It is my understanding that when first built, the city was not as low-lying; it has been slowly sinking. Considering most of its base is/was delta silt, it adds credence to the image by the Engineer Corps.

Coastlines will and do re-arrange themselves. As we are an adaptable species, I'd suggest we let them and stop with the 'beach renourishment', etc. Perhaps if the people who wanted to inhabit such areas were left to themselves fund their indulgences, wiser heads would prevail; we seem to be smarter with our own pocketbooks.

I recall an article I read years ago, it stated there were 5 Nations in the world who produce more food than they consume

The United States,
Canada, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia.

The Port of New Orleans is a vital link in the world's food supply we cannot afford to place it where it is going to continually be in jepardy.

My understanding is that there is no high ground until you get about 100 miles north of New Orleans.
Parts of New Orleans are below sea level but all of New Orleans is below the Mississippi River. The Missisisippi River is the high point in New Orleans. We do need a port in New Orleans but thats all we need there.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - President Bush promised Thursday night the government will pay most of the costs of rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen. "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again," the president said.
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050916/D8CL4MK00.html
-----------------------------------

AID is one thing, but "rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen" is taking it a bit too far IMO..

I can see it now, billions of TAX dollars, yours and mine, being poured in to an area that IS going to get hit by another freaking hurricane, and God forbid it's a Cat 4 or 5 because ALL that TAX money will be washed right out into the freaking Gulf of Mexico...

I have pretty much been in agreement with Pres. Bush until now, but THIS is a crock of shit...

Louisiana is my HOME state, I was born and raised there but had the good sense to leave, and there comes a time when you just have to make a decision and figure it out, and New orleans IS a bad idea in it's present location IMO...

Just because an idea seems stupid doesn't mean that someone won't try it. I absolutely agree with everybody that say that rebuilding New Orleans where it is currently is stupid but... Probably the same thing was said to the people that built the dikes and levees which keep the North Sea from inudating the Netherlands. Venice, Italy has some of the same problems as New Orleans but few suggest that the city be moved to higher ground. I guess that I have trust in human ingenuity to come up with a solution to the New Orleans delta problem.

Rebuilding NO would be an idiotic waste of money. Which is exactly why it will happen.

docdave, you bring up a comparison I've heard a few times before, comparing New Orleans to Venice, Italy.

A few points:

1). The islands that make up Venice are each and every one above seas level. The Italians might be too emotional and socialist for American tastes, but if someone proposed builting a city below sea level there, I'd wager the Italians would have the good sense to string them up like Mussolini.

2). Question: How many hurricanes does Venice experience each year? Answer: Zero. Venice would be flooded and flattened by even a minor hurricane.

As far as the Netherlands go, they had to push back the sea because there was literally nowhere else for them to go. We've got areas of the United States that are so wide open that they will all but pay you to move there.

Perhaps the FRENCH should get their asses over here and "FIX IT" since they are the ones that built it anyway. Shame on them.

Good blog, Confederate Yankee. I spent five years on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and you will never see me building a city there. Hurricanes are inevitable, and it doesn't matter who is President, you are going to get hit hard!

I listened to an interview with a Tulane history professor today who said that, while the French Quarter, the Garden District, and Uptown would recover nicely, he feared that the older, poorer neighborhoods near Lake P. might not return to their original, seedy glory.
Sneeringly he said that the wooden, ramshackle domiciles, which provided the city with its "caribbean flavor" might be replaced with "prefabricated townhomes."
Oh dear. Prefabricated townhomes. They might have indoor plumbing, insulation, or air-conditioning. How dreadful.
I live in the deep South, a region that has, since Reconstruction, hypnotized many with the perceived charms of a low-rent lifestyle. For NO, jazz and blues only intensified these charms; but I wonder how many more people believe that these poor NO communities (which do remind me of Jamaica, except that Jamaica reminds me of the Third World) represent some type of quaint, do-not-disturb habitat whose denizens are the caretakers of the city's soul?
Two quick points about the professor, whose name I don't remember: he's lived in NO for only nine years -- not exactly a life-time resident; and he put his family up in a Houston highrise before the storm hit.

Let's make the N.O. bowl a landfill. In ten or
twenty years, it will be back above sea level.
Then, we can rebuild it.

RE:
Two quick points about the professor, whose name I don't remember: he's lived in NO for only nine years -- not exactly a life-time resident; and he put his family up in a Houston highrise before the storm hit.
Posted by: coffee is for closers at September 16, 2005 09:25 PM

I believe this is Pro Douglas Brinkley you are speaking of
http://www.c-span.org/Search/advanced.asp?AdvancedQueryText=douglas+brinkley&StartDateMonth=&StartDateYear=&EndDateMonth=&EndDateYear=&Series=&ProgramIssue=&QueryType=&QueryTextOptions=&ResultCount=10&SortBy=bestmatch

What would americans do without coffee? Port of NO's is the busiest central point in the entire world, we need to build to support this maritime industry, the trains are now moving, so industry does not suffer in america. I would think building on the far outerbanks of metropolitan NO's would benefit everyone, with an exception of also a new transit system as mentioned above

I'm hoping that these much vaunted promises to rebuild N.O. will just sort of vanish with time. Certainly those parts of historic N.O. that weren't destroyed should be preserved as much as possible, but everything else seems like a waste of taxpayer money. Why build a huge City below water level? It makes sense in Holland, where practically the whole country is below water level and they have few other options aside from simply jettisoning their nation, but we've got a bit of space to spare in the rest of the U.S.

Also, to the extent that N.O. was one of the most crime-ridden cities in the U.S. (the most crime-ridden?), why recreate that magnet. Better to disburse the criminal element, where their lack of population density and their removal from home territory might weaken them.

Travis said:

We do need a port in New Orleans but thats all we need there.

And houses for the port workers. And restaurants for the port workers. And gas stations and grocery stores and department stores for the port workers.

And houses for all those who work in restaurants and gas stations and grocery stores and department stores. And banks for all of those people to put their money. And car dealerships. And insurance agencies. And so on.

Pretty soon you have a city, don't you?

I'm not saying we shouldn't think hard about how and where we rebuild. (For instance, the current Administration proposal to create trailer-park cities is clearly the wrong way to go.) It's just that the Port of New Orleans affects a lot of commerce in this country, and it's very difficult to get those benefits without providing for a city somewhere in that area.

Kenneth Fair said:

It's just that the Port of New Orleans affects a lot of commerce in this country, and it's very difficult to get those benefits without providing for a city somewhere in that area.

Erm... Well, you USED to need a city to run a port, but ports are quite automated nowadays. As proof: New Orleans is still a ghost town, but the Port of New Orleans is back in operation, and has been for awhile. The port employs something like 1000 or so people. With family, and support businesses, that might requite a small town, but not a major city.