How do you relocate a half mil people and their houses? Not to mention replacing every business, of which there are thousands.
Well, most of the people have already relocated themselves and their houses, well, I would say most of them aren't there. No one is going to move houses that are okay.
Step 1: Have an enormous Hurricane and make it so no one (no one!) can live within the city for several months.
Step 2: Have a whole lot of water pick up and float houses off their foundations.
Step 3: Tell people that if they want to rebuild, that's their business but tax dollars will not be made available for the purpose.
Three easy steps and the first 2 are already done.
As far as the people go, they WILL be relocated, or they will make a running sore of every refugee center and shelter in twenty states.
As far as the businesses, they're GONE, dude.
How's Commander's Palace in Vegas?
You simply refuse to insure any structure built there. There will be very few people who will invest in a non-insurable property. The rest of the country should not be stuck with higher premiums because irresponsible people want to build a city where no city should have ever been built.
"How do you relocate a half mil people and their houses? Not to mention replacing every business, of which there are thousands."
They may have to.
It certainly would be cheaper and healthier to relocate the city on other side of the "Big Muddy" or the other side of the lake on higher ground than trying to refurbish a city that will be sitting on a cesspool inundated with raw sewage, chemicals & human remains unfit for man or beast.
And even if you were able to replace the entire levee system tomorrow, clean the entire city of raw sewage, chemicals and human waste what would stop some terrorists from flying planes into the walls after another storm and flooding the city again.
You let Mother Nature do it... as it already has.
The houses are sitting in water, eventually the wood will rot and the houses/buildings will collapse. I say pave it over, put up a parking lot!
Send them to Detroit?
It can be done. If the Japanes can build an airport in the ocean, we can rebuild NO.
The simple answer is, don't fix the levee. The houses and businesses need to be rebuilt somewhere. The original city of NO may not be the best place for the rebuilding effort. If it remains a shallow lake or tidal pool, people won't be tempted to rebuild there.
I'm not necessarily advocating it, but as of now, everyone is relocated.
The houses and small businesses are gone. They could consider landfilling the area and building on top of it.