Rebuilding New Orleans

[willfryar 0]

So this topic is one that hits home to me.  I was born and raised in Louisiana.  I currently live in New York but when I finish school I plan to move to New Orleans to get involved (politically hopefully) in turning New Orleans into the city it could be.  So lets hear what you think is the best way to rebuild and protect the historic American city.

[GingerBlokey 30]

Courtesey of the BBC here are some before and after photos.

[louisville327 0]

The best way to rebuild New Orleans (and the most expensive) would be to dump a whole lot of dirt into the bowl that was so heavily flooded. Raise the lower sections of the city several feet to prevent future inundations. It's not like most of the houses can be salvaged anyway...

See also: rebuild the wetlands so furiously destroyed over the years.

[Fred_Ginger 1]

NO is going to have to have it's levee's rebuilt better/stronger/taller.  I don't think you can just dump a bunch of dirt into the lowest areas (although it has been done, downtown Sacramento (CA) is eight or nine feet higher than it use to be, but that was done back in the late 1800s/early 1900s and they didn't have to worry about electricity/telephone lines or sewer or highways etc..  Filling the bowl also would make other areas at risk, you wouldn't want to fill the French Qtr. so you couldn't raise the other areas above it so it all would still be vulnerable to flooding.  Reestablishing the marshes and wet areas would at least slow down/weaken other storms.  Any way you look at it it's going to be a tough expensive job!

FanG (Fred and Ginger, silent d)

[+Guest]

One word:Corrupt

  First it was Boston with that giant hole and now rebuilding a state where the Mayor won't even take a pay cut and lays off 3,000 people.

 

   The Mayor of New Orleans makes John Gotti look like a boyscout.I'm sick and tired of folks blaming Bush,FEMA and the Red Cross.

 

   Louisiana screwed up nobody else.

[uncrazycooper13 0]

I think the most important thing to think about is 1. No matter what this will be expensive. But the main challenge for New Orleans is how to preserve the history and soul of new orleans and make the city safe and rebuild the marshes/wetlands because that will keep the city safer and be good for the environment. No matter what not rebuilding/relocating the city is NOT an option.

-uncrazycooper

[Bart_Betrwrld 0]

Priority 1 is the marshes. If they are damaged by the hurricane(s), and they already were before the hurricane(s), then anything else is probably useless. You're basically trying to protect a city in the middle of the sea.

The marshes can be fixed, stimulating natural growth. Takes a few decades though.

Don't try raising land. The extra weight will just make it sink faster. Pumping the water out to keep the lower areas dry is also worsening things. It will speed up the sinking process. You need actually, seems contradictory, m

[mpetryni 0]

I think what louisville meant was simply to fill the bowl to sea level. This has also been done historically in cities like New York and Boston, much of which is higher than it once was or above sea level in places where it was previously underwater.

 

All that being said, I don't know if dumping dirt is a real solution, as it is really environmentally messy, and the area has really been ravaged environmentally (not really by the hurricane, but by the result of poor environmental practices/wetland destruction before it - also all the toxic soup didn't help). Rebuilding New Orleans is going to be really complicated, and probably really expensive. There will have to be a lot of improvement to the levees, but I'm guessing some parts of the city that were in really risky places may not be rebuilt.

 

Also, for some reason, this issue is all charged with politics and economic problems. Actually that's not a for some reason, because the reasons are pretty obvious. Nonetheless it gets in the way of making clear headway and correctly understanding the situation and possible solutions.

[sendarrow 3]

New Orleans should rise stronger than before. That is my wish. (With biggers building of course).

[RippleInSanity 0]

I was born there also.  I haven't been back in a long time, but I always think of it when I'm playing slide on my guitar.

I agree with others, that the marshes should be rebuilt and preserved.

[eburress 267]

Date: 10/5/2005 4:12:05 PM
Author: uncrazycooper13
No matter what not rebuilding/relocating the city is NOT an option.
-uncrazycooper

quote>
Does that mean rebuilding/relocating the city IS an option? Aren't rebuilding and relocating two completely different things?

