Some are talking of stilts for the houses in the Ninth Ward when they rebuild it, but I doubt the little boxes will be replaced with anything other than more little boxes.

Now Bobert, lots of bodies are needed to keep the city tickety-boo.

Without them, who will wait on tables and clean the rooms and toilets in the hotels, keep clean the houses in the gated communities and Garden District, cut the grass, etc., stock Wal-Mart, wait on you in stores, short-order cook at Wendy's, deal Big Macs with fries, move the produce, pump the gas, paint madam's toenails, clean the sewers, collect the garbage, service the Johns and do the thousand and one other dead-end jobs of a big city.

The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal which was overtopped and drowned the Ninth Ward, as I noted in the FEMA thread, is a Federal responsibility, with three agancies involved; Department of Transportation, Army Corps of Engineers, and Coast Guard, Dept. of Homeland Security. At present, construction is going forward on a new lock (So far 748 million appropriated) and a new drawbridge has been authorized (guesstimate 500 million plus). Earlier it had been decided that raising and strengthening the levees could wait-

Since 54% of the houses in the Ninth Ward are (were) rental, we probably can expect some gentrification of the area, with high-rise condos, limiting the area available to the impecunious. If I were you, Bobert, I would consider investing some serious money in buying out those who were flooded while they scratch to get whatever they can.