Well I'll build my own theme park, with blackjack and hookers. On second thought forget the theme park, I'll just take my Big Easy "shopping" and run.
Kill A Commie For Mommie
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes
Posted on 09/10/2005 8:19:01 PM PDT by WestTexasWend
Because the old New Orleans is no more, it could resurrect itself as the great new American city of the 21st century. Or as an impoverished tourist trap.
Founded by the French in 1718, site of the first U.S. mint in the Western United States, this one-time pride of the South, this one-time queen of the Gulf Coast, had been declining for decades, slowly becoming an antiquated museum.
Now New Orleans must decide how to be reborn. Its choices could foretell the future of urbanism.
The sheer human tragedy - and the fact that the Gulf Coast is critical to the nation' s economy as well as the Republican Party's base - guarantee that there will be money to start the project. Private corporations, churches and non-profits will pitch in with the government.
But what kind of city will the builders create on the sodden ruins?
The wrong approach would be to preserve a chimera of the past, producing a touristic faux New Orleans, a Cajun Disneyland.
Sadly, even before Hurricane Katrina's devastation, local leaders seemed convinced that being a "port of cool" should be the city's policy. Adopting a page from Richard Florida's "creative class" theory, city leaders held a conference just a month before the disaster promoting a cultural strategy as the primary way to bring in high-end industry.
This would be the easy, bankable way to go now: Reconstruct the French Quarter, Garden District and other historic areas while sprucing up the convention center and other tourist facilities. This, however, would squander a greater opportunity. A tourism-based economy is no way to generate a broadly successful economy.
For decades before this latest hurricane, public life, including the police force, was battered by corruption and eroded by inefficiency. Now, Katrina has brought into public view the once-invisible masses of desperately poor people whom New Orleans' tourist economy and political system have so clearly failed.
Although the number of hotel rooms in the city has grown by about 50% over the last few years, tourism produces relatively few high-wage jobs.
But this economy does little to nurture the array of skills that sustain a large and diverse work force. . The city has been at best a marginal player in the evolving tech and information economy.
Meanwhile, the tourism/entertainment industry is constantly under pressure from competitors. Once, being the Big Easy in the Bible Belt gave New Orleans a trademark advantage. But the spread of gambling along the Gulf has eroded that semi-sinful allure. Mississippi's flattened casinos, with their massive private investment, will almost certainly rise years ahead of New Orleans' touristic icons.
For all these reasons, New Orleans should take its destruction as an opportunity to change course. There is no law that says a Southern city must be forever undereducated, impoverished, corrupt and regressive. Instead of trying to refashion what wasn't working, New Orleans should craft a future for itself as a better, more progressive metropolis.
Look a few hundred miles to the west, at Houston - a well-run city with a widely diversified economy. Without much in the way of old culture, charm or tradition, it has far outshone New Orleans as a beacon for enterprising migrants from other countries as well as other parts of the United States, including New Orleans.
Houston has succeeded by sticking to the basics, focusing on the practical aspects of urbanism rather than the glamorous. Under the inspired leadership of former Mayor Bob Lanier and the current chief executive, Bill White, the city has invested heavily in port facilities, drainage, sanitation, freeways and other infrastructure.
At least in part as a result of this investment, this superficially less-than-lovely city has managed to siphon industries - including energy and international trade - from New Orleans. With its massive Texas Medical Center, it has emerged as the primary health care center in the Caribbean basin, something New Orleans, with Tulane University's well-regarded medical school, should have been able to pull off.
Attention to fundamentals has always been important to cities. Alexandria was built in brick to reduce fire dangers that terrified ancient urbanites, and it lived off its huge new man-made harbor. Rome built stupendouwater systems and port facilities to support its population.
Amsterdam and the Netherlands provide particularly relevant examples, as they offer great urban culture at or below sea level. For centuries, the Dutch have coped with rising water levels with ingenious engineering.
The most notable example was the determined response to the devastating 1953 North Sea storm, which killed more than 1,800 people. Responding with traditional efficiency, the Dutch built a massive system of dikes, completed in 1998, which has helped them to remain among the most economically and culturally vibrant regions in Europe.
Giving priority to basic infrastructure may not appeal to those who would prefer to patch the structural problems and spend money on rebuilding New Orleans as a museum, or by adding splashy concert halls, art museums and other iconic cultural structures.
Ultimately, the people of the New Orleans region will have to decide whether to focus on resuscitating the Big Easy zeitgeist - which includes a wink-and-nod attitude toward corruption - or to begin drawing upon inner resources of discipline, rigor and ingenuity.
Some may argue that such a shift would diminish New Orleans' status in cultural folklore as a corrupt but charming waif.