--> This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I personally don't think NO should be rebuilt. The pricetag is way too high and it isn't worth bankrupting the country. Maybe if private money is involved...

[ardecila 125]

I hope that the new buildings in New Orleans will be done properly, instead of on-the-cheap.

We have a chance to define the architectural future of one of America's most famous (and larger) cities.

Wouldn't it be nice to create new, quality buildings to replace those that are lost?

Obviously, in this case, Louis Sullivan's doctrine of form follows function is applicable. But there's no reason we can't do both. What I'd like to see is a national architecture competition for a house design that is cheap, replicable, modifiable (we don't want rows of identical houses), and, of course, high-quality, to replace the houses lost to hurricane and flooding damage.

To properly incentivize such a contest, there should be prizes, although not necessarily monetary ones. For instance - a full college scholarship in architecture, or perhaps an entry-level position into a leading firm, would garner many submissions.

[ginchael 1]

Date: 10/5/2005 3:41:19 PM
Author: BlackBeard

One word:Corrupt

First it was Boston with that giant hole and now rebuilding a state where the Mayor won't even take a pay cut and lays off 3,000 people.

The Mayor of New Orleans makes John Gotti look like a boyscout.I'm sick and tired of folks blaming Bush,FEMA and the Red Cross.

Louisiana screwed up nobody else.

quote>


My, aren't we defensive? Two words for you: Michael Brown.

I think that New Orleans will bounce back...eventually. There may be some areas that will be ruinous until gentrification hits NO.

[Saint Andrew 6]

I'm from Canada, so this doesn't affect me personnally but I can't believe someone would agree with NOT rebuilding New Orleans...

That's ridiculous. If something big happened in Montreal and destroyed everything, I'd still be the last one to leave, and the first to come back -and I would run the f*** back as fast as possible-. When you live in a city all your life, leaving everything behind is absolutely not an option. Just imagine it was your city...

[Bandero 5]

I've heard of several options, including turning the city (or at least part of it) into some type of Venice, instead of streets, canals for example, but that would mean raising the level of the city and that is expensive, however if they go that way it would mean a huge turist atraction and they will recover that investment in no time. Just imagine, Mardi Grass in a gondola...

I would like to issue a challenge, using the New Orleans Map from f15excaliber you can DL it here . Why don't you (the readers) rebuilt New Orleans and post some pics either here or create a CJ about it? I think that will be interesting to see all the ideas that everyone will have.

[brancra 1,150]

Just perusing through here, so I'd like to insert my two cents into the Simtropolis fotrune of thoughts...

The funny thing about New Orleans is that you can't just simply dump the city. This is because of...

 

A. Investments- By this, I mean what has already been put into the city. You simply can't let a community of what was nearly half a million people decay into nothing. It would be exspensive to tear down everything, just as it would be to undertake some massive revitalization program.

B. Nationalism- It would also do a great deal of damage to national pride. I can just see it now, where every time someone decides to nay-say the United States they refer to the decaying city of New Orleans and say that's what America really is and blah-blah-bad-place-blah.  It would be terrible for the PR department, and anyone even associated with it would take an approval tumble permanently.

C. Homebodies- Plus there are people who have spent their entire lives there, and they will always be pushing to move back to the city no matter how damaged it may be.

D. The port- considering the large number of refineries in the gulf and the importance of the port, it would be necessary to build an entirely new port if we simply gave up on the city. that's much too exspensive for our budgets. *Yes, I say our, because 5 to 1 says it would be tax money*

 

However, we also have an argument to not rebuild the city. I am not as well versed and I would accept any further input gratefully on this particular topic as I fumble along here.

 

A.LaFayette, Louisiana- A community of 110,000, this could be the new New Orleans. Perhaps some part of the old city can be saved, and then the rest condemned, and further development directed to the nearby community of LaFayette. That doesn't do much for the port though.

