muckefuck | Build it and they will flood

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Build it and they will flood

Okay, now can we talk about the wisdom of rebuilding a continually-subsiding city that can only be kept above water with the help of massive and expensive earthworks?

The Urban Land Institute have released their recommendations for reconstruction of New Orleans. You'd think they'd covered themselves pretty well against charges of classism and racism with language like:

"In contrast to the past practice of isolating, concentrating and stigmatizing poor and modest income families in public housing or other rent subsidized enclaves, New Orleans neighborhoods must be more inclusive," said panelist Tony Salazar, president of the west coast division of McCormack Baron Salazar in Los Angeles.

The panelists recommended that affordable units be dispersed throughout the neighborhoods, indistinguishable from other properties and connected to neighborhood amenities. In addition, the panelists discussed interim housing issues, including the need for an ample supply of site locations, design issues, and the need to foster greater community acceptance through constant consultation and a dismantling schedule.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? But of course not everyone is happy--or, in the words of an AP story:

The proposal was controversial from the beginning: Focus resources on rebuilding New Orleans' less-damaged neighborhoods first and carefully study whether it makes sense to repopulate areas that were flooded the worst....

But what the planners viewed as logic was dismissed as racism by some local leaders. "Florida gets hit every year and we never hear the question raised whether or not we need to rebuild the coast of Florida," said Danatus King, president of the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP. "California gets hit with wildfires and mudslides. What's the difference between those areas and the areas of New Orleans we're talking about? It's a majority black population and poor population," he said.

This strikes me as misdirection. If it's a bad idea to rebuild on low-lying land that's extremely vulnerably to future flooding (and, thus, a repeat of the catastrophe that everyone already justifiably up in arms about), then it's bad idea, regardless of what's being done elsewhere. Mr King's argument seems to be, "We give money to stupid white people so we should give it to stupid black people, too." No, we shouldn't give it to stupid people, period. It is a bad idea to allow the kind of development in California which leaves more and more people vulnerable to wildfires and mudslides and, contrary to what he's claiming, people have been questioning the wisdom of it--for years now.

Dare I suggest that the difference might be mostly economic? Do the stupid white people in California expect the federal government to pick up the tab for their folly or do they pay for it themselves? Probably a bit of both, but from what little I know the expenses are largely their own. If someone wants to use their own money to do something ill-advised, well, I can't stop them. But much of the reconstruction of New Orleans will come directly out of the Federal purse and, if you want to take my money to do something ill-advised, I not only can say no, but I feel I have a responsibility to.

I wish we could see a broader debate about the burden of responsibility between government and citizens in situations like these. Otherwise, every time there's a natural disaster of any size, people will point to the precedent of New Orleans and argue that they should be bailed out. There should be some clear criteria in place so we could say, for instance, "Reconstruction was Federally funded in New Orleans because the existence of levees maintained by the COE constituted an implicit promise of flood protection and, even then, only those neighbourhoods not at high risk to future flooding were rebuilt. You all built on a known floodplain without flood structures in defiance of Federal warnings, so suck it up."

What are the criteria in place in NOLA? I can't completely tell--and the clearest and most sensible ones being proposed are already in danger of being hijacked by narrow political considerations.

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We can support a political assassination in retrospect. Except in 1996 neither you nor I had the opportunity to know who Bin Laden was.

On the other hand, people who supported Zionism and the US occupation of Saudi Arabia bear responsibility for 9/11, according to Bin Laden.

I did know who he was, actually, but like almost everyone else, I gravely underestimated what he was capable of.

You yourself pointed out that the failure to protect wetlands and maintain flood structures in Louisiana goes back decades. Therefore, responsibility for the catastrophic flooding of NOLA does, too--back through both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Except in 1996 neither you nor I had the opportunity to know who Bin Laden was.

