Comments on: noveaux

noveaux

The Jesse Helms — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 07:32:23 -0800

Bring New Orleans Back. The sparsely populate city is grasping for a means to recovery, as even today the mayor laid off half of the city work force.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 07:57:43 -0800

I wonder if residents will still have to pay their property taxes even though some properties no longer exist.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 07:59:54 -0800

sad.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:21:30 -0800

Saw some guy from the Cato Institute on CNN last night. The basic gist of his message was that N.O. should be left to die. That no money be spent to rebuild unless businesses return in large enough numbers.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:35:46 -0800

They should at least fill in the hole before rebuilding anything.

By: spock

spock — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:35:48 -0800

Funny thing about cities: If most of the population departs and doesn't come back, you haven't got much of a city. City government is basically a business that requires a stable revenue stream to provide salaries and services. When that revenue stream is stopped (or severely restricted) you haven't got a city government. N.O. should be left to die.... New Orleans, as we knew it, is dead. It is just taking some people longer to realize that than others.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:44:20 -0800

Others already said it, but yeah, the city don't look so good, especially now that half of the government is gone. Sad. I guess the only thing up for discussion from the link is whether or not you'd donate money to Bring New Orleans Back. Honestly, I don't think I will, mostly because I'd have no idea what my money was doing. I know that they have lots to do, but they could put some specifics on the page. So what's the big plan, aside from wishing and hoping? OT: How to stop pop-ups in Firefox.

By: nervousfritz

nervousfritz — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:50:39 -0800

When common sense dictates that they would need extra help now, rather than less. And speaking of labeling people as habitual surrenderers, I think it's great how everyone wants to give up on an American city. What if the Guatemalans had attacked, laid waste to half the city, and chased all the inhabitants out of town? Well, it is awfully close to Guatemala. Can't expect to have a city like that after all. Basically, kill off all the humans, bow in humility to the awesome power of floods and viruses. Boo ya.

By: baphomet

baphomet — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:52:30 -0800

Rebuilding a city which sits in a bowl bounded by water on all sides, on the coastline of a large oceanic body of water which will be growing very soon, and which was built on a swamp... ...will be a collosal waste of money. Why do people even consider it? I'm sorry your city got wiped off the face of the earth, but rebuilding it is not going to bring it back, it's just going to kill more people 50 years from now. Hell, if we blow a billion dollars on it in the next year (which would be tipping the spending iceberg), a storm could come along next year that will destroy all that progress. Anybody who thinks New Orleans can be rebuilt needs to be slapped back into reality.

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:54:04 -0800

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina I counted myself firmly in the "let it die" camp, but what do you do about the fact that New Orleans is the major port on the Mississippi? Dredge a ship channel all the way up to Vicksburg?

By: raysmj

raysmj — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:55:55 -0800

The country doesn't deserve to survive if it lets New Orleans totally go, without any sort of fight.

By: biffa

biffa — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:00:27 -0800

I thought the US believed in letting the market decide? Don't towns across the US quite often become practically ghost towns (even in this day and age), isn't this just a variation on that? If people want to go back there they can, if they don't then NO won't return, but if they decide they're better off elsewhere isn't that the more positive outcome. Policy should consider the best needs of the people, the city is just geography.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:00:28 -0800

I too would be very interested about the shipping angle. I had heard (don't remember where) that the port wasn't as important as it once was, but I can't see how that's possible. Impact of port disruption (AgriNews) Facts on the port (AP) Most notably, "New Orleans currently ranks third among Gulf Coast cruise ports with 26 percent of the market share" - interesting. Not even the biggest Gulf Coast port.

By: spock

spock — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:04:26 -0800

Oh New Orleans will come back, but it will be business and jobs that are the engine driving this train. They ought to put a moratorium on all business taxes in New Orleans. They need to make reopening schools a priority so people with kids will want to come back. We need a Job Corps program specifically for New Orleans so we can get the intensive labor needed in there to clean up, tear out and start rebuilding. It would be smart to do a government program that pays a semester of student loans off for college students who join that Job Corps program for a semester. We need leaders who lead (with imagination).

