The Future of New Orleans...

[ret5hd]

(i posted this as a response in another thread, but decided to repost it in its own thread here, with a few edits)

the flooded houses of the poor will be bulldozed. a 2 foot layer of clay will be layed on top, sealing the worst of the poisons in, then a few feet of soil. New housing will be built, but NOT for the poor.

NO will be turned into a mixture of a whitebread playground and "disneyland". The poor service workers will be bussed 50-70 miles daily like in Vail, CO.

A few black trumpet, sax, trombone players will be hired to amuse the tourists as they walk through "A Taste of Old Orleans (tm)" in the French Quarter.

Once a year in Feb or March a staged parade will be held, complete with floats (sponsored by nike and coke), paid revelers dressed extravagantly, a few paid cross-dressers (just raunchy enough to tittilate the crowd, but polite enough to make everything "family friendly") and a few beads thrown from the floats to the polite orderly crowds lined on the sidewalks.

God, i hope i'm wrong...but that's the way i see it.

[SmokingJacket]

1. I think NO will be back, weirder and more itself than ever.

I'm sure it will be different in many ways, but I don't think the **soul** of New Orleans can be washed away so easily.

[ret5hd]

2. well, i hope you're right and i'm wrong...

but there's a hollow spot i feel in my gut about it.

[PATRICK]

3. Select vice and crimes will be invited back

so that it might become worse in heart than the old by a long shot. Such a rebuilding can become a greater cause of sustained anger than the flood itself. Of course, under the Bush creation of another banana republic vice city, the fact it still is sitting on unviable waterfront terrotiry will be ignored more than ever.

I predict a true Babylon in the end. The money cannot sustain itself for the full course of such a luxurious revival. Greed will abandon reason and ruin the future as it does everything else.

[KharmaTrain]

4. There's Only Sooo Many White People

Not to sound too sarcastic...

I spoke with a former New Orleanean the other day about the future of his former...and he says future home...and he's black.

He is sad to see the devestation of the 9th ward and "levee districts" (as he calls them), but there's too many roots and too much history in that area. It's also still going to be a very urban area...cut in half by interstates and remote from the CBD & French quarter or the big retail and commerce areas of the suburbs. His point is the neighborhood will return to a poor/lower middle class nature, just with newer houses.

If there's any "Gentrification", it will be in limited areas, leaving large areas of former homes and businesses to be developed. He predicts a black market will evolve as these people still will have claims to the lands and have the most reason to return and rebuild.

I've been following the blog of WWOZ Radio...they're actively working to rebuilt their station www.wwoz.org and has some very insightful commentary about the destruction and future of the area. They vow the crewes, parades and rich tradition of those area will return...and I'm gonna do what I can to support them.

[Village Idiot]

5. I posted similar conclusions a week ago...

The gentrification of NOLA will include casinos, high-rise luxury apartments, yacht clubs, spas, restaurants, etc...

I am CONVINCED that there will be VERY LITTLE affordable or subsudized housing included in the rebuilding projects...

Greedy scumbags.


If what you conclude will come to pass, perhaps rather than re-build, they will just relocate / rename Branson, Missouri to NOLA?