The Resilient City?

Yesterday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert commented that the idea of rebuilding New Orleans didn't "make sense" to him, and that (putting it about as crudely as he possibly could) "It looks to me like a lot of that place could be bulldozed."  Hastert isn't alone in the sentiment--I've heard similar remarks by an environmentally-minded co-worker, and from Los Angeles Times blogger Eric Zorn.  Of course, the editors' of the New Orleans Times-Picayune beg to differ.

But the Times-Picayne itself has asked whether New Orleans will ever be the same.  A very brave "Live Journalist" in New Orleans surveyed his city from a rooftop today and answered "This place will never be the same -- and I don't mean in that 'can't step into the same river twice' philosophical sense. I mean in the 'We won't even recognize the place' sense."

I love what New Orleans represents culturally, historically, but with 80% of the below-sea-level city flooded and devastated, most of its population scattered, and public utilities unlikely to return for a month or more, I have to wonder:

( What all the king's horses and all the king's men need to do: )