It's not economically viable to this nation or your pocketbook to not rebuild and protect a port near the mouth of the Mississippi River. End of Story.
Oh, good grief - that is not what is being proposed. If all we want to do is have a port - we can save a few hundred billion of the tax payers dollars.
You chose to ignore the second paragraph of my posting.
The Port is necessary. Housing within a reasonable commute of the port is necessary. That does not necessarily mean that all of New Orleans is necessary.
Most specifically, it does not mean that housing for the welfare class in New Orleans is necessary or desirable.
The housing necessary for the personnel of the Port of New Orleans can be built on the sections of New Orleans that are not so far below sea level as to constitute a prohibitive expense. If the full cost of maintaining a levee system is reflected to the residents via property taxes, plus the actual risks of living there are reflected via free-market-priced flood insurance, then rational decisions can be made as to what parts of NOLA can be restored (with perhaps landfill raising them above sea level), and what parts can be left as lake