B. Emigration- A million people have left the area since the hurricane went through. What is the possibilty that even half will want to move back, knowing that there would be some risk, however small, of another destructive storm occurring? How did people react to when the weaker but still fearsome Hurricane Betsy hit the city in 1965? A.k.a. Billion-Dollar Betsy? No, really, that last part's a question.

C. ThemeCity- A lot of people see New Orleans becoming some sick vulgar knockoff of a bunch of wonderful ideas. I draw a point here to Dubailand, planned in the U.A,E, which other than being a very beautiful country would have the tackiest place on Earth, a knockoff of everything that was once considered attractive and appealing. Would you want to visit some terribly tacky place? Better yet, would you want to live there?

 

And I would like to point they knew for years and years that one day this could happen. And now the various levels of government blame each other for not doing enough.

 

The final verdict: All levels of government, from local to state to federal, and not just Bush, but those executives and governours and legislators in national and state Congress before now-they all screwed up.

 

I'm finished depositing my two cents now.

 

 

 

[MothMaiden 1]

You can't rebuild New Orleans at this time. Right now that poor city is one of the country's biggest superfund sites. That water was a horrid toxic soup that soaked into all the buildings and coated everything it touched. The mayor is a fool for reopening the city. This all has to be cleaned up, and Bush is too busy trying to suspend environmental laws to do the job.

Then there is the question of the levees. They are still leaking. As Rita proved, any hurricane hit, however glancing, will take them down and reflood the city. They need to be completely redesigned (just improving them as they were preKatrina to withstand a Cat. 5 would have cost $14 million, a redesign and rebuilding would be more).

The problem with the wetlands is that the silt from the Mississippi is not coming down to replace what the ocean erodes. At the current rate of erosion, you will rebuild the city only to have the Gulf of Mexico swallow it up for good. By storm or erosion, if things don't change, New Orleans is bound for a name change to New Atlantis. The source of the problem is the locks, dams, and levees upriver. A healthy river is supposed to drag silt from upriver and use it to build the delta. Until the whole river is fixed, New Orleans has no permanent future.

Fix all that, and yeah, rebuild New Orleans in all her old glory. Bring back all her citizens that want to come, put local people from the region to work doing the rebuilding (not megacorps with Washington DC political connections), and do whatever it takes to jumpstart her economy and make her prosperous.

[pepsi38 46]

Date: 10/5/2005 3:41:19 PM Author: BlackBeard

One word:Corrupt

  First it was Boston with that giant hole and now rebuilding a state where the Mayor won't even take a pay cut and lays off 3,000 people.

  The Mayor of New Orleans makes John Gotti look like a boyscout.I'm sick and tired of folks blaming Bush,FEMA and the Red Cross.

  Louisiana screwed up nobody else.

quote>

 

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 

and another thing, how bout we all jsut forget the idea of LIVING UNDER SEA LEVEL!!!!  why and how is any bit of the idea of living under sealevel #1 safe #2 economic and #3 what is so great about it

[slann 0]

Sorry peeps - just have to comment

The basic thing is that NO needs to be rebuilt - it is an historic city with a great character and all places like that needs to be rebuilt. period. Imagine if they did not rebuilt San Francisco after 1906, Tokyo after 1923, London after 1666, etc. etc. Whenever things like this happen - we need to rebuild in order to grow.

 

I say rebuild but rebuilding needs to be done intelligently - raising the levee higher and higher is not an option at times - you just increase the pressure on the river and in the long run - it may be worse - imagine Hurrican Katrina II Cat 5 with a stormsurge of 40feet - can we build a levee 10 stories tall?

 

I think they need to allocate an area for a floodplain in the delta in order to give the sea and river space to 'surge'

 

And to answer Pepsi38 - living under sea level is a common thing as the most fertile areas are often the floodplains of a river. Tell that to the entire NETHERLANDS (which is mostly under sea level), parts of china and even the Nile delta in Eqypt will ya?

tsk tsk

 

 

[wafgking 22]

How can Louisina screw up?  They are underwater, its dark, 100+ mph wind in almost the whole state.  Lousiniana couldn't do anything.

