Not Going to Happen
The pipe dream of the Gulf Coast.
There have been dozens of ideas, programs, promises, and claims about the glorious rebirth of both New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf coast. The most exciting of these is the Congress for New Urbanism’s detailed master plans for several towns in Mississippi, while the most famous is probably credit-card George’s promise to make everything as good as new in the Big Easy. None of this is going to happen. It’s not some conspiracy, it’s just the impersonal forces in play.
Cities (and towns) are built by economies, and the gulf hasn’t had a healthy one in some time. It’s worth remembering that the most iconic parts of the gulf were built up when the river-borne economy was massively more important (and profitable) than it is today. Not only did much of this area have a high poverty rate (implying a lack of productive employment) already, but its economy was disproportionately invested in businesses that were located there because they were forbidden elsewhere. It’s never a good sign when someone locates a firm there because it’s the only place that they can. The nostalgia of the walkable small town (however much I personally might like it) is difficult to execute in San Diego or San Jose, where there’s no shortage of affluent lifestyle-seekers; in a town of casino employees, the premium of making a place pleasant rather that minimally functional represents an even greater share of income than the better-off denizens of a Seaside or a Celebration (Florida) pay now. Good towns are expensive towns. Expensive towns take high incomes.
Another concept to keep in mind is the insurance difference between value (I think that’s the term) and replacement cost. Much of the destroyed area that made the region architecturally distinctive was the eighteenth and nineteenth century indigenous building built up over the passage of time. The components of this wonderful building were natural materials worked by skilled artisans. In the here and now, both natural materials (do you have rail-and-panel anything where you live?) and skilled labor have become (in a relative sense) far and away more expensive. We’re talking about custom-fabrication here. Even if the resources were there to replicate it, is it realistic to expect families below the median income to allocate their funds that way, especially when so many of them have had their very subsistence thrown into questions? Even if the displaced were willing to approve the bill, can a regulator or insurer really approve a transaction paying out several times what the existing property was worth? Even in good condition, an 100-year old house isn’t worth a fraction as much as a new one, for resale reasons alone. Imagine the headlines now: FEMA pays for $30,000 kitchen while children starve in the street.
I’m all for livable, coherent, high-quality community. It’s just not going to happen.
There have been dozens of ideas, programs, promises, and claims about the glorious rebirth of both New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf coast. The most exciting of these is the Congress for New Urbanism’s detailed master plans for several towns in Mississippi, while the most famous is probably credit-card George’s promise to make everything as good as new in the Big Easy. None of this is going to happen. It’s not some conspiracy, it’s just the impersonal forces in play.
Cities (and towns) are built by economies, and the gulf hasn’t had a healthy one in some time. It’s worth remembering that the most iconic parts of the gulf were built up when the river-borne economy was massively more important (and profitable) than it is today. Not only did much of this area have a high poverty rate (implying a lack of productive employment) already, but its economy was disproportionately invested in businesses that were located there because they were forbidden elsewhere. It’s never a good sign when someone locates a firm there because it’s the only place that they can. The nostalgia of the walkable small town (however much I personally might like it) is difficult to execute in San Diego or San Jose, where there’s no shortage of affluent lifestyle-seekers; in a town of casino employees, the premium of making a place pleasant rather that minimally functional represents an even greater share of income than the better-off denizens of a Seaside or a Celebration (Florida) pay now. Good towns are expensive towns. Expensive towns take high incomes.
Another concept to keep in mind is the insurance difference between value (I think that’s the term) and replacement cost. Much of the destroyed area that made the region architecturally distinctive was the eighteenth and nineteenth century indigenous building built up over the passage of time. The components of this wonderful building were natural materials worked by skilled artisans. In the here and now, both natural materials (do you have rail-and-panel anything where you live?) and skilled labor have become (in a relative sense) far and away more expensive. We’re talking about custom-fabrication here. Even if the resources were there to replicate it, is it realistic to expect families below the median income to allocate their funds that way, especially when so many of them have had their very subsistence thrown into questions? Even if the displaced were willing to approve the bill, can a regulator or insurer really approve a transaction paying out several times what the existing property was worth? Even in good condition, an 100-year old house isn’t worth a fraction as much as a new one, for resale reasons alone. Imagine the headlines now: FEMA pays for $30,000 kitchen while children starve in the street.
I’m all for livable, coherent, high-quality community. It’s just not going to happen.
posted by KP | 16.1.06
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