Day 206: I Believe In Intelligent Design

Now that your jaw’s on the the floor and I have your attention, allow me to continue my assertion: I believe in the intelligent design of the new New Orleans. John By The Bayou correctly expresses disbelief at Nagin’s support of rebuilding in New Orleans’s flooded neighborhoods without a plan.

As he has often done before, [Nagin] rejected the call by the commission’s Urban Planning Committee for a moratorium on building permits in the city’s hardest-hit and most flood-prone neighborhoods … Nagin said he appreciated the committee’s desire to protect residents from spending money on houses or stores that could be vulnerable to flooding again and might not be eligible for flood insurance. But, he said, “I have confidence that our citizens can decide intelligently for themselves where they want to rebuild, once presented with the facts.”

Whether or not for a reason, we have been bestowed with brains that can think and, as Nagin says, make the right decisions for ourselves … and, in this city and era, ourselves within the framework of a large and intertwined community. We can intelligently decide given the facts and several stare us right in the face:

1. A number of this city’s hardest-hit and most flood-prone neighborhoods have flooded in the past.

2. This city has a history of leading its citizens down the wrong track by not presenting them with facts. (Lakeview – drained swamp – and the Ninth Ward – serious lowlands – being cases in point).

3. Even jarring pieces of data such as 1965’s Hurricane Betsy and 2005’s Katrina aren’t going to enhance the attention span of the local flummoxed parish-dweller.

4. What can flood will flood, our storm buffers aren’t growing and hurricanes will not disappear any time soon. The recurrence of a post-Katrina-type deluge may be unlikely, but nature’s plumbing is equally unlikely to work in our favor.

This blog has screamed itself hoarse about rebuilding New Orleans right. For once, we came up with a plan that befits citizens of a developed nation – grow out from the center, the known, the safe. People want their homes back, I empathize, but at what expense? In essence, what has to happen before the collective New Orleanian shift from maintenance to lasting? Makes you wonder about the nature of and respect for The Long-Term down here.

You know why Nagin disagrees with his own BNOBC on land use, don’t you? He doesn’t want to go down as the leader of New Orleans who turned away his own. He wants you to make that decision – you will leave your neighborhood or stay and the result will not denigrate his legacy or detract from his re-election.

Legacies and elections aside, the mayor is not the city. S/he does not provide garbage pickup, mail service, decent nearby schools, crime deterrents, police and fire protection and emergency services. As John says, “What commitment does the city have to delivering services to different parts of the city – and are there resources to back that commitment up?” And who has the final say as to the rebuild – the commission or Nagin?

Time to look at the reconstruction perspectives of the other candidates.