I was in Panama City Beach, over 200 miles away at when Katrina made landfull.  We had sporadic electricity, high wind, and our beach under about 10 feet of water and extreme surge.  It totally reshaped our beach.

 

When an event hits so many states it is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and ultimately the Presidents job to respond and help.  Bush could have helped when he started office by thinking of the enviroment.  Ocean tempatures have risen which cause more Hurricanes and more Powerful ones.  C02 increased the Greenhouse effect which is warming our entire planet.  Scientist call this this Global Warming.

 

I've been to New Orleans and I love it.  It is my favourite American City.  But the main problems of that city where the poor people, that people forgot about and turned a blind eye instead of being compassionate and helpful.  Greedy and Capatalistic, just like Bush.

 

New Orleans will rise again, we can't change the fact that New Orleans has fallen 8+ feet in some parts in its lifetime due to Humans interfering with mothernature.  But we can work to reverse the damamge by working on restoring the marshes, something the FEDEARAL GOVERMENT rejected years ago.  Marshes will help weaken and slow a future hurricane.

[slightlyslack 21]

Because of its importance to American agriculture--there's no way grain gets exported without a port at the mouth of the Mississippi--New Orleans does need to be rebuilt.  However, it should be primarily as medium/high-density development in areas above the river level.  Landfilling like Louisville described would be great in concept, but there's so much toxic waste built up in the low-lying areas that just putting 10 feet of dirt on top of them would be Love Canal to the tenth power.  Plus, with subsidence being what it is, you could well lose a foot of elevation every decade.

 

Let's not think of N'awlins as America's Venice, a useless but pretty city trading on its former glories.  Instead, let it become our Rotterdam, a gleaming, modern port city, but with a couple of historic areas.  A tourism-based economy hasn't worked for decades, and it's not going to work in the future.  For all the talk about people in New Orleans wanting to return, I'd bet you a fair sum that most of the city's black inhabitants have absolutely no intention of going back on a permanent basis.  There are already big N.O. diasporas in Los Angeles, Houston, and Dallas--three cities with much healthier economies than anything New Orleans has experienced in over a century.

 

One thing that's abundantly clear is that the normal structures of city and county/parish government in the area need to be set aside during the reconstruction, and a strong rebuilding authority be put in their place, with the power to slap around wealthy white suburbanites who might object to densification in their cities.

[gunslinging2stepper 0]

Date: 10/6/2005 12:07:48 AM Author: wafgking

How can Louisina screw up?  They are underwater, its dark, 100+ mph wind in almost the whole state.  Lousiniana couldn't do anything.

I was in Panama City Beach, over 200 miles away at when Katrina made landfull.  We had sporadic electricity, high wind, and our beach under about 10 feet of water and extreme surge.  It totally reshaped our beach.

When an event hits so many states it is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and ultimately the Presidents job to respond and help.  Bush could have helped when he started office by thinking of the enviroment.  Ocean tempatures have risen which cause more Hurricanes and more Powerful ones.  C02 increased the Greenhouse effect which is warming our entire planet.  Scientist call this this Global Warming.

I've been to New Orleans and I love it.  It is my favourite American City.  But the main problems of that city where the poor people, that people forgot about and turned a blind eye instead of being compassionate and helpful.  Greedy and Capatalistic, just like Bush.

New Orleans will rise again, we can't change the fact that New Orleans has fallen 8+ feet in some parts in its lifetime due to Humans interfering with mothernature.  But we can work to reverse the damamge by working on restoring the marshes, something the FEDEARAL GOVERMENT rejected years ago.  Marshes will help weaken and slow a future hurricane.

#1 Learn the law before you make a comment. Bush couldn't do anything until ASKED. Blanco didn't ask for help until it was to late. Bush did all he could at the time by declaring it a disaster area BEFORE Katrina hit so federal money could start heading that way. He called Blanco the night before and tried to convince her to let him start emergency help and she denied him. Nagin is a complete idiot for not using his own evacuation plans.