Well, unless we read the New York Times. ("Osama bin Laden, an Arab multimillionaire whom United States officials suspect of bankrolling a network of Islamic militants", 10/4/96)

Or the Chicago Tribune ("Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi businessman, who allegedly has funded militant Islamic groups worldwide." 9/24/96)

Or the Washington Post ("Osama bin Laden, the Saudi financier of various anti-U.S. terrorist groups" 10/7/96)

Or Newsday ("Exiled Saudi militant Osama Bin Laden, the godfather of the Afghan veterans who has been named by the U.S. State Department as the key financier of international terror, made it clear that Americans are the more important target. While his aim is to bring down the ruling Saudi regime, he said recently, the "war is between Muslims and the United States." 9/24/96)

Or the Buffalo News, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Guardian, the Toronto Star, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Independent ("Osama Bin Laden, the fiercest opponent of the Saudi regime and of America's presence in the Gulf, has warned Britain that it must withdraw its servicemen from Saudi Arabia if it wishes to avoid the fate of the 19 Americans killed by a truck bomb in the Kingdom last month." 7/10/96), etc. etc.

Which isn't to say that we did know who he was-- I freely admit I wasn't particularly aware of him. But not for lack of opportunity, or the absence of reporting of his name, goals, tactics, and threats. One may hope that the President was more aware of him, though given the quality of our intelligence apparatus for the last generation-plus there is of course no guarantee. But as noted above, FWIW, the State Department had identified bin Laden as "'one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today'" as of 1996, he was associated with the first WTC bombing, and he had declared war on the US in so many words.

Thanks- as a an avid reador of the NYT, I appreciate the correction.

Driving to work I thought I should have re-cast my comment to something more like- why blame Bill Clinton fo something the Bush Administration was unable to do as well?

I'm over the knee-jerk blaming of the Clinton Administration for everything. It's beginning to sound like "Roosevelt ruined America." We'll never know what he would have accomplished if he'd managed to keep his dick in his pants. Clinton, that is.;)

Driving to work I thought I should have re-cast my comment to something more like- why blame Bill Clinton fo something the Bush Administration was unable to do as well?

Exactly--and why blame the Bush administration for failing to do what the Clinton administration would have been equally unable to accomplish? The severity of storms in the Gulf is cyclical and, as it happens, we are coming out of a 30-year lull in activity. Sooner or later, a severe hurricane was going to strike NOLA and, as it happens, it occurred on Bush's watch.

The incompetence at FEMA certainly made an unavoidable natural disaster a far worse human catastrophe than than it should've been and the Bush administration deserves a heaping measure of blame for that. What I object to is letting anger, disappointment, and guilt about the treatment of refugees lead us to make poor decisions about how best to aid them and prevent future disasters.

Emotionally, I'm in full sympathy with them: I wouldn't want to be told to leave the neighbourhood where I'd spent my whole life and start again elsewhere either. Rationally, though, I have to acknowledge that this may be the lesser evil. Is it asking too much that political leaders at least entertain the possibility rather than follow Nagin's example and reject it out of hand?

And while we've been engaged in Iraq on a daily basis from GW1, I'm not sure Clinton would have gone to war there. Bush was planning the war from the first day in office, and he managed to twist 9/11 into his own Pearl Harbor.

Sure, just relocate everyone in Florida, Texas, Missisipi and Georgia who's in the path of a Cat-5 storm.
That's really the point of the racism charges. Why is that the only place we can't save are poor black neighborhoods? It's like the jokes going around right after the storm- black people looting, white people shopping. I can't imagine the Bush brothers having the political will to force an equitable NO solution on their home states.

And that's also the point about tax cuts and spending $400B in Iraq and $200B on Homeland Security- or $5M on Christmas cards- we're financially unprepared for a disaster.

Um...maybe because everyone in the path of a Cat-5 storm doesn't live in a place that, as

lil_l_moses points out, is "below the level of three adjacent bodies of water." It doesn't take elabourate flood-control structures and millions a year in energy costs to keep Miami Beach from filling with water at each downpour, does it?

There are a lot of factors--from basic geology on up--that differentiate NOLA from other places, not just the skin colour of the inhabitants. You wouldn't know it from the way most people are talking about the situation, though.

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