Should New Orleans Be Rebuilt?

Cities, it turns out, tend to get rebuilt no matter what. But what will the new New Orleans look like? Will it be the same city?

1 minute read

September 5, 2005, 1:00 PM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

"...Once people do return to ravaged cities ''there's often a rush to rebuild way too quickly," before there's been much discussion about what exactly is being built.

...Though no one is eager to talk about the situation in New Orleans as anything but an epic tragedy, planners and architects agree that, historically, devastation has often created an opening to address deep and long-standing structural problems. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, for example, the city was transformed from a wooden to a (far less flammable) brick one.

...if enormous swathes are effectively rendered useless--then what is one rebuilding? Why rebuild it if it's below sea level?... The details of such a plan would be devilishly complex, and would raise questions from the practical (where to put it?) to the almost philosophical (would it still be the same city?)."

FULL STORY: The city that will be

Monday, September 5, 2005 in The Boston Globe

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