Is it my imagination, or are the areas of NO that are flooded all poor?

[renie408]

Ok, it is pretty late where I am and WAY past my bedtime, so maybe my thought processes are getting funky...but am I completely being crazy that I am starting to think that it is some kind of bizarre conspiracy that the nicer parts of NO are dry and just the poor parts got flooded? And that it seems like a little bit too much of a coincidence to me that the rich white assholes want to rebuild NO without the poor people?

Tell me this is just a coincidence. Tell me I am going to wake up tomorrow after getting a good night's sleep and think this idea I am having now is silly.

Right?

[Kagemusha]

1. When the city expanded into the flood-prone swampland

the poor settled there because natuarlly, land is cheaper on land where flooding is more likely. That is, well, how it is.

It's not conspiracy. It's the economics of land values.

[xray s]

2. Not quite

But there is no doubt the richer, dryer areas are on higher ground, for obvious reasons. But there are some poorer areas of the garden district that are dry, and areas of the business district are in flood water.

[RosaP]

3. Indirectly

The higher-priced real estate in N.O. tends to be higher above sea level. The entire city was exposed to the same deluge, lower areas got deeper water. I heard that a city outside N.O. that was a retreat for the better off was completely wiped off the map.

The poor tended to get the lower, more shoddily-built homes and were less likely to have gotten out of the city.

[NoSheep]

6. Right on RosaP and welcome to DU!

:hi:

[RosaP]

4. Conspiracy...

...three nearly identical responses entered at the same time!

Are the illuminati afoot?

[PuraVidaDreamin]

7. we should ask Capt May

google him

[Bluerthanblue]

5. most of the lowest lying communities

in NOLA are/were neighborhoods made up of people with the least wealth.
If the homes of the less privileged neighborhoods aren't rebuilt, NOLA won't be anywhere near the city it was.
And if building on 'hazardous areas' is so foolish, why should anyone build any more skyscrapers in NYC, or on any of the many 'fault lines' in Ca. or the forest fire prone areas of the west, or mudslide areas, or much of Fla, and the Carolinas.

I don't think you are silly- I think you see the truth.

[CottonBear]

8. You must not live in the South. Poor minorities live down by the river

or the levee or on the other side of the tracks or on the "other side of town."
It is the historical pattern of city/community development..

I'm a southerner. That's just the way it is but not the way it has to be.

[renie408]

9. I thought only motivational speakers lived in vans down by the river

And I live in SC. I was born in Charleston. My entire family since before the flood were born in Charleston. I have a hybrid camellia named after me. My mother is a member of the DAR, the United Daughters of the Confederacy AND the Junior League. Really. You don't get any more southern than I am. I even tell myself that the War of Northern Aggression was about state's rights, not slavery (not really, that part was a joke, so back off all you abolitionists). I grew up hearing my parents call people 'carpet baggers' and 'mill workers' like it was a bad thing. I am an outcast in my family because I am *gasp* a Democrat and I married a Yankee (his mother is from Ohio) and I wouldn't attend debutante balls like my sisters did. I have a crazy Aunt Kitty.

Trust me. I get the South.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Your home city, Charleston, is the most beautiful in the US

I lived there in the 60s ... back when L. Mendell Rivers was king down there.

There was a saying back then (maybe still):

"Dogs and Sailors keep off the grass."

I was one of those two.

And we were lower than paper mill workers.

But still, I loved your city.

Still do.

[renie408]

13. I love Charleston

I even love the smell of low tide. It is hard now that I have developed a different political and philisopical sensibility sometimes because so much of the history of that city is so ugly. When I was little, I would love to go to the slave market to go shopping. Now it is kind of creepy. When I was younger, I was so proud that my family had owned a real plantation before THE war (and seriously, if any of the older people in my family say anything about THE war, you know which one they are talking about and it isn't WWII). Now I never tell anybody that. It is hard to really deep down be proud to be a Southerner when at the same time, you are ashamed to be a Southerner. When I think of Southern pride and history, I think of graciousness, manners, hospitality, generosity and a sort of steel magnolia strength. But the reality is that so much of Southern history really is about slavery and oppression. I didn't figure any of that out until I hit my mid-teens. I always saw my parents being friendly towards 'blacks'. I didn't realize until I was about 13-14 that it was a patronizing kind of friendliness.

I can tell you right now my 74 year old mother would have a stroke if she knew my son's girlfriend was afro-american. And I feel like I am as bad as she is because I have found ways to avoid her finding out.

Sorry for the rambling, it is really late here and I think I am starting to wander.

[CottonBear]

18. I too love Charleston and I come from an old Southern family (NC).

Charleston is beautiful. Ones of the great Southern cities.

My family are all republicans except for my apolitical sister. They are racist (although some say they're not but they really are.) My mom didn't want my black boyfriend to come to Thanksgiving dinner and uninvited him (after she'd invited him) because "what would the neighbors think?" My husbands family in St. Tammany Parish, LA are very racist (as in "we'd vote for David Duke if he ran again.")

[undergroundpanther]

16. My grandma

and my folks are sothern too

And some are stupid rethugs but my grandma was a die hard DEM..
There's a road in Galax named after her/my family. Some of my souther family is DEM..And they hate carpetbaggers too and there are"confederate heros in outr family and indians we are melungeons.The freaky side of the south...

[renie408]

17. All my people are smug Repukes

It makes family gatherings tough. My mother has actually come around a bit. She finds Bush un-Presidential. But honestly, I think it has less to do with his policies and more to do with the fact that she thinks he is casual. For awhile there when she started to talk about how much she was starting to dislike him, I got excited. But then I figured out it was more of a superficial objection. I will say this for her, she doesn't like him throwing his religion around. Oddly enough for diehard Southerners, both my parents are/were atheists.

[begin_within]

11. Whenever fires rage through California, the rich folks' areas burn.

Because the houses built next to canyons and in forests are much more expensive than plain tract houses in city grids... these high-priced houses are the ones that are most vulnerable to wildfires.

[petronius]

15. I was thinking about that the other day

not just fires, but landslides as well - our pattern of vulnerability is just the opposite of Louisiana.

[craigolemiss]

12. not really--both rich and poor got hit

I saw one report that showed some poor areas that had no damage at all, one guy said not even a window broken, and he didnt want to leave.

He said he had 4 more weeks of food and water and wasn't leaving---

there were also some VERY expensive houses that are still under 15 feet of water--

[renie408]

14. I saw that!

He was pretty adament about staying with his house.

It just seemed to me that a disproportionate number of lower income housing seemed to be effected. But the lower ground land being less expensive makes sense; I just wasn't thinking. I also just finished reading that article about the creepy old money NO'ers who didn't want the poor to be included in the rebuilding. I was having visions of conspiracies dancing in my head.