Over a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina leveled the Gulf Coast region from New Orleans to Alabama, the cleanup effort and rebuilding process remains as daunting as ever. Nearly 250 students from Marquette and over one million students from around the nation gave up their spring breaks to help with Hurricane Relief. I was one of those students.
It may seem strange that the Gulf would still need volunteers this long after the hurricanes, but the fact is the devastation is as prolific now as it ever was. Instead of flooded cities, there are abandoned cities. Once thriving neighborhoods are now rust-stained graveyards of crumbling brick.
The first question is, why after this long, has the region not recovered? The media has all but given up on covering the story, but it is a story that nonetheless needs to be told. It is a story of mismanaged government finances, a lack of will and creativity and an economic disaster.
The first part of the equation is government financing. When the hurricane first hit New Orleans, the federal government pledged over one hundred billion dollars to rebuild the city. Most of that was dribbled through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and was wasted on useless projects. Massive amounts of government aid have done and will do nothing, though. Private sector volunteering has done much more good than the billions spent by Congress, but there is no unified coordination overseeing that work.
Economies are built from the ground up through supply and demand based private enterprise. Government intervention only creates dead weight loss in the economy. Ideally, a city grows naturally by following that model. But that entire process was short circuited by the hurricane.
Take New Orleans as the example. After Katrina hit, 90 percent of the population left the city. Today, only half have returned. That number is far lower in poorer neighborhoods. Developers aren’t rebuilding because there is no demand for new houses. And people are not coming back because there are no houses.
The houses that still exist in certain areas of the city are unlivable. Even if someone wanted to return to their own home, there is nothing left. The problem is that the population residing in “temporary housing” in Houston or in other shelter cities, still have to pay property tax and even mortgages on homes that may or may not be still standing.
A poignant moment for me came during a tour of New Orleans. We stopped at a corner with four houses. One of them was destroyed. The other was gutted, but no one had returned to fix it. Another was demolished. The fourth had a FEMA trailer sitting in front of it, the owner of the house trying to rebuild his life.
The picture highlights the lack of planning put forth by the city. New Orleans cannot survive if only one in four houses is rebuilt. It’s just not feasible, restoring all the electricity and water services
for such small density residential areas.
What the city should do is take extreme measures and bomb abandoned neighborhoods. Invoke eminent domain, pay the former residents fair market value by taking out federally subsidized loans and demolish miles and miles of New Orleans. Reduce the destroyed areas to flat land and start fresh. Make it a fireworks show even. Give it a catchy name like “New Orleans: Phoenix from the flood.” It’s a
developers dream come true.
This plan would free former residents from the burden of property taxes and mortgages. It puts choice back in the hands of the people, and allows for brand new low and medium density residential
neighborhoods. It would also create jobs.
Is this plan absurd? Of course. Will it ever happen? Of course not. It’s too politically incorrect and far too controversial. But it’s the kind of creative problem solving and solution finding not going on in the government. This is where you can help. Go on a mission trip this summer to the gulf coast with MARDI GRAS. Make a difference where the government has failed. This is your country too. Take responsibility for it.
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