spastic_robot
Disco's
Bitch
Registered: Apr
2002
Location: in a beautiful place out in the country
|
Visions of a New New
Orleans
World Changing
has an exciting essay on the possibility of an inovative
rebuild of New Orleans. Please pass this along wherever
you can. This kind of radical rethinking is the only way that
we will get our city back to where it belongs as an esteemed
metropolitan jewel for all to enjoy.
Here are the
cliff notes for the attention disabled:
What needs
to happen in order to build an economically viable, socially
progressive and environmentally sound New Orleans?
The end of fatalism. People have to get
optimistic about the city again. This seems especially
challenging right now. I'm optimistic right now, which won't
be surprising to anyone who knows me but other less New
Orleans obsessive folks may give up wholesale on the city. I
think we can rebuild a better city but we need everyone's
support to do it.
The worst has already
happened. Our city, like a terribly addicted alcoholic,
has hit rock bottom. There's no place to go but up from here.
We have a rare opportunity to rebuild EVERY aspect of our city
from the ground up.
Principles for Rebuilding a
Bright, Green, Safe New Orleans:
1. Work with
nature, and technology, to protect the city from future
worst-case scenarios
If there is to be a New Orleans,
it must be first and foremost be made completely safe from
flooding in any conceivable worst-case scenario. If it cannot
withstand a Category 5 hurricane churning straight up the
mouth of the Mississippi, few will dare to live there.
Is such a thing possible? The short answer is: it must
be. But it will require assembling the smartest engineering
minds on the planet. That is why the rebuilding effort should
call in the Dutch.
There is no one in the world
smarter at managing land and water than the water engineers of
the Netherlands. They have a thousand years of cumulative
experience. New Orleans' famous pumps, which worked adequately
for many years, were actually of Dutch design, and early on in
the Top 10 by 2010 process, I brought in a leading Dutch
economist to try to strengthen the bonds between these
geographically and even somewhat culturally similar regions.
(It is not hard to think of New Orleans and Amsterdam in the
same sentence.)
2. Use rebuilding to lift the poor
to safer economic and social ground
t is a bitter
thing to view the photographs and videos of the refugees left
behind in New Orleans, and to see that most of them were
obviously poor and black. An anonymous email from a rescue
worker noted that those who did not evacuate were those who
could not afford to evacuate: those who had no private car, no
resources, no people to turn to. Katrina was not alone in her
killing; her accomplice was terrible poverty. That poverty
turned the city into a living hell of random shootings and
suffering for the refugees still trapped there, days after the
storm.
A New New Orleans must be a city dedicated to
the genuine well-being of all her citizens. Poverty had been
reduced in the 1990s; but pockets of terrible, entrenched
poverty were still far too common in that city prior to its
deluge. Those pockets are the one thing that must not be
restored; instead, the city must charge into rebuilding with
an eye to reducing poverty drastically, by reducing the
conditions that create it. The now-destroyed, once-crumbling
houses in the 9th Ward (the poorest section of the city) must
be replaced with decent, modern, and yes green housing (see
below). The people who live in New Orleans must be employed in
rebuilding it, thereby gaining marketable skills in the
process.
3. Create an economy of creativity
Another surprising finding of our initial research for Top
10 by 2010 was the lack of significant strategic contact
between the region's economic development efforts and the arts
community. New Orleans is known around the world for its
music, food, and cultural life generally; but as in most US
cities, artists and arts organizations had not been brought
into serious discussions about the future of the region, until
Top 10 by 2010 invited them. (This was also true of its
environmental advocates, who had been trying, in measured
tones, to awaken the leadership to the dangers of coastal
erosion and storm threat.)
New economic visioning
processes had, after Top 10 by 2010, resulted in the inclusion
of arts and environment leaders in economic strategic
planning. This is a trend that must be sharply strengthened.
New Orleans cannot hope to revive as simply "a place to do
business." It must again become something special, something
truly wonderful; and that means embracing creativity in all
its forms, with a passionate ferocity. It means envisioning
the city as a whole as a work of art -- one that cannot be
restored exactly as it was, but that can be recreated.
4. Become a clean, green showcase
Recreating a beautiful, vibrant, successful city will
require a new environmental ethic as well. The environmental
problems that plagued city in advance of the storm --
including exposure to toxic chemicals and even simple litter
-- had already caused at least one major company to decide not
to move there. The environmental damage caused by the storm
and the flooding is now incomprehensible. The rebuilding
process offers a once-in-lifetime opportunity to clean up the
city, in every way imaginable.
But cleaning up the
now-magnified problems is just a small piece of what can, and
I believe must, be envisioned. Currently the City of New
Orleans exists, in part, to service the oil and gas production
and distribution infrastructure that now lies in tatters in
the Gulf of Mexico. It is likely inevitable that this
infrastructure will also be rebuilt -- massive economic and
security interests will see to that.
But it would be
nothing short of criminal to rebuild the city of New Orleans
and not aspire to run the place on renewable energy. The sun
shines mercilessly there; solar panels need big markets to
push their development curve up and prices down; and so New
Orleans (not to mention its sister cities like Biloxi or
Mobile, also terribly affected by this storm) could provide a
tremendous opportunity to spur the nation's energy
independence.
New Orleans could become a living
laboratory for solar roofs, mini hydro generators,
architecture that creates cool buildings without air
conditioning, electric and fuel cell vehicles ... the whole
list of green dreams for technically sustainable world. These
could become the basis of new industries to replace the gas
and oil revenues, and be partly financed by them, as well as
by the general reconstruction funds that are already on their
way.
5. Dare to dream
These are days of
despair and sorrow for the great City of New Orleans. Those
days will not end soon. And as anyone who has weathered the
death of loved ones or the loss of a home knows, there is no
way out of grief except through it.
But what pulls us
through grief is the knowledge that, while what is permanently
lost cannot be restored, new things can be created.
The people of New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf
region will need tremendous amounts of practical help, money,
and psychological support to come through this. But they will
also need dreams -- and not just their own.
It takes
courage to dream in the face of catastrophe. And courage often
comes from being encouraged, with the thoughts, wishes, hopes,
words, and yes, the dreams of others. We can all contribute to
the recreation of New Orleans. We can all dream for her, and
help her residents to dream. They have now lived through a
nightmare -- one that many feared would one day become
reality, and has. We can all now help her to dream a beautiful
dream of recovery, restoration, and renewal, and to make that
dream become real as well -- for herself, and for the
world.
IP:
67.174.66.91 |
09-05-2005 12:02
PM
