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Most of us are sadly undereducated about American history.
Seattle was plagued by disease, because "downtown" was built on the waterfront at sea level and raw sewage had no place to go. The town fathers decided to raise the street level by one full story, the residents didn't agree. The town fathers built walls along the sidewalks, raised the streets, and left the residents to move their front entrances if they didn't follow along. Today, this has resulted in "underground Seattle", a whole subterranean second level below where the streets and sidewalks are today.
PS, the city boomed after the street level was raised and modern plumbing installed, so the sewage could run downhill.
Then there's Chicago, which was built as a trading post in a swamp. Chicago had similar problems but after the Chicago fire, the merchants decided to raise what was left, and fill over what burned, again raising the "downtown" street level nearly a full storey. Chicago never looked back.
New Orleans? Hell, sell the po folks swampland, let it flood, then whine for federal dollars to help them rebuild on the same bottomlands again. The town fathers in New Orleans figure, whyu spend their own money to fix the problem, when there's so many other folks can be ripped off rebuilding things in a way guaranteed to make it flood out again.
I'm sorry, I pity the fools in New Orleans, but every time I see them rebuuilding, I'm reminded of a kid slapping himself in the face and saying "Don't do that!" to himself. Rebuilding without raising the ground level is simply idiocy. Spending federal money on it is double idiocy. Programs like Habitat mean well--but they should be required to add twenty feet of fill, or build dutch-style flood control systems BEFORE they're allowed to rebuild any homes.
Probably the best thing that could happen in NO is for the city to get flooded out three years in row, by a Cat4 each year. Maybe then they'd figure out that unless they change the way they build--nothing is going to change.
Seatlle figured it out. Chicago figured it out. New York, London, Rome, many great cities figured out they had a fire problem (they've all been burned down) and afterwards, banned the type of construction (wood) that led to the mass fires.
New Orleans? What is this, evolution in action?
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