Posted on 09/07/2005 11:06:05 PM PDT by smoothsailing
What future for The Big Easy?
By Michael Barone
Published September 8, 2005
"There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market."
So wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1803 to his negotiators in France, in words intended to persuade Napoleon to sell the thriving port city to the young United States. The French ruler was impressed enough to throw in the vast hinterland of the Louisiana Purchase, all for the bargain price of $15 million.
Four days after the levees broke, the possessors of New Orleans were the waters and the looters and thugs who plundered luxury merchandise and shot at policemen and rescue teams. The criminals were largely dispersed by the soldiers who later poured into the city (several were shot dead after bringing rescuers under fire). Engineers have already started pumping the floodwaters back into Lake Pontchartrain. It will seem an agonizingly long time before the water is all pumped out. But the question will remain: What kind of city will be rebuilt?
It could just be an industrial terminal. George Friedman, of stratfor.com, argues that "the ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic." As in Jefferson's time, this "is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and" -- we get beyond 1803 here "the bulk commodities of industrialism come in." Those bulk commodities include oil and natural gas, about one-quarter of the national production of which come through New Orleans and South Louisiana.
Mr. Friedman's argument seems hard to counter. And it is surely within...
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Just a port?
Works for me.
declare everything except the port and refineries as wetlands. Nothing else can be built except vital infrastructure.
I don't want to have to pay $500 billion in 20 years after the next new orleans disaster.
Well, Madonna already wrote a book about sex, I think you could put a fork in her right there, she's through.
Sure,that's what it has to be.Anything more is frivolous.
Sold off for pennies on the dollar to developers who build a shopping mall replica where tourists can drink and show off their breasts.
What do we do with the half million people whose homes were NOT destroyed in the suburbs? Look at the aerial view-most of Metiarie and some of the other West suburbs are fine.
The Big Empty?
Nagin would like that, the bus races.
Nagin would like that, the bus races.
Classic!
I just mean if they chose to leave NOLA as a port only, the people who still have homes would be at a major disadvantage. Since the city would no longer exist, many of them no longer have a place to work. If their homes were NOT destroyed, then they have no insurance settlement. But--they also cannot sell since property values would plummet therefore can't move, either.
New Orleans is hugely valuable. I don't know exactly where it stands, but certainly in the top ten tourist destinations and top five convention destinations in the country. Basically, billions of dollars a year.
Nobody walks away from billions of dollars a year.
I wonder if they could make insurance claims based on the loss in value? If not, it's either come up with a way to make a living or load up the U-Haul, mail the keys to the bank, and head west, north, or east.
It's going to take a lot of energy and imagination to build the new New Orleans. If these folks want to be part of it, that's terrific. Just not on the government's dime.
It's for them to figure out,not me or you.
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