans, Southern Louisiana and Mississippi, we are looking at a trillion dollar situation. Our current governement is not interested in such a reconstruction at all. Remember, they are powered by the Grover Norquist Agenda ("Make government so small that you can drown it in a bathtub" -- yes, Grover said this and the GOP buys into it). At most I see our government bring in a Bechtel or a Halliburton with the aim of salvaging the oil and petrochemical assets surrounding the city but pleading poverty when it comes to the displaced human population. They will have no problem turning New Orleans and much of region into an American Pripyat, damaged and lifeless.
Plus consider that this disaster hit two of the poorest states of the Union. In these times of handing unfunded mandates to the states, Katrina has become the ulitmate unfunded mandate. Mississippi does not have the state funds to effect reconstruction on Gulfport. Louisiana couldn't begin to fund the massive reconstruction New Orleans would require. Washington D.C., because of their agenda, have no interest outside the special interest that they will work for first and foremost.

When I see the resignation on the faces of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco, I get the feeling that they know were they fall in this order. When I hear the bluster of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, I see reconsideration. A man who once chaired the GOP is in fear that the Agenda he was a footsoldier for will now abandon him and his Mississippi.

It seems fate is not without a sense of irony.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. I Doubt It Would Require A Trillion Dollar Investment

I saw where they could build a levee for New Orleans to withstand a cap5 water surge for fourteen billion dollars ... Even with the knowledge that these projects become boondoogles we are still far away from a "trillion dollars"...


If the cost was a "trillion " dollars than obviously New Orleans can't be rebuilt but it's not...

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

31. if that levee could be built....and it can.

Why wasn't it built?

Also, I'm sure its going to take more than one, it will probably take a dozen to handle would could happen. Plus you have to consider the insurance costs, the relocation costs and once again you have to keep in mind you have lost an entire physical and social infrastructure, and a city OR a region can't survive without it.

We are discussing a reconstruction of a region of more than 2 million people, roughly a small country.

Perhaps the trillion-dollar figure could be an overshoot, but I'm basing it on the desvastation I'm seeing on the news combined with budget figure from recent years for both affected regions.

The total amount of government fund coming into the city is approximately $600 million dollars, nearly half that stream comes from sales taxes (note: these figure come from the 2001 city estimates, the most recent I have been able to access. I will update with 2003 and/or 2004 numbers once found.)

Now that funding stream has been pretty much cut off for the time being. Commercial activity within the city is at dead zero right now, and that put a serious crimp in those projections for next year.

Also consider what has been damaged, including one of the largest ports in the world that serve purposes of national importance.

My biggest point is my concern that we have a Government who's defining philosophy of the role of government is running headlong into a massive contradiction with a very difficult problem. I fear a headline like this in some future edition of the Times-Picayune.

D.C.: NO MONEY FOR NEW ORLEANS; MISSISSIPPI

[Ediacara]

43. The New Orleans sea wall isn't the only expense

Nearly every single building in New Orleans, Gulf Port, Biloxi, etc needs to be completely rebuilt. The entire water system needs to be rebuilt. The entire electrical system needs to be rebuilt. The entire sewage system needs to be rebuilt. The entire transportation system needs to be rebuilt.

Sorry, but I think $1T is on the low end of pricetags if we were to actually rebuilt New Orleans.

[LunaSea]

18. But I DO agree!

Turning "cancer alley" into something better would quite the challenge. We'll need some major changes in attitude for that to happen though. The engineering is the easy part.
finding the will to do it is another matter.

If the United States fails to apply its abundant imagination to such problems, we might as well move back to the caves.

[screembloodymurder]

29. They could be hit again next week.

Right now a good rain would be a disaster. New Orleans is a hole in the ocean.

[ima_sinnic]

5. I will say here and now that the present victims have my full support

and I will do everything I can to help them.

but I will have no sympathy for anybody stupid enough to "rebuild." especially in light of the fact that with global warming these storms are just going to get worse. some things, like living in a bowl below sea level in a hurricane zone, are just not meant to be. let the Gulf Coast revert to salt marsh and estuary wilderness.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Republicans will stop the effort. They don't believe in nation building.

