Louisiana native Karl Maher takes a look at the prospects for New Orleans’ future and concludes, “New Orleans doesn’t have a future”—though he does concede that a hubristic government will try to legislate one.
Me, I’m not so sure. There are enough risk takers in the US with expendable capital who will look at a rebuilt, 25’ levee system able to withstand a Category 4/5 hurricane—and the once-in-a-lifetime (they hope) prospect of re-populating one of the world’s more storied cities—and will gladly take the leap.
Will New Orleans be the same? Of course not—though I suspect the city will work hard to provide at least a cosmetic veneer of its lost “local” color, with varying degrees of success. But years from now, New Orleans will be New Orleans again—though it will be a New Orleans built on its own self-referentiality.
****
update: Satellite imagery of New Orleans, before and after, courtesy globalsecurity.org
“city will work hard to provide at least a cosmetic veneer of its lost “local†color, with varying degrees of success”
I’m sure the piss and vomit smell on Bourbon Street will be back just as before.
My folks have lived in New Orleans for over 150 years. No, it’ll never be the same. The old city is gone for good. But, you’re right: it will be rebuilt. What’re the odds of it getting hit head-on again in the next 30 years? And it’s an incredibly beautiful place. So, yeah, it’ll be rebuilt. But the French Quarter will be more like Coney Island or Great America: a tourist attraction, not an integral part of the city. And all the wooden homes and that original Deep-South charm will be gone.
The thought hurts me in more places than I imagined existed.
I’m thinking giant domes on mechanical legs that can pick up and move when a hurricane comes through.
The last time I was in New Orleans, I stayed in a B&B in the French Quarter that dated back to the 1820s. It was within easy walking distance of Jean LaFitte’s Blacksmith Bar, where I could toss down sazeracs in a cruddy little structure that dated back to the 1770s. I’m pretty sure the B&B and the tavern are both gone now.
New Orleans will come back, but it will be a lot more of a self-referential theme park. The fact that I had a chance to get to know the old, pre-flood city just makes me miss it all the more.
The city’s function as a MAJOR port for the middle part of the country (agriculture, oil, etc.) should be the primary focus of rebuilding operations. That or Houston will have to expand its port vastly to absorb the port traffic.
The function as a tourist destination will follow.
Vampires?
“vampires?”
heh. my first thought too.
HALIBURTON PROFITS!!!!
I agree, there is too much future opportunity to abandon N.O.
San Francisco in 1915, less than a decade after the earthquake and subsequent fire that destroyed the city, held the Panama-Pacific Exposition to show off their rebuilt city. It was a huge hit and one that the city of SF took enormous pride in. Americans love come-back stories, and I think many will leap at the chance to make N.O. whole again.
The problem at this point is going to be trying to keep the kleptocrats out of the rebuilding efforts. They should follow the model that L.A. did after the ‘93 earthquake and give the reconstruction jobs to private contractors with the best bids, versus the ‘89 San Francisco efforts that lined the pockets of all the unions and government officials. SF is still rebuilding and retro-fitting since that earthquake.
Your point of risk taking is well taken. As a libertarian, I would not deny anyone the right to take whatever risk they want to in living their life.
Having said that, that risk should not be shared and spread throughout the rest of the nation. By all means, provide humanitarian assitance this time around; but New Orleans should not be rebuilt with public dollars.
I’m maintaing a blog list of responsible bloggers asking the tough questions regarding the rebuilding of New Orleans at Discussions on alternatives to rebuilding New Orleans.
Please point any like minded bloggers that would like to be added to the list over my way at:
http://porkopolis.blogspot.com/2005/08/discussions-on-alternatives-to.html
Part of what has to be done is contact Senators and Congressman to let them know there’s another way to help those in need.
Porkopolis
They’ll rebuild. People always do. That’s why the folks in Napoli are still there.
Speaking of B&Bs in the French Quarter, my father’s family—fittingly enough, a family of French merchants—once owned what’s now the Lafitte Guest House. (It’s across the street from Jean Lafitte’s Bar & Grill & Ladies’ Mud-Wrestling Emporium.) They also owned a mansion on St Charles where my grandmother and her sister were raised, two pink and perfect little girls in crinolines, accompanied by a coterie of nannies and private tutors.
