By order of the governor New Orleans is to be abandoned. There is no infrastructure left. If this was Sim Orleans the game would be over...but it can't be over because a million people are displaced with nowhere to go, no assetts to tap and probably a weeks worth of money in the checking/savings account. What happens when the Red Roof Inns start kicking N.O. refugees out on the curb? Will State and National parks throughout the south be rationing out MREs to tent cities for the next year while half of the delta is dried out? The USA government is going to have to step in and force the insurance companies to start cutting checks right now and construction should begin on building a Newer Orleans upriver on higher ground ASAP.
There are no pros to rebuilding on the delta. The marshlands which used to protect the Big Easy are so degraded that it would take a generation and the significant re-meanderification of the Mississippi to make it safe from the next big storm. If you believe in global warming, and the jury is starting to come in, these cat4 and cat 5 storms are only going to increase in ferocity and number. Again, there is no infrastructure left to salvage, the sewage, electrical, water and gas systems will need completely replaced if the water doesn't get sucked up by some black ops supervacuum within the next couple of days. The only real hope lies in the fact that sucking is the one thing this federal administration seems to excell at.
Louisiana could start but granting extensive historical parklands north of Baton Rouge. This is plantation country and digging up these relics of the slavery south to build a new metropolis would be closure point in the evolution of our nation. Enforce emminent domain the way last sessions Supreme Court intended it and provide each homeless citizen of New Orleans with the equivalent of three acres and a mule. Renters and landlords should be equally eligible as of course would be former homeowners. Insurance checks can then be put to use building houses on newly leveled lots on newly paved streets with newly strung telephone polls.
The current site on downtown New Orleans would continue to be an important site for commerce as it would exist solely as a conduit of products and personnel from the New City and the old ports and industry. Instead of spending billions repaving unpassible roads build the worlds most efficient Maglev system to make a Newer Orleans to the port of Orleans commute an brief jaunt for those who need to be near the gulf. Most of South Louisiana oil refineries are west of the old city anyway and those refineries in harms way should be rebuilt upstate to avoid future disasters.
How can the nation afford to pay for this? Much of the residential rebuilding will be cheaper to do on new lots with new materials. Those uninsured can recieve federally subsidized loans. The cost of new utility infrastructure would be similar to retrofiting the entire old system. The savings of condemning and bulldozing Old Orleans rather than rehabilitating it only to see it blown away again in a world that is clearly becoming more turbulent would more than make up for the costs in Newer Orleans.
Most importantly most of the money spent on this new, model city would go into the pockets of the displaced citizens of Louisiana. Right now the biggest threat to these millions of refugees isn't alligators or dysentery, it is unemployment. Within a week the majority of the displaced will be out of work, out of luck and living at the mercy of a very unmerciful government.
article
