Rebuilding New Orleans -- and America

Town Hall ^ | September 6, 2005 | Thomas Sowell

[NavyCanDo]

A letter to editor I wrote to the Seattle Times, that they actually printed this last Sunday along side all the it's Bush's falt letters.

The massive damage to New Orleans cause by hurricane Katrina is most certainly one of the worse natural disasters to hit this great nation. The scenes being played out on TV are horrific to watch, and for us to visualize the cities recovery is almost unimaginable. But this is not the first time large cities have been destroyed in this country by like-disasters. Two that come to mind are Chicago in its 1871 fire and San Francisco which was destroyed by an earthquake and fire in 1906. Both disasters wiped out thousands of homes and business and left tens of thousands of people homeless. Both cities were plagued by looters, frustrated survivors, worries of disease, starvation and pestilence, and both had many doubters that the cities could ever be rebuilt.
Both cities were rebuilt, and grander than they ever were. So it will be with New Orleans. This is America, we are survivors.

[kabar]

Remember Brazilia, the legendary lost city in the Amazon jungle. It bankrupted its country, it was a Marxist architectural fiasco, and nobody wants to live there.

New Orleans is not an artificial city. It has been around for almost 300 years. From 1803 until 1861, New Orleans' population increased from 8,000 to nearly 170,000. The 1810 census revealed a population of 10,000 making New Orleans the United States' fifth largest city, after New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore and the largest city west of the Appalachians. From 1810 until 1840, New Orleans grew at a faster rate than any other large American city.

By 1830, New Orleans was America's third largest city, behind New York and Baltimore; and in 1860, it was still the nation's fifth largest city. New Orleans, despite the Post-Civil War boom that transformed the North into an urban-industrial area, would remain among the twelve largest U.S. cities until 1910.

Today the Port of New Orleans' throughput is the largest of any port in America. Approximately, 20% of our oil and gas come from the area. New Orleans is vital to the economic health of the region and America.

Pierce Lewis, perhaps its most knowledgeable scholar, describes New Orleans as the "inevitable city on an impossible site." It is a tribute to the ingenuity and greatness of Americans that a great city could be built and then flourish. NO will be rebuilt bigger and better. Count on it.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

You miss the whole point, even your own point.

Granted, trade and commerce make some sort of port city necessary at the mouth of the Mississippi. It follows that trade and commerce are best suited to rebuild the city which they need. The government's role should be subordinate to these overarching interests, it should not ordain a new New Orleans by fiat. The New Orleans which you speak of is, for all intents and purposes, gone with the wind. Regretable, but so are a lot of other things.

Reconstructing Neworleansland on the old site might interest Disney but resiting the new city on higher ground makes more sense. Finally, I see no reason why taxpayers in other states should contribute any more than a minimum amount of Federal dollars to cater to nostalgia. We're already being tagged plenty for cleaning up the mess.