The Resilient City?

[saavedra77]

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:

1. Once the authorities finish patching the levees and pumping the flood waters out of the New Orleans, once they restore the electricity and water services, will they also finally be willing to invest in improving the levee system, to make sure this doesn't happen again?

2. Where will New Orleans find the funds to rebuild its urban core?  Will private capital be willing to invest in the city, again, given the astronomical reconstruction costs and the continuing vulnerability of the city's location?

3. How many of those scattered New Orleansians will be willing to return home again, after not only the trauma of the past week, but after a month or two of living someplace else?  How many will put down new roots someplace else, instead of going back?

I think that the answers to these questions will largely determine New Orleans' future.  Still, as the authors of The Resilient City have written (I'm listening to them being interviewed on the radio, right now), people have repeatedly returned to and rebuilt devastated cities, during the past century--Warsaw, Berlin, Tokyo, Mexico City, Kobe, even Hiroshima.

Comments

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the enormity of it all left me feeling really pessimistic about the city's prospects. But listening to that interview the other day has made me reconsider. New Orleans represents something so unique in the region, in the U.S., maybe in the world, and if people went back to Hiroshima, hopefully enough New Orleansians will be willing to go back and make it work. Like I said, I just hope that they rebuild in a way that makes the city much more secure.