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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (55952)	1/24/2006 2:43:49 AM
From: elpolvo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362428

Rebuilding New Orleans Into the Venice of the Gulf This may seem like a totally mad idea, but given the current situation and looking to the future where we can expect higher sea levels and possibly more intense tropical storms, I’d like to suggest to the powers-that-be that they consider turning New Orleans into the Venice of the Gulf. The city is virtually surrounded by water and has for three centuries resisted the natural forces of nature with artificial levies and dikes and massive, energy-intensive pumps. Maybe it’s time the city decided to work with nature instead of against it. The city that would become Venice, Italy was founded in the early 5th century on the northern Italian coast of the Adriatic Sea. It would grow from a series of marsh villages in the seventh century as Italians fled Barbarian invaders. The Doge government that would rule the city for the next thousand years was established in 726. It would become one of the dominate political and military powers in the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. Today, while the population of Venice has shrunk from 175,000 in the 1950’s to 40,000 in 2000, tourism has soared to an estimated 15 million this year. But this does come at a cost, as a UNESCO report points out. And climate change is also taking its toll on the Italian city, with high tides and storms causing periodic flooding. A series of massive tide control gates may improve the situation, but only illustrate that man’s efforts to hold back nature can only accomplish so much. If New Orleans is to enjoy another three centuries of active life, then federal, state and city leaders need to consider a plan that would start with building a central island around its downtown, using debris from the clean up to shore up this island and get ground level far enough above sea level to prevent massive loss of life and property from future Category 4 and 5 storms. Gradually, the central island can be expanded to include canals and foot bridges, with light rail or similar mass transit linking the airport and other outlying regions of the city. Imagine a reborn New Orleans built on a beautiful series islands that, like Venice, is walkable, linked by water taxis and light rail/trolley systems. It would be a New Orleans to rival its Italian counterpart, but better prepared to shelter its inhabitants and visitors from the vicissitudes of future climate change. Such a plan might take a century to realize, but then Venice wasn’t build in a day, either. evworld.com