[StBernard] What Houston thinks

[Westley Annis]

  I thought you would all find this "amusing". CityBusiness published this
on-line today:

Architect envisions larger New Orleans
By CityBusiness staff report

2006-04-06 3:31 PM CST

HOUSTON - Southeast Louisiana residents living in low-lying communities
might want to relocate to a more densely populated New Orleans, a member of
the American Society of Landscape Architects said today.

Kevin Shanley, who lives in Houston and grew up in California, said with sea
levels rising and Louisiana's coastal areas sinking, increasing the
boundaries of New Orleans so more people can live there is not a bad idea.

"Let's at least let people know the tide is rising, and in this generation
or the next they're probably going to want to move, and let's plan for that.
The city' footprint might need to be larger," said Shanley, who supports
rebuilding New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The sea level is expected to rise an estimated 3 feet over the next 50
years, Shanley said. ?

Obviously, this landscape architect is accustomed to Houston which has
annexed one small town or city continuously over the past decades to grow
into this huge metro area and thinks that is the solution here-just expand
the legal boundaries of New Orleans and annex surrounding the surrounding
parishes, then we shuffle ourselves around and live on the high ground in
the new New Orleans.

This seems pointless to say the least. Any of the surrounding parishes' 
citizens can move wherever they want within or outside their current parish,
because last time I checked this is still America. Also, it seems that the
larger and more populated a city or town is, the more tangled it gets in
recovery.  If you think we are recovering too slowly in St. Bernard, talk to
my friends and co-workers in New Orleans who were devastated like us, and
hear them say, "At least you're in St. 
Bernard."  New Orleans is so diverse politically, economically, socially,
religiously, racially, ethnically, that getting anything done seems
impossible because they can't get a consensus. The are divided, not
diversified among their citizens and their leadership.

A more thought provoking idea would have been a suggestion that Algiers
secede from N.O.,  and so would the Garden District, French Quarter,
Gentilly, Lakeview, etc. Then they could do things on their own and not
fight among the neighborhoods and councilmen.

Interesting how people elsewhere think they have all the answers and we're
all too dense to figure it out.

Ddk