The worst-case scenario for New Orleans was never that it wouldn’t be “chocolate” enough, or that it would be too rich because all the poor would be forced out.
It was that people would just give up.
NOLA's worst-case scenario
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It’s so bad here.. I’m thinking of moving to Conroe… 🙁
Oh my.
Conroe????
Well, at least it isn’t Tomball… or Vidor.
I hear, though, that Marfa may be the “next big thing”.
Even so… it is sad to see NOLA slipping away like this.
~EdT.
NOLA still has what, some 200,00 people there? That’s not a small city. Let’s say half of those people leave. That’s still not exactly small. It would be compared to the four times as many people that lived there a couple years ago. But if you removed the unemployed and the uninterested from the town then maybe that’s all it could seriously support.
It is sad to see any town lose so many people. But NOLA is just in a situation I would call “settling” where it will lose people down to a certain number, but not all of them. Countless towns in American history had relatively large populations for their time and then some economic misfortune dried the town up. New railroads, interstate highways, or loss of the single job factory have reduced towns down to less than a thousand people. But NOLA is not in that position unless all of the things it provided as a city have been replaced.
IIRC, the population of NOLA pre-Katrina was in the range of 450,000 — this means that it has lost 50% of its population. Take away another 100,000 and it would be at roughly 1/4 of its former population – which for a city of that size means that you can pretty much forget about “revitalization”, since there aren’t enough folks left to provide a decent tax base. My guess is that, if this happens, the whole tourism industry (which, along with the port, is pretty much the economic base of the city) goes down the crapper, effectively burying it.
At that point, you just bring the bulldozers in and level what buildings are left, and let Mother Nature reclaim the land.
As Polimom said over at TMV,
~EdT.
There are parts of the city that need to be bulldozed. Not saying that it can legally be done but in order to rebuild you can’t have partially destroyed structures here and there.
Of course for NOLA to rebuild they need leadership from the mayor and the governor. Sadly that’s lacking.
Looks Like I’ll stay.. A challenge to life is better than Conroe…. Happy Mardi Gras. every one.. 🙂