Sounds good to me.

Can we move SF down there to to practice their utopian concepts?

All you need is love, right?

Sandy, having lived there a couple years, I still have a soft spot in my heart for San Francisco.

Sort of.

G'night and wonderful work as usual.

. . . a city best known for police corruption and topless Mardi Gras women . . .

With all due respect, such is only true for the same ignorant masses who fancy London as that place where the Queen lives and the guards wear funny hats.

I've always had a fantasy of being able to let the people who'd destroy the good things about this country have their way in some little way-off piece of nowhere. (Maybe that's one too many readings of Atlas Shrugged?) I think New New Orleans is a great idea. Galveston was rebuilt a fair amount higher after the hurricane of 1900. Why not NO?

Yes, indeed... Fans of RAH do get that reference. Hm. It's been a while since I've read it; I must go back and refresh my memory.

And, actually, I rather *like* the idea for Old New Orleans. If that's what they want, hey! it's a free country. Let 'em have it so long as they can't hurt those who prefer civilization.

Good post, Stephen!

-- R'cat

I hate to be making negative comments on such a long and well written post as this, and maybe this intended as allegorical and I'm just not seeing it, but this makes about as much sense as Dean Esmay's crazy AIDs conspiracies. I mean, "Let's leave one of our major cities a diseased, polluted cesspole filled with so many criminals that even the people trying to repair the bridges out can't go in without a military escort!"
I mean, what could possibly go wrong with THAT plan?

"feng shui chalet"
HA!!

I have always coveted(in the literal Biblical sense) your writing ability. Great stuff.

Will you feel the same way when Las Vegas and Phoenix run out of water or when the New Madrid fault rips through the midwest?

I was in Vegas last year and asked the cabbie, he said don't believe everything you read.

Canada's got water, Alberta might want to secede, we can negotiate.

Galveston was also rebuilt with a lot of tall, pier-and-beam houses.

As for Californication, you ain't seen nothing 'til you've lived in Oregon. Funniest conversation ever, had with a girl in my dorm Freshman year at UO (she was from Los Angeles):

Claire: Tim, when does it stop raining?

Me: Well, let's see, it's late October, so sometime around June probably. Well, it'll be June or so when it quits in Portland, but we're farther south here, so I'm gonna wager just about May.

Claire: REALLY?!?!?!

Me: Yes.

Claire: Oh, God....

I couldn't stop laughing, man that was funny.

For a little perspective in considering the rebuilding of New Orleans, I offer a reminder that the current hurricane season is still very much with us. Many people are tending to talk as if Katrina was a once in 100 years event, forgetting that hurricanes even yet this year and in the near term won't necessarily submit nicely to expectations unwisely based on misused statistics. I have family that live precisely at the point where 3 hurricanes' paths crossed in central Fla. last year. They don't place a lot of faith in the law of averages when it comes to weather phenomena. I consider as willful idiots those who are suggesting the human spirit must triumph by restoring New Orleans to its previous state in the same location.

Oh sure, it sounds like a good idea until the President's plane crashes there and you have to send in some guy named Snake to get him out...

Seriously, though. It would cost billions to relocate or recreate New Orleans at another location. Much cheaper to upgrade the levees and the pumping system, and keep a small fleet of sinkable barges on the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain to serve as mobile drain plugs to deal with any future breaches.

Of course, if individual neighborhoods cannot be salvaged and need to be bulldozed, they should consider adding landfill to raise the land level. Or heck, don't bulldoze it at all and just create an "underground New Orleans" tourist attraction, like we did here in Seattle.

I've got to admit, I find all this talk about whether to rebuild or not a bit presumptuous. What, for example, do we do with the magnificent old architecture of the French Quarter, that is so steeped in history and is still relatively dry and largely intact? Do we bulldoze it? Move it all 100 miles upriver? Leave it to ruins? None of those options seem particularly tenable to me.

I know the question of whether or not to rebuild must be asked, but it does beg the question: what are the credible alternatives?

Steve, my best friend is still trapped there. My next best friend lives (lived) in a place called Gautier. Right now, he's sitting in front of the remains of his parents' house waiting on the FEMA guy. His parents are in a shelter in Houston. About half the people I know just lost everything they own, and it looks like I'm about to have a few new roommates for the indefinite future. These are just the people I can find. Can you lay off the snark for a while longer? I already know how clever you are.

