News

“We are about to lose New Orleans.” So said the New York Times on Sunday. All over New Orleans people read the editorial and nodded their heads. They copied it into e-mails and forwarded it to friends—both here and elsewhere. “Did you see the editorial?”, we asked each other. While it certainly isn’t uplifting news, many of us were just happy that the plight of the city - and the very tenuous nature of the “recovery” - was getting some high-profile coverage.

Last week we learned that of the $19 billion in Federal spending on the “recovery,” $4.6 billion - yes, $4,600,000,000 - went to Administrative Overhead. This is especially hard to take for those of us living amongst the piles of rotting garbage and debris. It is hard not only because we are forced to navigate squalor on every trip out of the house, but hard also because we know that across the country people are looking at the money being spent and soon they will tire of sending more. If the city still looks like a war zone, they will attribute it to our corruption, laziness, and inability to get things done. And while there is truth to the charges of corruption (as we have [discussed before](/news/dont-be-mad-at-the-mirror)), those of us here in the city understand that the situation is more complex than that. Let’s just say that combining Federal inaction and indifference with outright disaster profiteering has not produced a model Public/Private Partnership—to use the parlance of the day.

Nevertheless, despite the lack of leadership and vision, good ideas are surfacing and deserve our attention and consideration. Geographer Richard Campanella has offered a proposed [Methodology for Reconstruction](http://www.reconstructno.org/Campanella_A_Proposed_Reconstruction_Methodology-1.pdf). In this paper, Campanella outlines a method that we as a community could use to help us make informed decisions about the future of the city. It offers one potential path out of the morass of politics and emotion.

Campanella’s methodology could in fact act as a sort of base layer for community members and policy experts. Discussions of affordable housing, small business investment, and infrastructure could then reference its conclusions so that resources could be wisely invested. For example, Alan Drake has proposed a [Grand Boulevard Strategy](/letters/grand-boulevards-strategy-transportation-postkatrina) for investment in transportation infrastructure that includes streetcars as well as pedestrian and bicycle amenities. This proposal could be evaluated and prioritized relative to the data generated by Campanella’s methodology.

Another intriguing idea came in the form of a proposal from Czech bus manufacturer [Skoda to the New Orleans RTA](http://www.urbanconservancy.org/letters/skoda-letter-to-rta). Skoda proposes replacing the destroyed fleet of dirty diesel busses with cleaner [electric trolly busses](http://www.skoda.cz/produkty.asp?Q853A=C0J2P1T1K61S342ID5078). As part of the arrangement Skoda would buid and donate the electric infrastructure. More important, however, Skoda would like to establish a factory in Orleans Parish to assemble these trolley buses for New Orleans and other cities. If executed well, this could allow New Orleans to become an exporter of electric trolly busses to other cities around the country — adding good jobs and helping to diversify our overly service and tourism-based economy.

Small but hopeful steps as we rebuild our city.

Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans | Transportation