#2 Global warming is a complete farce there is no scientific evidence that we are causing global warming. The planet goes through it's natural stages and we pee-ons can not change them or alter them. This is not the most active hurricane season on record.

#3 NO should have been a eutopia if you believe in liberal ideas and there shouldn't have been the number of poor.

#4 I don't think NO should be rebuilt. It'll only happen again the next time a cat 5 hurricane takes a direct course towards it. You had a point about humans interfering with mother nature. We built a city in a delta and the Mississippi is actively reclaiming her delta.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/6/2005 3:18:54 AM
Author: slightlyslack

Because of its importance to American agriculture--there's no way grain gets exported without a port at the mouth of the Mississippi--New Orleans does need to be rebuilt. However, it should be primarily as medium/high-density development in areas above the river level. Landfilling like Louisville described would be great in concept, but there's so much toxic waste built up in the low-lying areas that just putting 10 feet of dirt on top of them would be Love Canal to the tenth power. Plus, with subsidence being what it is, you could well lose a foot of elevation every decade.

quote>

Let it be clarified that my original comment was partly tongue-in-cheek. Dumping a ton of dirt where the Ninth Ward used to be is NOT the best solution to the problem, of course. It has all kinds of economic and physical limitations.

slightlyslack makes an excellent point and one that I have brought up in conversations with friends. New Orleans functions best as a port, and should focus its efforts on the shipping aspect of its economy. The Port of New Orleans is one of the busiest in the world, and with proper infrastructure and marshlands as protection, could really fulfill its potential as a truly world-class transportation hub.

Galveston TX, also recently in the path of a hurricane, is an excellent example to follow, I'd suggest. A major effort after the 1900 hurricane (that wiped out the city) actually raised parts of Galveston several feet, and major infrastructural improvements were done to lessen future storm damage. Instead of trying to build a huge city around Galveston island, the town became primarly a major port for Houston, farther inland. Perhaps New Orleans could follow the example and focus its rebuilding farther inland while letting the old areas function as both a port and wetlands.

Of course, nothing like that will happen. Everything will be built exactly as it was before and the next hurricane will destroy it all again. Such is the American Way.

[sylvia 0]

Date: 10/6/2005 12:04:54 AM Author: slann

And to answer Pepsi38 - living under sea level is a common thing as the most fertile areas are often the floodplains of a river. Tell that to the entire NETHERLANDS (which is mostly under sea level), parts of china and even the Nile delta in Eqypt will ya?

tsk tsk

quote>

Hello Slann, I'm from the Netherlands and here we NEVER have hurricans. When a thing like happened in New Orleans would happen here I don't think the dykes would hold so we would have the same problem in Holland if that happens the whole of Holland would be gone. I don't think anything can hold a storm like that, does'nt matter how high you build your dykes. 

I feel very sad for the people who live in New Orleans and also the surroundings.

sylvia.

[snowpap 2]

I'm sorry, but I 100% believe that New Orleans should NOT be rebuilt.  Doesn't matter what they do, this will happen again one day.  Maybe next week or maybe next century, but it will happen again if they rebuild.

 

Another thing that's always bothered me is using 100's of billions of tax payers dollars to rebuild a city that should have never been put there in the first place.  I live in the Midwest and we get tornados every year and the government doesn't help us out.  This past summer, Wisconsin got hammered with a monster tornado and uninsured people here are screwed and get nothing.  Half of the people in New Orleans were without insurance and are going to go from living in a shack to a nice house because the government is going to bail them out!  It's a joke!

[willfryar 0]

People who say not to rebuild are just looking at the fact that the city is below sea level and the cost of rebuilding.  But it is much more than that.  What will it say about our country or about our spirit if we just decide to cut or losses and give up?  Why should a nation just bury a part of its history just because it costs too much to save it? 

Yes it will cost our nation a lot of money to build better flood protection and to improve infrastructure but just like in sc4 the nation wont pay for all of the redevelopment.  A lot of this will come from the private sector.  Many developers will see this as an opportunity.

 

My ideas:

 

A seawall similar to the north sea wall in the netherlands should be constructed at the mouth of the lake to keep the storm surge at bay.

