More of the Same


I sit at my dining room table, looking out at the back yard. Right now, skies
are blue and it is sunny - but big rains are predicted this afternoon. But,
looking out it's as if nothing has happened these 3-1/2 months. I dread going
out in the city - there's a funny feeling about. People have no patience -
they drive more aggressively than usual. And, venturing out of this
neighborhood really brings on a depression which is palpable.

Will the government provide levee protection? Will neighborhoods rebuild? What
kind of city will New Orleans become? Was this hurricane just the culminating
step in a gradual fall from grace which has been going on for years?

I think we need to think about starting from scratch - forget about federal aid
and build a new city on the old - without levee protection - gradually growing
over the ruins of the old city - keeping whatever we can of what was valuable
before. So many of the flooded areas added population but did not really
contribute to the city's urban strength - I'm thinking of Lakeview, etc. and
hoping that the personal tragedies of the people who built there will be, at
least to a workable extent, compensated for (*), there can be a rebuilding but
not one that reproduces the block upon block of suburban sprawl. We will see.