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:05:37 -0800

They ought to put a moratorium on all business taxes in New Orleans. Who pays for the cops, the fire fighters, the garbage collectors, etc.?

By: beagle

beagle — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:19:17 -0800

From this article, here's how New Orleans stacks up against the Netherlands, a whole country built on a river delta with about 2/3 of its area below sea level: "One country with a wealth of experience in this area is the Netherlands. In 1953, a flood that killed some 1,800 people hastened the start of a huge flood-protection project called the Delta Works. This guards the low-lying country with four 40-metre-high dykes (up to 10 metres of which are above mean sea level) that withstand a constant pressure of water, and an 11.5-metre storm-tide barrier for use in severe storms. "New Orleans, which faces a lake rather than the battering tides of the North Sea, had dykes of 4 metres, and no storm-tide barrier at all." The rebuilding of New Orleans could be done with the reconstruction of storm barriers and levees as the economic engine. Nothing should be done until the Louisiana version of the Delta Works is launched.

By: Nothing

Nothing — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:20:25 -0800

mrgrimm: You did note the presence of the word "cruise" in that sentence you quoted, I hope. It most certainly is the largest gulf coast port, just not for cruise ships.

By: custis

custis — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:34:44 -0800

Too bad they haven't put details up yet. I do know that one of the "commission members" is committed to rebuilding with his own money - I was working a temp job at his company when Katrina interrupted. They are set up in Baton Rouge now, but are looking to be back in NO by December 1. It's the sort of paper-pushing business that could be relocated anywhere, but he doesn't want to. Only things holding up a return now are that a good many of the 250 or so employees can't yet return to their homes, and the offices - in the Dominion Tower, that kind of peach colored building across the street from the Superdome that had lots of windows blown out - aren't ready for occupancy. There is no reason to abandon the city; there are plenty of reasons to not rebuild parts of it and the adjoining parishes. I expect the insurance companies will have the final say on what gets rebuilt, where, and how. The port is the 2nd largest on the Gulf for cargo, after Houston. Reason Houston's number 1? Bigger market, shorter transit to open water. I'm moving back. My house is high and dry, just waiting on electric (on yesterday I hear, though haven't confirmed yet), gas (Entergy is still evaluating), drinkable water (who knows), and, most importantly, when my neighbor who isn't squeamish about dealing with rodents has moved back.

By: biffa

biffa — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 10:21:17 -0800

beagle: severe storms are not the same as category 4 or 5 hurricanes.

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 11:14:12 -0800

There is no reason to abandon the city The fact that it is below sea level doesn't count?

By: sonofsamiam

sonofsamiam — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 11:18:31 -0800

I thought the US believed in letting the market decide? Ho ho ho. Ostensibly, yes. In practice, never.

By: bardic

bardic — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 12:06:15 -0800

What sonofsamiam said.

By: Carbolic

Carbolic — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 12:33:59 -0800

Most of the metropolitan area is still intact. The city proper may look different in the future but there will still be a major population center in the area thought of as New Orleans. This is a little like saying there will be no NYC because the Bronx is prone to flooding.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 12:47:04 -0800

