Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Rebuilding NO as what?

Joel Kotkin:

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Now New Orleans must decide how to be reborn. Its choices could foretell the future of urbanism.

The sheer human tragedy — and the fact that the Gulf Coast is critical to the nation' s economy as well as the Republican Party's base — guarantee that there will be money to start the project. Private corporations, churches and nonprofits will pitch in with the government.

But what kind of city will the builders create on the sodden ruins?

The wrong approach would be to preserve a chimera of the past, producing a touristic faux New Orleans, a Cajun Disneyland.

Sadly, even before Hurricane Katrina's devastation, local leaders seemed convinced that being a "port of cool" should be the city's policy. Adopting a page from Richard Florida's "creative class" theory, city leaders held a conference just a month before the disaster promoting a cultural strategy as the primary way to bring in high-end industry.

This would be the easy, bankable way to go now: Reconstruct the French Quarter, Garden District and other historic areas while sprucing up the convention center and other tourist facilities. This, however, would squander a greater opportunity. A tourism-based economy is no way to generate a broadly successful economy.

For decades before this latest hurricane, public life, including the police force, were battered by corruption and eroded by inefficiency. Now Katrina has brought into public view the once-invisible masses of desperately poor people whom New Orleans' tourist economy and political system have so clearly failed.

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Look a few hundred miles to the west, at Houston — a well-run city with a widely diversified economy. Without much in the way of old culture, charm or tradition, it has far outshone New Orleans as a beacon for enterprising migrants from other countries as well as other parts of the United States — including New Orleans.

Houston has succeeded by sticking to the basics, by focusing on the practical aspects of urbanism rather than the glamorous. Under the inspired leadership of former Mayor Bob Lanier and the current chief executive, Bill White, the city has invested heavily in port facilities, drainage, sanitation, freeways and other infrastructure.

At least in part as a result of this investment, this superficially less-than-lovely city has managed to siphon industries — including energy and international trade — from New Orleans. With its massive Texas Medical Center, it has emerged as the primary healthcare center in the Caribbean basin — something New Orleans, with Tulane University's well-regarded medical school, should have been able to pull off.

I think Houston is a very attractive city. Apparently many of the evacuees do to. One of the problems New Orleans is going to have is getting many of the people back. They are in diverse locations and see clean cities that manage to operate without corruption and that offer a better standard of living since money is not being siphoned off to the corrupt. It would not be surprising to see New Orleans lose half its population after it is rebuilt, what ever model they chose.