There's been a boomlet of blog posts and articles lately from conservatives and libertarians professing the idea that the small-scale successes in New Orleans' recovery are good evidence not just for the ideals of self reliance and bottom-up initiative (which they certainly are), but for the idea that all you need to rebuild the city is elbow grease. Get the government (and unions) out of the way, and watch wonderful things happen -- proving that government is the problem.
The most compelling of these is a piece in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. It's filled with examples of how, given the fumbling redevelopment efforts of the city government, most of the reconstruction has been accomplished by residents and NGOs. Their creative efforts, accomplished in the face of endless red tape and wrongheaded urban planning, are indeed a bright spot, a good harbinger for the city's future. For example:
Architect Byron Mouton is finding that his middle-class and affluent clients are doing the different in pursuit of the practical. In Gentilly, a neighborhood of mostly twentieth-century homes that took seven feet of water, one client, an artist, wanted a new flood-resistant house like the one his neighbor is building, with a bottom floor raised at least a story off the ground, but couldn't afford the $30,000 to $40,000 extra charge. The architect's solution: a "disposable" first floor that the client will use for nonessential purposes. In Mouton's design, the second floor contains the kitchen, art studio, and living space, as well as an ample porch so that the artist won't be cut off from the outdoors. In other twentieth-century neighborhoods, some homeowners are similarly designing ground floors as "floodable" car garages or children's play spaces.
There are lessons here on the nature of post-disaster recovery and the role of government: Sometimes it's better for the planners to get out of the way. (This Gambit post gets into some of that.) Unfortunately, the piece way overreaches; it becomes a tendentious attempt to impose a libertarian ideal on a place that no amount of individual effort or entrepreneurship alone will fix. Here's the piece's framing paragraph:
New Orleanians have achieved much of this success by doing what New Yorkers couldn't do after 9/11: ignoring the potentates and eggheads hankering to turn devastation into conceptual art. They've been building and rebuilding on their own or with small-scale help, rather than under top-down decree--and, in the process, showing that thousands of individual planners are better than one master.
Yes, government at all levels has failed New Orleans. And individuals have done their best to make up for it, often with minimal government support and a great deal of government interference. But that doesn't mean those people wouldn't be a lot better off with a government that actually was working to help them.
The basic predicament of New Orleans -- its siting, mostly below sea level, on an eroding, hurricane-prone river delta -- is extraordinary and requires a sustained national, i.e., federal, commitment. Without one, the city may not even be there in 100 years. But it's not getting it. (Even the 17th Street canal floodwalls are still, ominously, leaking.) Any long-term planning for the city should be looking at ways to tie flood control structures into a single system, and integrate that with the urban landscape, with neighborhoods and homes. This includes things like the drainage canals running along backyards, evacuation routes, and emergency planning. In other words, New Orleans must be seen as a whole, part of a larger environment. If that's going to happen, it desperately needs more competent government and better urban planning -- not less. Personal initiative is great, but it only gets you so far in an age of global warming.
The author attacks urban planners for paternalistic social engineering, but then falls into the same trap, treating New Orleans as a kind of grand libertarian experiment, the the proverbial clean slate in which all social structures are literally washed away and people start fresh. This is a romantic but wrongheaded notion. New Orleans is indeed a grand, improvised experiment. But it does the city and its people a disservice to pat them on the back and say, hey, great job you're doing all on your own -- let's keep it that way.
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Sure they would. But where do you find a government like that?
By design, government isn't really built for helping. It is not a charity, it is the authorization of power. Great for fighting wars, and enforcing laws, not so good at the social architecture. Those who rise to Government office are not always the noble caring types, they tend to be power-hungry little dictators.
It's why t\he levees failed in the first place, officeholders had a lot better places to spend the moneys allocated for levee reconstruction. So the funds disappeared into a maze of patronage, and corruption. The people in New Orleans and Louisiana governments were more intent on keeping their cushy jobs, than actually working for the people.
That's usually what happens. "Working for the people" is more a campaign promise, than an actual moral code. An Altruistic Government is a really nice concept, but it rarely exists outside of the theoretical.