biffa, actually, the Delta Works is the culmination of storm protections put in place after the rare North Sea equivalent of a tropical cyclone. It was sort of a 500-year-flood situation for the Netherlands and much of England. Ironically, at the time, they sought advice from New Orleans -- which then had the most advanced system in the world. The Dutch also have a more adaptive system. They recognize that you can't keep all the water out all the time. The most important element that New Orleans needs -- and I haven't heard but I assume this was hammered home to experts -- is a storm surge barrier at the entrance to Lake Pontchartrain. Ideally there will also be much more attention paid -- at least locally, the feds seem to remain clueless -- on the problem of barrier island and wetlands loss. I doubt the city will ever regain its pre-Katrina population -- it may shrink by as much as one third. Yes, the dramatically poor will never come back, but from one perspective that's good for them -- there were no jobs for them anyway. Modern shipping just doesn't use as many people at any stage of the process and the port and associated businesses just don't provide employment the way they used to. The greatest losses will come from poor black blacks. It may be that the Creole, light-skinned black population remains in larger numbers, as many of them lived outside the most devastated parts of the city. The cultural timber of the city will be changed by this, no doubt. Certainly it doesn't make sense to rebuild a lot of the areas that were the most susceptible to flooding -- and if they are rebuilt, it will be to very different standards. Houses will be built above garages, for instance, and on pilings. The city should generally be treated much the same as a barrier island in construction terms, from where I sit. The question of affordable housing is going to be extreme, and another factor driving people away; those standards will raise house prices 10% or more all by themselves. But there will be money coming back. There will be construction jobs, and there will be insurance checks, and there will be bargain hunters. The city isn't gone, but it's never going to be the same again.

By: SSinVan

SSinVan — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 13:03:57 -0800

No country today would begin to build a new city in such a poor geographical location, so why rebuild this one? Baton Rouge is where people from N.O. are already making lives for themselves. That city is building up its infrastructure to accommodate their new population. The French Quarter may survive as a tourist destination and maintain a community around it. The ports will probably get back up and running and will require a certain amount of supporting services and population, but the new N.O. ain't going to be a nice place, and will never achieve the population it once had. This is not a bad thing - NATURE HAPPENS, move on! Its just a bunch of man-made stuff sitting in a flood bowl.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 13:16:53 -0800

Though I don't think I'd donate to "Bring Back New Orleans", because it's too vague where the money would go, make no mistake that New Orleans will be rebuilt. It's too important to lose. Sure, it will change. A lot. But it's seen plenty of change in its time. This is just another chapter in the history of one of the strangest damn cities in the world.

By: scheptech

scheptech — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 13:18:31 -0800

Interesting to note: something like 80% of the 9th ward was rental housing and the average annual income of it's tenants was around 27k. It should be pretty obvious that no one is going to fund re-building the 9th ward as it was. Further: why would anyone spend a nickle building anything at all behind a cat-3 levee in a cat-5 zone?

By: maxsparber

maxsparber — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 13:41:27 -0800

I moved away, and most of the people I met fleeing Katrina were likewise making no plans to return. I agree with those who say it is moot to discuss whether or not to simply let New Orleans die. It's population is scattered, and many will not return. It's infrastructure, which was always shaky to begin with, is decimated. Well, the French Quarter, my old home, survived, and will soldier onward, as will the Garden District, Uptown, the Irish Channel, and other parts of town that are relatively dry. There will be a New Orleans, and it will be the oldest parts of the city, the original New Orleans, that remains. I don't know what sort of a city will rise from the ashes, though. A much smaller one, to be sure, and one that will have precious little help rebuilding, despite the promises of our president.

By: djeo

djeo — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:41:19 -0800

I have been back in the city for weeks. Most of the people I work with are either back or planning on returning. A lot of businesses have given up on the area but not all of us. There is hope. The city will never be the same as it was in August but ColdChef is right, New Orleans has seen lots of upheaval and weathered it. We will survive. custis, when will you be back? You said your place was high and dry but do you need any help clearing away debris? If so, feel free to hit my profile and get in touch with me.

By: eustatic

eustatic — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 15:50:58 -0800

I left before this. I had thought the devastation would come when i was old and had kids, or at least a stable job or something. here is a list of non-profits working on specific missions, on the ground, in new orleans and throughout the affected area in the Southeastern US. If you think 'Rebuild New Orleans' is too vague, this list is the answer. The list is long, but there is a lot of work to do. here's to the ninth ward.