Comment & Debate
Beverly Cigler, a public policy professor at Pennsylvania State University. – “It’s a soup bowl, and it’s not safe […] some places are safer than others […] My own personal opinion is that you shouldn’t rebuild in areas unless you can make them safe. And nobody’s had the willingness to confront these kinds of issues.”[1]
Joel K. Bourne, Jr. “New Orleans: A Perilous Future”. National Geographic. August 2007 – But history, politics, and love of home are powerful forces in the old river town. Instead of rebuilding smarter or surrendering, New Orleans is doing what it has always done after such disasters: bumping up the levees just a little higher, rebuilding the same flood-prone houses back in the same low spots, and praying that hurricanes hit elsewhere. Some former New Orleanians may have had enough. More than a third of the city’s pre-Katrina population has yet to return. Those who have face deserted neighborhoods, surging crime, skyrocketing insurance, and a tangle of red tape—simply to rebuild in harm’s way.