Libertarians understand that. They don't pretend that politicians are good decent people, and hope that only the good ones get elected, and pray they won't squander their trust, Libertarians assume that every single human is an evil greedy tyrant, and the ones in office are not the best people, just the most successful tyrants.
Rather than ignore that reality, they prefer to hobble the government., and harness the energy of greed.
Hard to blame government generally for the failings of the Corp to perform its duties under the terms of its contract. The levees failed because they were built badly.
Look all over Iraq for examples of private enterprise at work to discover that apart from pocketing zillions, the private sector is at least as incapable of doing anything right as anybody in government.
Nearly every year, a hurricane races up the length of Florida and knocks over a quantity of housing, which is then built right back without much complaint from anybody except insurers, who have largely bailed from the region. Now the Feds offer insurance, and pays when the inevitable happens yet again. Where is the groundswell in the public discourse for the redesign of Florida? Where are all the learned experts who say we'd be better off letting the coast of the state revert to wetlands, given the likelihood of future disasters? Why then, in contrast, does New Orleans seem so attractive to the tinkerers and planners? Because the sub-theme of so much commentary on this subject is the spurious trope of Black incompetence and irresponsibility, from which the mostly white commentators would like to save the nation from having to witness again, even if it means depriving a population of its habitat for reasons they never seem interested to apply elsewhere.
russia tried some form of pure capitalism and all it did was create a few billionaires.
americans were sold a bill of goods with reagan's trickle down theory and deregulation and it will wipe out the middle class.
Carry on.
Ask yourself: Would anything like Katrina have even been a problem for the Dutch levees?
And if somehow the dikes were breached, how long would it take them to decide to repair the damage?
You look at New Orleans - even today - and you realize we are more like Burma than the Netherlands.
I think it still might be posted at their website.
Hartmann has also spoken about these recruitment operations. They openly explain to the illegals that they don't have to worry about US law cause they will supply transportation and the rest of their needs.
Hey they are good businessmen right ?
It is simply a large social project used to funnel tax dollars to special interests under the cloak of "helping the poor people" Over 50 years ago, the Core of Engineers knew New Orleans is not sustainable, nor the current course of the river. Congress in their wisdom ordered the Core to stop nature and keep the river in place. You know mother nature will win in the end. She always does.
The real Libertarian experiment would be to see if people would really choose to spend their own money to live below sea level, in the path of hurricanes, on a river that wants to move elsewhere.
You think 5$ a gallon gas is high? You think bread is high? You think seafood is expensive? Let's all go Libertarian, why don't we, and see just how high prices can go!
New Orleans was neglected and forgotten for decades by this government.
High crime and murder rates, deep poverty and a crumbling education system and economy existed before the storm.
How dare we allow such things to exist in America?
Driven by politics, racism, economics and history we have always allowed New Orleans to exist in a state of disrepair.
Shame on America for not demanding more for our citizens.
Shame on all of us for not speaking out.
I was there this year and very little has been accomplished. The city is dry and recovering but there should be an swarm of federal engineers, funding and assistance in the city. There is not.
Instead we are planning on spending $3,000,000,000,000.00 in Iraq after destroying that society instead of investing in our own.
The war is illegal and immoral. Those who choose to contribute to it and profit by it are immoral as well.
Stop the war. Do not support it. Speak out.
Build OUR country and help our people first.
Semper fi
And how about the brave congressman from New Orleans, William Jefferson? His selfish, corrupt actions may have led to the deaths of many as he diverted National Guard resources to save his precious, frozen $90,000. If the Federal Prosecutors don’t nail him, surly God will when his time comes. Meanwhile, you liberals continue to blame Bush for the disaster while ignoring the true villains of this national tragedy. Shame on all of you!
The federal government has abandoned us, lets get rid of them and keep our oil profits.
if first you don't seceded, try, try again!
Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia -- an essential bit of writing to understand the current oligarchs
But I know what you are getting at... and it's BESIDE THE POINT!
GOD BLESS NEW ORLEANS.
The sacrificial first floor ("basement") of the house I grew up in flooded in the Great Flood of 1927, but its second story living quarters were untouched and unaffected. Too bad this design ever fell out of favor, but great that it's coming back! It's a wonderful way to live with nature instead of against her.