 

Some of the areas on the west bank need to be turned into flood plain.  The new levees and floodwalls could then be built closer to heart of the city.  This means the lakefront area and the 9th ward will have to be bulldozed.

 

Controlled flooding from the mississippi river could help restore the wetlands south of the city.

 

A smaller, more dense New Orleans could then be developed inside the walls with a nice light rail and bus system being the preffered means of transportation.  Also trains could link the suburbs and airport to the CBD/French Quarter.

 

Louisiana would have to allow more land casinos (like the Harrah's that is already there).  A new convention center should be built with more hotels.

 

New Orleans was already a tourist and convention city.  Improving and building upon this would keep the economy going the right way.

 

The seawall, levees, light rail, and convention center would come from public funding.  Everything else new hotels, other businesses and development from the private sector.  To me this is not out of reach.  It would just take time and money that our government has already said they would provide.

[MayorTim 16]

New Orleans must be rebuilt, and will be rebuilt. America has far too much pride to simply let one of its largest cities turn into the next Atlantis, and even I don't think Bush is thick headed not to realise that.

With all the money we spent on a pointless war, we could build a levee for every individual sector of New Orleans.

Funds will simply have to be diverted to restoring N.0.

This could be the chance Bush has been waiting for, if congress is ever going to let him start drilling for oil in Alaska, that time is now. It will save Americans billions of dollars, and that money saved on oil could then be spent restoring New Orleans.

It will take time, but like someone else said, what would the world be like if London was not rebuilt when it was bombed? It Tokyo was not rebuilt? If Washington D.C. was not rebuilt?

No, New Orleans will be rebuilt. It will take decades, but it has to be.

[snowpap 2]

Date: 10/6/2005 4:44:13 PM Author: MayorTim New Orleans must be rebuilt, and will be rebuilt. America has far too much pride to simply let one of its largest cities turn into the next Atlantis, and even I don't think Bush is thick headed not to realise that. With all the money we spent on a pointless war, we could build a levee for every individual sector of New Orleans. Funds will simply have to be diverted to restoring N.0. This could be the chance Bush has been waiting for, if congress is ever going to let him start drilling for oil in Alaska, that time is now. It will save Americans billions of dollars, and that money saved on oil could then be spent restoring New Orleans. It will take time, but like someone else said, what would the world be like if London was not rebuilt when it was bombed? It Tokyo was not rebuilt? If Washington D.C. was not rebuilt? No, New Orleans will be rebuilt. It will take decades, but it has to be.

quote>

 

A bit off the New Orleans subject here but I'm saying it anyway.

 

Pointless war, eh?  I guess WWII was a mistake as well, right?  Taking out a ruthless dictator, Hitler, who killed anyone who disagreed with him and buried them in mass graves.  Gee, that sounds familiar, can you say Sadam?  I guess killing people and burying them in mass graves is okay by your standards.  We are in this war for good reason.  I know many military personnel who have been in Iraq many, many times in the past few years and continue to this day to go over and protect our freedom.  Every one of them says the same thing, that they know why they are there and why it's important to stay the course.

 

Sorry to say, but it's people like you who take everything in their lives for granted because you think you know all of the facts!  All you do is put down the war and most likely the President as well because you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

Uh oh, isn't it about time to show the troops even less appreciation by standing on the corner with a protest sign?

[halo_lover 1]

It needs to be rebuilt as a port city. But a small port city is all that should be rebuilt IMO. When this happens again in 10-20 years, boom, we just wasted billions of dollars. Yay for us!

[slightlyslack 21]

A forward I got from the chair of the urban planning department at USC (ironically, an economist who doesn't believe in planning, but I agree with him on some things):

October 6, 2005
When Disasters Act as Accelerators of Change
By VIRGINIA POSTREL
SPEAKING after Hurricane Katrina, President Bush promised that we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives on the Gulf Coast.

