While Portland, OR has dictated an urban growth boundary to prevent growth, many US cities have been dealing with an already overgrown urban footprint. Recognizing the fall of the American city, some deteriorating rust belt towns are venturing into un-developing land in order to match up the geography to the cities’ shrinking populations. Given New Orleans’ own diminished population, although steadily in decline since the 1960s and most drastically the recent years since Hurricane Katrina, might fare well to consider proposals underway in cities like Detroit, especially considering the precarious geographic positioning of the Crescent City so close to an impending coastline.
Post population return after Katrina, the city toyed with the notion of obliterating vulnerable sections of the city. This concept being politically infeasible quickly died and what we have today is large once vibrant neighborhoods with few occupied houses per block.
Would we follow the German model of temporally forgiving property taxes for rights to the land? With this model the cost of demolition still rests on the stressed city government. Can the city attract business by opening up empty land to alternative energy enterprises such as solar and wind? Is this possible given the state’s staunch stance and imminent domain for private transfer?
The two following articles offer a first look into the options of shrinkage and open the discussion to how they apply to the City That Care Forgot, New Orleans, LA.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/09/05/how_to_shrink_a_city/
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/shrinking-detroit-back-to-greatness/
Why was a rational ground level height reconstruction analysis completely politically untouchable?
Compare the following demonstrative maps of the city of New Orleans:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4981408757/in/set-72157624812674967/#/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/images/new_orleans_elevation2.jpg
Because once something is given, its political suicide for a governmental entity to take it. In this case, we paid to dry areas out in the early 20th century and created cheap land for the city to expand into. Now we are proposing to take it back. Just like any other entitlement, i.e. social security, welfare, etc. If you take back the benefit en masse then you will suffer political backlash.
I wouldn’t consider social security an entitlement in that working stiffs pay into it and get payments based on that.
(Remember to insert your links as links in posts if the software does not do it automatically. I fixed these.)
I am not sure I see the point of the two NO maps – unless you are saying that it was not really a black versus white issue. As many white areas flooded as black in Katrina, and, controlled for population, the typical drowning victim was an elderly white woman. White and black areas are below sea level or at very high risk at flooding.
If we tailored the footprint of the city corresponding to the flooding of Katrina, we would see almost the majority of the city being outside the green line. Although both black and white New Orleanians were affected by flooding,the majority of the African American community lived in low lying areas except for the few areas in the Garden District area, Gretna and areas around Algiers Point and the highly controversial Lower Ninth Ward. The entire concentration of the Asian American community of New Orleans was in New Orleans East.
The major area of white neighborhood flooding is in the Lakeview area, where one would assume that the population has the means to relocate. The highest area is near the river itself where populations tend to be a majority white. In an ideal world the areas near the river and high ground would be purple, blue and red living together, while the low lying areas would be blank. The political climate after the storm was very race-based. Even if a rational person looks at the flooding maps and sees Katrina as an equal opportunity catastrophe, sensational race baiting is politically lucrative.
What’s your authority of the profile of the typical Katrina drowning victim?