I got the opportunity to listen to some truly ignorant opinions in the past week. Not on blogs, although I read more than I few I disagreed with, but rather from regular people, discussing the tragedy wrought upon the Gulf Coast. There's a sizeable number of people who simply think New Orleans should not be rebuilt. Period.
"It's under sea level."
"That's a stupid place to build a city."
"Only idiots would build a city that way."
So I asked them, did they think abandoning the city was truly the feasible response to Katrina? Surprisingly, this was a popular idea. It's money, of course. Nobody sees why rebuilding New Orleans is worth the money. There are, after all, other places to go party. There are other places full of historical relevance, right?
History. Ay, there's the rub. You see, historically, New Orleans is a critical city. What is not being discussed is how, even in her battered state, this is still true.
Geographically, America is split by a biggie. It's the Mississippi River. Most of the major rivers in our country dump into it which gave us the ability to move goods from the interior to the coast. Successful farmers moved excess crops and sold them; this established the monetary base for the industrialization of this country.
The Battle of New Orleans, in 1815, was fought to ensure that New Orleans, so critical to the fledgling American economy, stayed under American control. The cherry in the Louisiana Purchase was New Orleans, the rivers, and the lands around it. If the British had kept New Orleans, and her incredible value, there would have been no Louisiana Purchase.
During WWII, the value of New Orleans, as the key to moving needed industrial minerals into America and move our agricultural wealth out was understood. It's no coincidence that there was a German U-boat campaign at the mouth of the Mississippi. New Orleans was seen as a critical target during the cold war, where destruction of the city could effectively grind the country to an economic standstill.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Counterargument from a geophysicist:
2 - JR
Ports need lots of people with skills; so do oil fields and pipelines. We need the people in position to keep our economic flow going. They need homes, grocery stores, shops, auto parts, mechanics, dentists, lawyers, H&R Block and McDonalds, to name a few.
Yeah, oil fields. Say, aren't several of those out to sea? Funny, I don't see any cities springing up around them. Maybe a port doesn't really need a city of 1.3 million people to support it. Maybe the port doesn't need to be in New Orleans; after all, New Orleans itself is 50 miles from the mouth of the river.
Not only is New Orleans sinking, but sea levels are predicted to rise. And hurricanes are predicted to get worse. Sometimes settlements just have to be abandoned.
3 - Jet
Catchy phrasing, but not exactly overflowing in detail. How would you engineer a cost effective reallocation of tonnage moved up and down the Mississippi?
4 - Tan The Man
And where would you put all that crap and trash left... I guess you can fill the wetlands with to rebuild on top of.
5 - Jet
The clean up will be difficult to say the least, as was London after the Blitz, Hiroshima after the bomb, or ongoing clean up of the more recent Tsunami. I certainly don't think trashing the wetlands is the answer, but processing all that mess will take time. It'll create business opportunity and jobs too.
6 - Matthew T. Sussman
Adding to Jet's comments:
If you're an investor, BUY CATERPILLAR... or some other comparable construction stock.
7 - Tan The Man
I was being a little sarcastic. Obviously filling the wetlands was part of the problem. It will create plenty of jobs...