Courtesy of the NYTimes: Plan Would Open All New Orleans for Rebuilding
Sounds like they’re gonna go with the Canizaro Plan… and in a year, if your neighborhood doesn’t “come back” well enough, you’re outta there.
There’s a technical phrase for this kind of problem-solving: “Ignore it; maybe it’ll go away”
High-level problem-solving
Another problem, by giving neighborhoods a year to come back the plan effectively says that only the more well-off or desirable areas will be resettled. Rightly or not, that’s bound to bring up race and class issues. Also, how broadly does it define neighborhood? If a small area block comes back in the middle of a largely deserted area, will it be condemned? For this non-plan to be fair, it would have to put off decisions for over a year. Who wants that?
I don’t know that I totally object to this plan, actually, but I liked it better when the time span was longer than a year. It used to be 3 years.
It strikes a balance between the ULI plan (“here’s where you can live, here’s where you can’t, aren’t we so smart”) and the sort of endlessly drawn-out spotty rebuilding that would lead to blight if things were just left wide open.
But I think a year is too short. And the clock shouldn’t start ticking on a neighborhood until progress is made on levees and debris removal. At the rate things are going, they aren’t even gonna have that barge removed from the Lower Ninth a year from now, and you can’t really blame somebody for not wanting to rebuild on a street with a barge on it.
or you could call this plan: “the no plan at all” plan…
the ULI plan was done by professionals… had some faults, but it was open to debate. the future of a city’s urbanism cannot be left to politicians, or even to the residents. A non-political, professional and objective group can be appointed and be given real power… but the mayor and the governor need balls for that and some legislative action has to give it power. it might hurt some areas residents, but it would ensure the city’s overall revival.
Fundamentally, I see the Canizaro Plan as a stall. Basically, the same battles would be fought in a year – or three years.
Let’s assume – just for discussion – that the Ninth Ward doesn’t “make the cut” for redevelopment. Can you imagine the dust that will be kicked up after a year of partial rebuilding?
This whole argument is likely to hang in the courts forever without something less… nebulous.