Not even our own.

[bottomofthehill]

17. Simple answer

Because the city is below sea level. I will be almost impossible to get any private insurance company to insure any future project there and the federal flood program is very expensive.

It may be possible in parts of the city but other parts may be gone for good

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. In Florida The State Government Insures Property In Environmentally Risky

Zones

[Spinzonner]

21. Yeah, and if they actually ever have to pay off

in a particularly large, widespread disaster they might default or go bankrupt.


Writing insurance is easy. Paying it off and staying solvent is the hard part.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. Anything Is Possible

Despite the current maladministration this nation has been bucking the odds for over two hundred years....

[bottomofthehill]

41. I don't think so

I think that the residents of Florida either have private insurance or participate in the National Flood Insurance Program.

See http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12518947.htm

[illflem]

23. Knowing human nature

New Orleans will have to be destroyed at least one or two more times before we finally figure out it isn't a good place to put a city.

[Kindigger]

26. On that subject...found this interesting book

http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/Books/Fall2004/books/Colten_Unnatural_excerpt.html

[MercutioATC]

32. Lake N'awlins might be the best plan.

COULD we rebuild New Orleans? Of course.

SHOULD we? Well, I guess that depends on your perspective.

My view is that it's unwise to spend tens of billions of dollars to rebuild and attempt to levee a city on the Gulf coast that sits below sea level.

Maybe Sam Kinnison said it best (when talking about Ethopia). "We have deserts in THIS country. We don't fucking LIVE in them."

Unfortunately, we DO live in flood planes on the Gulf coast. Maybe it's time for that to change...

[mattclearing]

33. Yeah, I just don't see how you move that much water.

I can't imagine it's worth the effort and expense. The investment community may well decide it's best to just cut their losses.

[LunaSea]

34. Been to Vegas?

LA?

lots of water being moved with fairly old technologies.

[mattclearing]

35. Nah, but I guess you could probably do it.

I just don't know how much good it will do...the whole area is contaminated and leveled. It will cost billions just to clean it up, much less rebuild.

[Zynx]

39. With what will likely be a long term worsening of conditions down there

I say we screw it. It's not worth it to build a city that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

[theboss]

36. That would be the Roosevelt approach

I know you and I share an affinity for him.

[Spike from MN]

37. We need something like the WPA.

Thousands of people lost their jobs because of the storm. We need a program that will allow them to go back to work rebuilding their cities and towns (wherever they decide to locate them). Some will already have the needed skills and others can learn new skills that might perhaps allow them to find better jobs in the future once the cities and towns are rebuilt. Keep the money out of the hands of the corporations as much as possible because you know there are a lot of companies smacking their lips at the thought of cashing in on this disaster. Sad but true. Everyone will be better served if the country puts the money in the pockets of those that have been displaced by the disaster. Losing everything you own is bad enough but losing your job on top of everything else just makes the matter that much worse. A program that could offer these people employment would go a long way in helping the whole rebuilding process as they could rebuild the cities and their lives at the same time. It would give them hope where they now have none. If the money isn't there for a program of this magnitude, we can hound our elected (and unelected) representatives to repeal the tax cuts on the rich. Oh, and they can repeal the bankruptcy bill at the same time.

Would such a program ever get put into place? I rather doubt it. I'm betting that the rebuilding will to go large corporations, the taxpayers will once again get fleeced, and those displaced by the storm will be thrown to the wolves. But I intend to hound my elected officials anyway, just to let them know that some of us are on to their game. They need to stop representing corporations and start representing the people.

[Nihil]

38. Ah, the wonder of the human spirit

When I started here, all there was was swamp.

Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp,
but I built it all the same, just to show 'em.

It sank into the swamp.

So, I built a second one.
That sank into the swamp.

So, I built a third one.
That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp,
but the fourth one ... stayed up!

And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle
in these islands.

(MP&tHG)

Let's get the survivors back on their feet before we start to
play "King Canute" again ...