Yet that old ghost is probably already gone.
In contrast, a new New Orleans - city with a thriving economy, a city of aspiration as well as memory -would in time create its own cultural efflorescence, this time linked as much to the future as the past.
This should be the goal of the great rebuilding process about to begin.
With all the toxic waste floating around in that city it will be a long time before I would ever think of setting foot in New Orleans. Cleanup will take years.
Developers will scoff it up and make it a yuppie haven, one way or another.
The author evidently already thought of N.O. as a Disneyland-type destination. The reconstruction will be based on keeping the nation's largest port and one of its major oil centers open. The touristy bits were on high ground anyway, dating to the founding of the place when there weren't levies.
Is this why Orlando is such a crime based, drug-lord managed ghetto? < /sarcasm off>
IMHO, Orlando has done quite nicely for itself, as has Nashville, TN and Branson, MO. Now, tourism may not bring in the highest paying jobs in the world; but it DOES bring in jobs. Judging from my visits to NO, the poor people didn't have jobs. Now the question arises, were they poor because they didn't have jobs; or were they poor because they were gov't parasites and were unwilling to get a job.
too late.
It is a done deal.
Halliburton and Diebold blew the levees:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1482084/posts
President Bush and a giddy Jacques Chirac shake hands on the deal.
BATON ROUGE, LA. The White House announced today that President Bush has successfully sold the state of Louisiana back to the French at more than double its original selling price of $11,250,000.
This is a bold step forward for America, said Bush. And America will be stronger and better as a result. I stand here today in unity with French Prime Minister Jack Sharaq, who was so kind to accept my offer of Louisiana in exchange for 25 million dollars cash.
The state, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild.
Jack understands full well that this one s a fixer upper, said Bush. He and the French people are quite prepared to pump out all that water, and make Louisiana a decent place to live again. And they ve got a lot of work to do. But Jack s assured me, if it s not right, they re going to fix it.
The move has been met with incredulity from the beleaguered residents of Louisiana.
However, President Bush s decision has been widely lauded by Republicans.
This is an unexpected but brilliant move by the President, said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Instead of spending billions and billions, and billions of dollars rebuilding the state of Louisiana, we ve just made 25 million dollars in pure profit.
This is indeed a smart move, commented Fox News analyst Brit Hume. Not only have we stopped the flooding in our own budget, we ve made money on the deal. Plus, when the French are done fixing it up, we can easily invade and take it back again.
The money gained from 'T'he Louisiana Refund' is expected to be immediately pumped into the rebuilding of Iraq.
This article submitted by BSNews contributor Ben Spierenburg 9/06/05
Headline by Reid Carrick
Gets my vote.
LOL, like we even saw a smidgen of that to-date from the residents.
You know with the recent ruling on Eminent Domain, the whole city except the French Quarter will be condemned and bulldozed with very little compensation to the land owners. The property will be given to the Donald Trumps of the world for development.
Actually the real bottom line is that the areas that tourists go to New Orleans for was not really affected that much if at all. The only parts that were affected for the most part were residential areas, and those in large part were poor.
It's fair to say that it all needs a good cleaning, but, the tourists areas don't need rebuilding. Does anybody really believe that they'll spend a whole lot to rebuild the slums?
Sure they'll be a heck of a lot nicer from the aspect that they'll be new, but I seriously doubt they'd be anything you'll see in the burbs.
LoL that's scrappleface, its a fake sarcastic story.
Well I'll build my own theme park, with blackjack and hookers. On second thought forget the theme park, I'll just take my Big Easy "shopping" and run.
Kill A Commie For Mommie
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes
Sadly, even before Hurricane Katrina's devastation, local leaders seemed convinced that being a "port of cool" should be the city's policy. Adopting a page from Richard Florida's "creative class" theory, city leaders held a conference just a month before the disaster promoting a cultural strategy as the primary way to bring in high-end industry.
Not everyone favors restoring the levee. Both Disney and Turner Communications expressed interest in turning New Orleans into a giant theme park. Disney has drawn up preliminary plans for an attraction it has tentatively labeled “Disasterland.” Tourists could purchase helicopter rides to view the carnage, loot stores and fish souvenirs out of the muck. Turner plans similar tourist activities, but calls its attraction “Underwater World.” Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco is reportedly considering these proposals.
http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm
New Orleans is a black majority city and shares the special problems of other black majority cities like Newark or Detroit. Houston is only 25% black. Plus New Orleans is basically an island and has limited expansion possibilities. These facts alone make the comparison bogus.
That's the big problem nowadays with many impoverished communities run by liberals, who seem to love to try to tap into the "tourist trap at all costs" viewpoint...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.