I think New Orleans should be rebuilt only if the residents of Louisiana are willing to pay for it.
I agree. If the levees are built two criteria:
1)No residential in the flood zones
2) No money given directly to the city or state as they misued it last time!
Because it affects all of America, specifically, a city 60 miles to it's west, Baton Rouge, which has suffered major growing pains in the aftermath, and a city 120 miles to the east, Mobile, my hometown, which didn't share Baton Rouges fate because for about a month, you couldn't really cross through coastal Mississippi
If New Orleans goes down, that affects the whole region. Baton Rouge clearly does not have the infrastructure to handle the entire exodus (this of the more well-to-do refugees), and now that 10 is back of, if the final nix is put on the city, many of those people will end up here, and we had infrastructure problems before we had new arrivals, I estimate we have about 35-45k people in the area who came because of Katrina. Traffic on Airport used to be bad at certain times of the day, it is now bad all day, many roads that previously lacked congestion, such as Dauphin Island Parkway, have once again become congested.
And we havent even gotten to Mardi Gras. Baton Rouge does not have a reputation of having a Mardi Gras all that big, it shocks many people too. Cities such as Mobile and Lafayette do however, so the question is, considering that many colleges in the Southeast (as well as the rest of the country) have long managed to let students out around Mardi Gras for a few days, the question is, where will they go. If New Orleans is lucky, they will have as many people downtown on their Mardi Gras day as we have on ours, roughly 175,000-200,000.
This means people who want Mardi Gras are more likely to scope out alternatives, such as Mobile. Mobile doesn't nearly have enough hotel rooms as it is, and this would just complicate matters. More importantly, one thing I like about Mardi Gras day here, is that is a family affair, I don't have to worry about seeing some drunk woman exposing herself on Conception Street just to get some beads or a moonpie. We're not the only ones who'd be potentially negatively affected (granted, this would be offset by the fact that much of NOs banking industry would end up here)
Jackson is trying to pull itself out of a crapper induced by the fall of oil in the 80s and the overmigration of people from the Delta previously to that. It is well known that, Jackson, is one of a few cities in the South, along with New Orleans and Birmingham, where it's real easy to start up your gang enterprises if you want to. Many of the crooks in New Orleans have family in Jackson (not to mention Mobile) and if the city is not rebuilt, they'll be migrating this way. Granted, how many will return is a good question, but, another question is, how many still reside in metropolitan New Orleans. I just came back from New Orleans a few days ago, and traffic on 10 was as busy as ever, gets even worse when you try to cross Lake Ponchartrain to leave the city, as that damn bridge is now a one lane on either side affair, and the backup to get on it is even worse. It took me an hour to travel a mile going eastbound on the part of the Interstate near the Highway 11 exit for the Irish Bayou
New Orleans affects more than just Louisiana, cause it like it's neighbors and fellow victims in Mississippi and my state, were in areas somewhat isolated from the rest of their states, and in many ways, more culturally in-tune with each other than their states.
It would be a bad thing for the South to just let New Orleans die, and we shouldn't, especially when we have a golden oppurtunity. New Orleans has long been the South's symbol of urban decay since the days that Dutch took over the city. We now have a chance to rebuild it into something like a larger version of Mobile, and if we dare, maybe even a larger version of Charleston, there will certainly be enough historic buildings for that.
It would be a powerful sign to the rest of the world if we did rebuild it better because it would show the world that theres really nothing that will stop America from doing what it wants to do. It would enhance our prestige (and to be blunt, save our Mardi Gras from becoming a tourist trap)