As long as it takes may not be as long as a lot of people expect. Consider what happened after a major earthquake struck Kobe, Japan, in 1995. Many people, in Japan and abroad, thought that the port city would take years, even decades, to recover. The quake, which had a magnitude of 6.9, was the worst ever to hit a modern city. It wrecked the port; destroyed 100,000 buildings and severely damaged many more; ruptured the water, sewer, electrical and gas systems; and destroyed roads and rail lines.

Yet despite the catastrophe, Kobe's economy recovered rapidly. Only a year after the quake, Kobe was handling as many imports as before the disaster, and exports had recovered to 83 percent of their previous level. Within 18 months, manufacturing was at 98 percent of where it would have been without the quake.

Economic output was back in 15 months and could have been sooner if there hadn't been so many disputes about land use, the economist George Horwich said in an interview. Kobe's resilience, he argued, was not an aberration. Modern economies bounce back quickly from natural disasters because they depend not on physical assets but on human expertise. People quickly figure out how to replace damaged operations, either by rebuilding or finding substitutes.

Destroy any amount of physical capital, but leave behind a critical number of knowledgeable human beings whose brains still house the culture and technology of a dynamic economy, and the physical capital will tend to re-emerge almost spontaneously, Professor Horwich, now retired from Purdue, wrote in Economic Lessons of the Kobe Earthquake, published in the April 2000 issue of Economic Development and Cultural Change.

Rebuilding lives and communities does not, however, mean returning the economy to exactly where it was before. Rather, a disaster tends to accelerate economic changes that are already under way. That is because some physical assets, whether outdated manufacturing plants or homes in declining areas, are worth keeping only because they were paid for long ago and cost next to nothing to use. They would cost more to replace than they are worth.

Any modern economy is normally in constant flux, Professor Horwich wrote. As such, the destruction of physical assets is a form of accelerated depreciation that hastens the adoption of new technologies and varieties of investment. In Kobe, the plastic shoe industry never came back after the earthquake, and air freight expanded at the expense of the port.

The more flexibility businesses and individuals have, the more adaptable they can be and the faster recovery can take place. That is one reason money helps more than in-kind gifts. Donors, Professor Horwich said, can only guess what recipients want most and often provide gifts of clothes or food in forms that are hard to use.

The same principle applies to the rebuilding commitments now being made in Washington. The final cost of Katrina relief is widely expected to top $100 billion, and the Louisiana Congressional delegation has submitted its own $250 billion wish list.

Those are very big numbers. With $100 billion, the government could give every man, woman and child from New Orleans a check for $200,000. Expanding these payments to the entire metropolitan area would allow a generous $75,000 per resident.

Yet nobody expects the displaced residents of New Orleans to see anything close to those potentially life-changing amounts. Federal spending is aimed not at rebuilding lives but at rebuilding communities, primarily by spending a lot of money on construction projects and on government services.

But, the Harvard economist Edward L. Glaeser argues, such an approach is backward. If there is disaster insurance, then it is, presumably, the people of New Orleans who are insured, not the place itself, he writes in an article for The Economists' Voice, an online journal ( www.bepress.com/ev ). The article is called Should the Government Rebuild New Orleans, or Just Give Residents Checks? He favors the latter.

His basic argument is that individuals are better at picking where to live and work than any centralized government planner. Evacuees know their own wishes, skills and opportunities.

Besides, if you're going to bet on place, Professor Glaeser said in an interview, New Orleans is probably not the right place to be betting on. It's a mid-19th-century city built around a tremendous water-based advantage of the mid-19th century, not around any kind of advantage of use in the 21st century.

The port is economically vibrant, but it employs fewer than 7,500 people, most of them highly skilled. The oil and gas industries employ even fewer local residents. Trying to restore the city to its prehurricane state does not offer its displaced residents, particularly the poor, much hope for a better life.

It's just crazy to think that the right insurance mechanism is to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on public infrastructure, Professor Glaeser said in the interview.

In the article, he said: There is a big difference between rebuilding lives and rebuilding communities. Given limited funds, the two objectives may well conflict.

Virginia Postrel (dynamist.com) is the author of The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness.