Now that New Orleans is 100% blight...(Eminent Domain thoughts?)

vanity | 9/6/05 | RGSpincich

[RGSpincich]

New Orleans is the most urban area hit by Katrina and the most likely to be cut up by land grabbing public entities. From a municipal view point, every parcel of property is blighted and is subject to eminent domain proceedings. New Orleans will sieze upon this trajedy to remove unwanted neighborhoods in favor of lucrative tourist attractions. What do you think?

[RGSpincich]

Disney could build another park with a lot of water rides.
...casinos

I see a waterpark resort with blackjack tables and dealers dressed like Minnie Mouse.

[mouser]

NO just spread its welfare load all over the country and they will not want that expense back..

[Major_Risktaker]

We could make it into a great beach!!

Yeah, build the largest water
park on the face of the earth.

[AntiGuv]

What? Is it the solidly Republican part?

[Major_Risktaker]

We could make it into a great beach!!

Yeah, build the largest water
park on the face of the earth.

[skikvt]

I think they should just flood it and build a massive stilt house city.

[OrioleFan]

Haven't they already renamed the new city Nagin de Blanco?

[TheForceOfOne]

That's a whole lotta eminent'en there brother! lol

[plain talk]

raise = raze

[Torie]

It sort of built up to that slowly, but the whole thing is somewhat unrealistic. Let me help you with some of this. They will build public housing projects and offer incentives to get the base back. It will be posited as cultural and racial genocide not to. How many will come back, I don't know. Maybe some who come back never lived in NO (a lot of the NO underclass lived in shacks, and may not like projects). They won't care.

But heck this is all speculation. There are so many unknowns. Maybe the local black leadership will do what you say, so they can get very, very rich, and can retire in style. Charity begins at home.

[plain talk]

Nagin is up for relection in 6 months. He needs voters not developers.

[viper_disorder]

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh, dont give them anymore ideas.
Word here in AZ is if you are an illegal hightail it now to NOLA and you are set for life

[RGSpincich]

That's a whole lotta eminent'en there brother!

LOL. Maybe they will just pick and choose which parcels they want. Nagin can take requests from his new best friend real estate developers.

[RGSpincich]

He needs voters not developers.

Developers always promise jobs, that will be the big draw. Housing can take up what the developers don't want.

[JerseyHighlander]

I don't know the neighborhoods of NO, but looking through the 2000 census housing stats for NO, it looks like well over 60% of the residences in the completely flooded areas are rental properties. Many of these owners will take the insurance and federal grant money and run, simply put.

I have no doubt that much of the areas under less than 6 or even 10 feet of water will be rebuilt. Those few areas flooded by more than 10 feet of water, if the areas are mostly rental properties, I doubt they will be rebuilt for quite some time, the red tape for property insurance, flood insurance, is going to leave many of these now cash rich rental unit owners to move capital to the new suburbs of Baton Rouge and Lafayette and other LA towns. The other side, I'm sure that the property management companies in NOLA are going to move their capital outside the city to other areas of LA where the evacuees settle. Managing cookie cutter development projects provide better returns for builders and rental unit owners, IF the area sees new employment oppurtunities to keep the economy growing.

If immigration isn't slowed by better border enforcement, the flooded areas of NOLA will be rebuilt within a decade. Cookie cutter development, with a sprinkling of "old Orleans" scattered between.

/end of my rant

[spanalot]

"Those structures largely under water are tear downs. And it will be much cheaper to just build them from scratch. Think of the mold, the toxic waste, etc"

I don't have to think about it - I know a thing or three about this stuff.

They are salvaging submerged 100 year old, wide plank timber from the Great Lakes and it is outstanding quality.

And the "toxic" MSM mantra is just that - do you want toxic lumber - go to your back deck - that wolmanized wood is 100 times as toxic as anything in NO

[ncountylee]

Sodomite free zone?

[Torie]

Once exposed to air, the water logged wood needs to dry out quickly. That is what I have read. Things don't dry out quickly in NO.

[Grizzled Bear]

I can't imagine why anyone would then turn around and build brand new slums back in their place
__________________________________________________________
You obviously do not know any Progressive Liberals.

[AntiGuv]

Public housing projects are going out of vogue even in cities that aren't flooded! A number of the 'high-rise' projects have been torn down. Other cities are attempting to distribute those on public assistance into more condo-style communities, or into distributed low income housing. I don't really see why they would rush to rebuild 'projects' in the sense of what many imagine when they hear the term.

I fully expect that low-income housing will be built. In fact, it will be a priority, but I doubt that it will resemble what was there before, and I certainly don't think it will of the high-rise sort. Slums will surely return some day, but slums are rarely intentionally built that way to begin with in the U.S. (like shanty towns are in the 3rd world). Most importantly, part of what I'm getting at is that I think supply will meet demand, and if the departed 'underclass' resettles elsewhere by and large, the demand will not emerge for quite some while again.

Anyhow, that's just how I see it. I think that the historical New Orleans black community has been irrevocably shattered and dispersed and will not return. I think a Latino community will replace it in the socioeconomic order of things. I am certainly not saying that a black community will not reform in New Orleans, just that it won't be what was there before, and it certainly won't start from the same baseline.