Not trying to be funny, but what exactly do we "need" about NO, the way it was? I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about the city itself.
Per Nicole Gelinas of City Journal, writing in the NY Sun today:
The truth is that even on a normal day, New Orleans is a sad city. Sure, tourists think New Orleans is fun: You can drink and hop from strip club to strip club all night on Bourbon Street, and gamble all your money away at Harrah's. But the city's decline over the past three decades has left it impoverished and lacking the resources to build its economy from within. New Orleans can't take care of itself even when it is not 80% under water; what is it going to do now, as waters continue to cripple it, and thousands of looters systematically destroy what Katrina left unscathed?
>>snip<<
New Orleans teems with crime, and the NOPD can't keep order on a good day. Former commissioner Richard Pennington brought New Orleans's crime rate down from its peak during the mid-1990s. But since Mr. Pennington's departure, crime rates have soared, to 10 times the national average. The NOPD might have hundreds of decent officers, but it has a well-deserved institutional image as corrupt, brutal, and incompetent.
How will New Orleans's economy recover from Katrina? Apart from some pass-through oil infrastructure, the city's economy is utterly dependent on tourism. After the city's mainstay oil industry decamped to Texas nearly a generation ago, New Orleans didn't do the difficult work of cutting crime, educating illiterate citizens, and attracting new industries to the city. New Orleans became merely a convention and tourism economy, selling itself to visitors to survive, and over time it has only increased its economic dependence on outsiders. The fateful error of that strategy will become clearer in the next few months.
Sure, the feds must provide cash and resources for relief and recovery - but it's up to New Orleans, not the feds, to dig deep within itself to rebuild its economic and social infrastructure before the tourists ever will flock back to pump cash into the city's economy. It will take a miracle. New Orleans has experienced a steady brain drain and fiscal drain for decades, as affluent corporations and individuals have fled, leaving behind a large population of people dependent on the government.
Hastert has a point.
Just think about how ludicrous that is . . . a freaking gambling racket that can't make a profit.
It always nice to go to vacation to a spot where you give a girl some beads and she shows you her titties, then you have another beer and pee in the street ..... [yawn]
What a load of horse pucky. NO has a lot of corruption but that doesn't mean we bull doze cities or decide not to rebuild. Good grief, I can't believe all this hand wringing.
But they have some first-rate looting skills. Many could be very effective members of Congress.