Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Richard Campanella has come up with an agreeable system to sort out reconstruction on New Orleans. Its almost too simple. Here a summary...

Step 1. Determine who wants to return
Step 2. Determine the structural safety of buildings
Step 3. Determine historical/architectural significance of buildings
Step 4. Determine the environmental safety of neighborhoods
Step 5. Combine the above geographically and work in areas that can be made safe and valuable to people who want to return to them.

This summary of his proposed framework neglects the overarching reality of the future safety of levees and if America wants to keep New Orleans.

We're fighting two wars at a cost of $200 billion plus (so far) to prevent the unthinkable; a terrorist destruction of a major American city. Why can't we focus on resurrecting New Orleans?