Alas, my grandmother—Aglee—hid under the house whenever the tutor dropped by. The result was that she grew to adulthood suffering considerable confusion about the correct ordering and meaning of letters and numbers. (The nuns would thwack my father in his young head whenever he made the mistake of relying on his mother for help with his homework.) Yes, into their eighties my grandmother and aunt would actually call people, ‘Cher’.
Some time during the Depression, all the money evaporated in a story too long and entertaining to recount here.
Vampire? Meet me on Bourbon Street after the sun sets, dawlin’, and I’ll be glad to discuss it with you….
Jeff, I suspect it’s going to depend on how quickly the water is draining from New Orleans. If it’s done rather quickly, there’s no reason most of the local character can’t stay as it is. If it takes more than a month, though, all bets are off.
I keep thinking of SF ‘06 as the precedent: most of the housing was built in the same Victorian style as the originals–but stronger, of course. By then they knew it might have to withstand another serious quake. And it did.
There’s no city in this country that doesn’t have some kind of risk of natural disaster. And let’s remember that New Orleans was like Rome claims to be for hundreds of years: unchanging.
Get the (private) money together to rebuild it. Make it stronger than the original, but respect its roots and style in rebuilding it. (Meanwhile, get some archealogists out there to dig around and see what they can find in the rubble.)
Believe me: I’ve been going to Disneyland and its New Orleans square for years. When I finallly see the reconstruction of that city, I’ll definitely know the difference. And in spirit (not fact–slight case of marriage, you know) I’ll pull up my blouse when I get there.
Great Moments in Future History
After a Cat IV Direct Hit:
“But your levee plans said 25 inches.
See, it’s right here?”
Jeff: “Crap.”
h/t Spinal Tap
The levee was in danger of being crushed by dwarves.
No way! That levee went to eleven!!!
The American Thinker has a good piece on New Orleans today. The casinos in Mississippi will be rebuilt far sooner anything but the core shipping infrastructure of New Orleans. The population of Houston will permantly jump from 5 to 6 million.
It’s not productive to talk about WHETHER to rebuild, but is worth some hard thinking about HOW MUCH and WHERE.
Yes, a port at the end of the Mississippi makes sense. But, is the current path of the river viable? Is there a good way to reduce the amount of land that disappears into the Gulf every year? Could much of what used to be in the city be moved NW so it’s not sitting right below Lake Pontchatrain?
For N.O. proper, if landfill or deep-driven piles can raise the effective ground level of the new city above the elevation of Lake Pontchatrain, a rebuild might be viable. Or, figure out how to work with the water not against it—Venice is a rather charming model.
Bigger levees and stronger pumps *might* work in a world of unlimited budgets and no corruption. Here in the real world, I suspect it’s just a recipe for repeating the current disaster sometime in the next 5-50 years.
I don’t mean to be cruel, but isn’t rebuilding a flooded city, with a stagnant economy, that sits below sea level, in hurricane country, in a swamp, surrounded on three sides by huge bodies of water, and slowly sinking every year, well…
incredibly stupid?
Here in North Carolina we went through a very similar situations at least twice on a smaller scale. Bore yourself with the details if you’d like, but the essential point is that one town that decided to rebuild using lots of tax dollars, but still can’t get businesses interested in reopening there. The other town decided that “hey, this is not the best place to be,” and the citizens moved elsewhere and thrived.
We’ve had our fun mocking a handful of ditch-loving idiots in Crawford, we shouldn’t encourage a similar habit on a much larger scale when we’ve got a chance to learn from our mistakes.
Here’s a cached version of a brief history of why New Orleans is where it is.
Thanks, me. Quite informative.
Are some of you people for fucking real? The French Quarter does not have to be rebuilt. There was minimal damage and it is dry. Jesus, what a bunch of drama queens!
Galveston
If they rebuild learn from Galveston. Bulldoze the vast majority of damage housing. Raise the level of the city till it a minimal 5 to 10 feet ABOVE sea level. Add major league Storm sewers and holding ponds, new water and sewage and utilities (Power, fiber optic cables) as you fill with rubble and silt from river. Galveston raise many surviving building . Yes it will be expensive to raise the French Quarter and other historic buildings. But it will be cheaper than state art Levee system, that wont be given proper maintance. You wil find it will become a whole lot smaller city, but maybe a whole lot better.