Creole Disneyland
The only pumps which survived the hurricane are the ones built in the 1920s.
Then, people believed in cities.
Reagan's tax revolution has gutted cities'infrastructure, and privatized development such that no infrastructure exists except in wealthy neighborhoods. It is based on the idea that cities are immoral. One example of the pro-cities infrastructure philosophy, argues the author, is the WPA seawall along the southern edge of the lake, as well as the old pump house, and the man, Kevin Martin, who kept those pumps going before the man-made failure of the floodwalls swept them all away.
Gated communities, riverwalks which are malls invented by single developers, convention centers, casinos, are the Faustian bargain the Reagan tax revolution struck. The Potemkin village aspect of the restored houses in humbler neighborhoods, the pushing of the black people of the French quarter into the Iberville projects, had already gutted New Orleans of its culture. Budget cutbacks and corruption felled the levee.
Katrina was the last straw. Now entrepeneurs sit in the deserted sidewalk cafes saying it would be better -- this is a joke, like Bennett's about how crime rates would fall were all black babies aborted -- if the flooded neighborhoods were turned into golf courses.
And so it is.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/arts/design/09ouro.html
Then, people believed in cities.
Reagan's tax revolution has gutted cities'infrastructure, and privatized development such that no infrastructure exists except in wealthy neighborhoods. It is based on the idea that cities are immoral. One example of the pro-cities infrastructure philosophy, argues the author, is the WPA seawall along the southern edge of the lake, as well as the old pump house, and the man, Kevin Martin, who kept those pumps going before the man-made failure of the floodwalls swept them all away.
Gated communities, riverwalks which are malls invented by single developers, convention centers, casinos, are the Faustian bargain the Reagan tax revolution struck. The Potemkin village aspect of the restored houses in humbler neighborhoods, the pushing of the black people of the French quarter into the Iberville projects, had already gutted New Orleans of its culture. Budget cutbacks and corruption felled the levee.
Katrina was the last straw. Now entrepeneurs sit in the deserted sidewalk cafes saying it would be better -- this is a joke, like Bennett's about how crime rates would fall were all black babies aborted -- if the flooded neighborhoods were turned into golf courses.
And so it is.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/arts/design/09ouro.html