As to rebuilding, here's why. Here's how.

yea, what you said. Only consider new NO, suspended over the top of old NO. Yea- with a glass bottom, so new NO can look onto old NO and feel all warm and fuzzy. In fact it could be the new worlds amusmentpark- Hey, get the room above bourbon street I hear they'll be burning a witch tonite-yea I can see it now.

Speaking as a man who has had the (mis?)fortune of relationships with not one, but two women who once looked good topless in New Orleans...all I can say is keep the lights in the south low, gravity and daylight seldom mix well.
Don

Cynical Nation -

The French Quarter is actually above sea level. Because of that it suffered minimal damage compared to the rest of the city, and will be much less vulnerable to future floods. Even if the 80% of the city which is now underwater is abandoned and rebuilt elsewhere, that wouldn't necessarily mean that the French Quarter couldn't survive on its own as part of a much smaller city.

The integration of the former New Orleans resident throughout the country is already starting to happen. Other than an industrial/port base with a relatively small support population, there are no reasons to rebuild...at least not for a major residential city.

Nostalgia is great and creates a sense of community. But logic is a prerequisite to civilization.

I'm maintaining a now rather extensive blog list of responsible bloggers asking the tough questions regarding the rebuilding of New Orleans at Discussions on alternatives to rebuilding New Orleans.

I've added this post to the list.

My barely thought-out idea is this:

Decide what must be rebuilt in old New Orleans:

1. Tourist stuff
2. Port
3. ???

Decide what can be moved to new New Orleans:

1. Homes
2. Most offices
3. Stores
4. ???

Provide free high speed high capacity transit between the two.

Every night most everyone goes home to sleep in new New Orleans. If a hurricane is predicted, everyone stays home on high ground.

I have heard this BEFORE.

A profoundly stupid post, worthy of David Brooks. When New Orleans was built, it was above sea level. Centuries later, the Army Corps of Engineers moved the friggin' Mississippi river, which led to the end of annual flooding and the loss of thousands of square miles of wetlands, which until then had protected the city. They built levees, which the gov't inadequately funded despite decades of dire predictions, the most recent of which were publicized nationally within the last few years. To make matters worse, Bush cut levee-construction and flood-control funding to the bone (who knows, by then it may have been too late).

You should be aware, having lived there for a couple of years, that the city is surrounded by other municipalities? Exactly where would they go? What would we do with the French Quarter, the destination of most of our tourists, turn it over to Disney as an adult theme park ("French Quarter Land")?

I understand you like being glib and that you feel a little bad about being glib when it comes to this tragedy, but you're talking about my home, which my forebears significantly helped build, and frankly, I don't want your money to rebuild it. It would dishonor New Orleans.

How far along are the futuristic city planners? Once we finish the sad duty of saving who and what we can save, let's think about rebuilding NO as a city like NO other city in the world. I'd be left cold by the idea of recreating what has been lost where it was lost; but I'd be hot to trot to create something entirely new, to ease us all into the future.

All this talk about rebuilding NOLA elsewhere is just that - talk.

It. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

That said, what is rebuilt in NOLA may look the same, in a couple of years may even smell the same, but the character, the flavor, of the city is lost, because there will not be the level of Guvmintal ineptitude allowed to recur. Furthermore, the Metro NOLA area will probably end up depopulated by approximately 10% to 20% - most of that depopulation consisting of families who have spent five and six generations in the Projects and are now being exposed to something new and different in Houston or Dallas or San Antonio or Atlanta or Jacksonville, and finding out that life in the Projects ain't all that after all.

NOLA will end up "rebuilt" in the same place, but it will not be the NOLA we knew and regretted never truly seeing.

-Ed said: "I'd be left cold by the idea of recreating what has been lost where it was lost; but I'd be hot to trot to create something entirely new, to ease us all into the future."

Well, Ed, New Orleanians are about the last people who would want to have their beautiful Big Easy turned into Spacely Sprocket's new corporate headquarters. Laissez les Monorail rouler?

