lol. There are risks where most of the US is heavily populated. Including dirty nuke bombs. So do we then say ANY concentration of people is too much of a risk and limit city size?
"So do we then say ANY concentration of people is too much of a risk and limit city size?"
People ought not to live in Seattle or anywhere in the Northwest (Mt. Rainier set to blow any time) or in California (earthquakes) or anywhere on the Gulf Coast or in Florida or the mid Atlantic coast (hurricanes). Much of Texas, the Midwest and inland Southern states are out (tornadoes). Blizzards, flooding, drought, etc., etc., in much of rest of country. I remember when there were those big floods in the Midwest a number of years ago we were told not to live near the rivers. Oh, btw, Houston has a lot of the same exposures as NO. Houston too is sinking (for different causes). So where should we live?
If it could be done, it would be great. There really is no longer any need for big cities. They have always been, except in a few cases such as Tokyo, breeding grounds for corruption and crime. And "big" starts well below NO's 1/2 million. Cities which are more spread out (Omaha has about 4/5 th the population, but not near the density as NO) can be bigger. People aren't "designed" to live like ants in a mound.