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Why rebuild New Orleans?                                                                                    

Posted at: Jul/08/2009 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: Perspectives,

After the destruction caused by hurricane Katrina in late August of 2005 there has been a lot of debate on rebuilding New Orleans. As of this writing we are nearing the fourth anniversary of the hurricane, and there is still a lot of reconstruction left. There have been many articles on what makes New Orleans special and why or why not to rebuild. It seem time for me to congeal a few thoughts on the subject.

Much of why we do what we do is built around historical prescient, so I need do a little history lesson. The city of New Orleans is located on the Mississippi River about 100 miles north the Gulf of Mexico. Before the arrival of Europeans in the 1500s Louisiana was home to the a variety of Indian tribes including Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Natchez. The French explorer Robert Cavelier sailed down the Mississippi River in 1682 and claimed the entire river basin for France. This claim consisted of roughly the central third of the present-day United States. In honor of French king Louis XIV this vast tract of land was named Louisiana. In 1701 the territory was formally made a province of France and the French began settling Louisiana in 1714. During the next 75 years the territory traded hands a variety of times from France, to Spain, and back to France.

By 1800 the economic and strategic importance of New Orleans became clear as French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte exhibited an interest in reacquiring Louisiana from Spain. The American farming expansion westward had shown the value of transporting farm goods down the Mississippi River to the warehouses of New Orleans' prior to transshipping it to the countries of Europe. President Thomas Jefferson recognized that the French presence would eventually obstruct further westward settlement by the United States' farming population. Jefferson observed that there was "one spot" on the face of the earth the possessor of which automatically became "our natural . . . enemy." That spot was New Orleans because of its chokehold on U.S. western river traffic.

In the Battle of New Orleans the U.S. troops under the command of Andrew Jackson captured New Orleans in a decisive victory. Controlling New Orleans meant controlling all of the Louisiana Territory, as a result the French sold the balance of the Territory to the United States for a mere $15 Million virtually doubling the size of the country.

The strategic importance of New Orleans and of the traffic along the Mississippi River shaped its military importance during the American Civil War. Early in the war Union forces established a blockade of southern ports and, under the command of David Farragut, captured New Orleans on April 25, 1862. For the remainder of the war the Union forces controlled New Orleans, thus preventing the Confederates from receiving provisions and military hardware from its largest port.

As mentioned earlier the city is located below sea level between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, so the city is surrounded by levees. Until the early 20th century, construction was largely limited to the slightly higher ground along old natural river levees and bayous, since much of the rest of the land was swampy and subject to frequent flooding. This gave the 19th century city the shape of a crescent following the bend of the Mississippi river and is the origin of the nickname “The Crescent City”. In the early part of the 20th century inventor and engineer A. Baldwin Wood implemented his ambitious plan to drain the city utilizing large pumps and an elaborate system of drainage canals. The success of A. Baldwin Wood’s ideas allowed the city to greatly expand its area.

During the past 75 years New Orleans and its refinery industry has become the source for approximately 20% of our domestic petroleum products. Additionally, during the last 50 years the city has also evolved to become a center for tourism. With its special blend of cultures New Orleans has developed a unique style of food and architecture which in concert with its tropical weather make it a popular tourist destination. Portions of the French Quarter and Central Business District which were long oriented towards local residential and business uses have evolved to now largely cater to this same tourist industry.

That read like a blending of a history lesson and a tourist brochure, now for the present. There was an earthquake in San Francisco a few years ago that caused significant damage including toppling a portion of the Bay Bridge. Within a years there was virtually no overt signs of the damage left. A couple of years after that was the Northridge quake in the Los Angeles area. Despite the devastation to infrastructure including freeways, a year later you would be hard pressed to find any indications of the earthquake.

Four years ago Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the gulf coast near the city of New Orleans. In the aftermath of the storm, what has been called "the largest civil engineering disaster in the history of the United States". Flood and wind damage devastated the majority of the city when the levee and floodwall system protecting New Orleans failed along with surrounding communities in the gulf coast region. I am more confused and frustrated by the lack of progress at rebuilding the region considering our success at rebuilding after other natural disasters. Some of my research points blame at FEMA and other Federal Government response efforts. Some research points to the regional government at the community and state levels for the failure. Of course there is also the finger pointing at the insurance industry. I suspect there is plenty of blame to go around, my bigger concern now is how the discussion has shifted.

There are those who argue that because New Orleans is effectively built on a swamp near the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, it is doomed to similar disasters in the future and should not be rebuilt.

So now we are back to the meat of my commentary, “Why Rebuild New Orleans”. There is no doubt that spending tax dollars on tourist destinations is not a good use of limited resources. Losing the refinery industry of Louisiana caused a significant impact to the price of gas, but gas can be had from other sources. What I have tried to point out here is the real and critical importance of New Orleans. If you look at a map of the United States you will see that the region from the Rocky Mountains to the Adirondacks is the agricultural heart of the country. More importantly, these farming goods from more than a third of the United States are easily and economically transported upon harvest via barge system to the port of New Orleans. The Port of New Orleans is the 4th busiest port in the world, and the busiest in the United States. The statistics for the tonnage of farm goods going to the rest of the world is staggering. This same river and barge system makes New Orleans our primary port for the imports of steel, coffee and rubber to our industrial base.

There is no doubt that New Orleans is positioned where it will be damaged again by hurricanes. Natural disasters of all flavors happen all across the globe on a regular basis. The Crescent City is far to critical a resource to the United States and to the world for its recovery to even be open to debate. Even if the future of New Orleans is exclusively as a transshipping center, we cannot allow its reconstruction for this purpose to falter. Despite the hurdles, the Mississippi river system with its key gulf port cannot be treated as anything less than a strategic resource. Andrew Jackson was right when he referred to New Orleans as “the Jewel of the Louisiana Territory.”

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