I don't think so.

If New Orleans is to be rebuilt at all, it must...must...be rebuilt in a way that in a way that allows the city to retain all of the elements that give...gave, sorry...gave New Orleans it's unique character.

Warts and all.

As for the future, I think we're all gonna have to ease into that old fashioned way. One mistake at a time.

Seriously, though. It would cost billions to relocate or recreate New Orleans at another location.

It will cost billions to restore New Orleans in the same place.

We're going to be spending billions either way, and heaven knows it won't be coming from the Louisiana state government. Speaking as someone who lives within a mile of saltwater, if it's my tax money that's going to be paying for it, I would prefer that what is rebuilt not be below sea level.

-----

A profoundly stupid post, worthy of David Brooks. When New Orleans was built, it was above sea level.

...and much, much smaller...

Centuries later, the Army Corps of Engineers moved the friggin' Mississippi river, which led to the end of annual flooding and the loss of thousands of square miles of wetlands, which until then had protected the city.

...of course, what the locals leave out is that they wanted to build on those wetlands, and draining the malarial swamps (that's what they used to call 'wetlands') had to happen first...

They built levees, which the gov't inadequately funded despite decades of dire predictions,

...because heaven knows, levee maintenance has always been the exclusive purview of the Feds. Exactly what do the State and city governmen do down there, anyway?

the most recent of which were publicized nationally within the last few years. To make matters worse, Bush cut levee-construction and flood-control funding to the bone (who knows, by then it may have been too late).

...reading this, you'd think Louisiana has made it illegal for anyone other than the Feds to pay for building levees down there. Heaven forbid that local taxes should be spent on such a thing...

You should be aware, having lived there for a couple of years, that the city is surrounded by other municipalities? Exactly where would they go?

What happened to self-reliance and individual initiative?

What would we do with the French Quarter, the destination of most of our tourists, turn it over to Disney as an adult theme park ("French Quarter Land")?

Fine by me. If Disney, Inc was running New Orleans, it would be 1) competently run, 2) less corrupt, 3) more profitable, and 4) safer for the tourists.

There might be a bit less tit-flashing, but from what I've seen, that wouldn't be much of a loss.

I understand you like being glib and that you feel a little bad about being glib when it comes to this tragedy, but you're talking about my home, which my forebears significantly helped build, and frankly, I don't want your money to rebuild it. It would dishonor New Orleans.

This, too, is fine by me. I've always felt that people who build on a flood plain should not be encouraged or rewarded for doing so. In my opinion, people who build a coastal city below sea level in a hurricane zone and expect the federal government to build and maintain the levees for them aren't much different.

Cheap shot at the Bush twins, Stephen--and not funny in the least. Hate the father if you will, but his daughters deserve as much privacy as you would wish for your own children.

> To make matters worse, Bush cut levee-construction and flood-control funding to the bone (who knows, by then it may have been too late).

"Cut" suggests that Bush spent less than Clinton, which is wrong. In this universe, every govt department has a wishlist. Not getting that wishlist completely funded isn't a cut.

Was the "cut" error due to ignorance or malice?

And, if I'm not mistaken, Congress appropriates the funds. That old "power of the purse" thing I heard about back in twelfth grade government class.

Anyhow, the odds were stacked against New Orleans. She was due to get slammed and it could have been worse - a levee could have given out during the storm. Local disaster planning appeared to consist of hoping it wouldn't occur on the current incumbent's watch. Security and polcing went with the levee making rescue dangerous. The failure cascaded until the feds were finally able to mobilize the resources and personnel into the area to do a mass evacuation.

"A bloody awful mess" pretty much sums it up.

Rob: "you're talking about my home, which my forebears significantly helped build, and frankly, I don't want your money to rebuild it. It would dishonor New Orleans."

Hey, I think I recognize that rhetorical device. It's what a guy tells you right before he accepts thuh largest check y'all have evuh written.

"frankly, I don't want your money to rebuild it. It would dishonor New Orleans."

Good! I'll be waiting for my refund.

From the way some in the liberal camp were holoring you would think New Orleans was looking like London after the blitz but like tjhat english city we will rebuild it where it was and rebuild it even better