Should NO be rebuilt?

[Elizabeth2]

Given the natural disaster has been known about/suspected for years; and now that the city IS in complete ruins, should the city be rebuilt or abandoned?

[Doreen]

I cannot imagine wanting to live in a country that would allow one of its most unique cultural towns to stand abandoned and trashed.

No, it must be rebuilt. There is no question.

To leave it this way would be to say to the world (and worse, ourselves) we do not care for our own.

Leaving a memorial in the center for those lost, but rebuilding better and stronger then before would be, in my mind, the American way.

[BC-Lulu_4]

New Orleans will be rebuild. There is no question there. But should it??? When they do rebuild NO, they need to ensure that the levees are build to withstand any hurricane. They need to ensure that there evacuation plans to evacuate all the people who cant leave on their own. As a history teacher, i wish that i would have seen NO before this hurricane. It will never be the same, but i agree with Doreen...its just too unique of a culture to let it go.

[Kylie]

We have family in NO so I've had the pleasure of visiting there and experiencing the town. It's one of a kind, I really hope there's a way to restore it.

[Hopefulj]

I have mixed feelings about this. I love NO, the culture, cusine, and beautiful scenery, however I feel that peoples lives are of most importance and due to NO's sea level issue I am not sure that it can be a "safe" place to reside, but I am no expert. I would love the city to be rebuilt IF it can withstand a Cat 5 and if the flooding issue wont be an issue anymore.

[marg]

If the US can rebuild Iraq, certainly we can find a way to rebuild New Orleans.

[BC-DixieMom]

just to twist the question ... would YOU rebuild if you lived there? I don't think I would. I personally don't think I could live with the fear of what if it happens again. I just moved from a very tornado prone area and was very happy to be leaving it. Every time a storm was brewing, I was ready to head out to the storm shelter.

[Adrienne]

Yes, NO is a very old city and will be rebuilt.

I heard a "talking head" on the TV saying that it shouldn't be rebuilt because one day it will fall off into the gulf. Won't CA fall off one day too?

[marg]

Good question. If I had just lived there a few years and had other options, I think I would consider either moving elsewhere or at the least moving to higher ground nearby. I'm not familiar with the topography of the area so I don't know how feasible that is.

On the other hand if my family had been there for generations, I'd never lived anywhere else, my friends and work were there, I can't imagine moving.

[AngelaM]

"The taxpayers of New Orleans did not want to vote for property taxes high enough to pay for either a levee strong enough to protect the city from a natural disaster or for a police force strong enough to protect it from a human disaster. They made very short-sighted choices at great costs.

Why should the taxpayers of the whole United States pay to rebuild the parts of New Orleans that are below water level? If the city is not a financially viable concern it should shrink just as other declining cities have shrunk. The federal government should not reward imprudence, irresponsibility, and corruption with continued subsidy. To do so just encourages more of the same.

I have an even more fundamental objection to using federal tax money to rebuild New Orleans: The city seems destined to sink under water. By keeping its soil dry and preventing floods that build up the surface level the levees that keep out the water seem to doom New Orleans to continued subsidence.
.................

An argument can be made for projects to restore controlled flooding into some parts of the delta in order to prevent further delta erosion. But such projects should be approached in the spirit of efforts underway in the Everglades to restore some of the natural waterflow there. Maintenance of a navigable river channel and port facilities do not also require maintenance of large urban and suburban living areas. Highly automated ports do not require a large nearby urban population as a source of workers. Therefore the expense of large levees around New Orleans can not find justification in economic arguments about trade.

If New Orleans is to be restored then it should not get a large population in its lower lying areas until stronger levees are built. Otherwise we could spend a lot of money and then witness a repeat hurricane strike causing large scale death and destruction. But if levees get built that will take years and by then most of the former residents of New Orleans will have developed their lives and found work in other communities. So what is the point of restoring the lower lying areas of New Orleans to be able to hold hundreds of thousands of people?"

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