Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Ricordate New Orleans?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1981011,00.html
Betrayal of the Big Easy
Hurricane Katrina forced out New Orleans's poor residents, and
developers don't want them back
Giles Fraser
Tuesday January 2, 2007
The Guardian
It's well over a year since the levees collapsed and billions of
gallons of water flooded into New Orleans, trashing the city and
displacing several thousand residents, most of them black and poor.
Many may not return. For Hurricane Katrina produced acres of empty real
estate that are being eyed up as a promising opportunity for corporate
developers. Mayor Ray Nagin wants the new New Orleans to be "market
driven". The Episcopalian Bishop of Louisiana thinks differently. Once
a conservative, he was rebaptised with dirty water. He now speaks for
many in condemning the mayor's words as "a blow against the poor and
needy", and says developers threaten "the soul of the city".
 - such as the lower ninth ward, where many of the city's musicians
originate - almost no reconstruction work is being done. Insurance
companies won't cover new buildings unless the levees are reinforced to
withstand another big storm, and the government won't cough up the
$30bn-plus the work is expected to cost. So the powers that be are
effectively abandoning the lower-lying areas, offering precious little
hope of return to the Katrina diaspora spread over the south. A city
that had a population of nearly half a million has been reduced by
300,000. Some are whispering that this is a way of rebalancing the
city's ethnic mix, which has been majority black for some time.
Dr Courtney Cowart, who runs the Diocese of Louisiana's disaster relief
team, escaped from the shadow of the World Trade Centre on 9/11. She
cannot help but compare the government's response to both tragedies,
noting that nothing like the financial commitment made to New York is
being offered to New Orleans. The Big Easy, disliked by conservatives
because of its reputation for debauchery, is in danger of being
ignored.
Debauched and religious. In this most Christian of cities, the churches
are forming powerful alliances with local community groups to spearhead
the fight against mammon. For this is a place where the language of the
Bible seems to have daily application. Those who experienced the scale
of this disaster wouldn't think the Bible's apocalyptic literature
fanciful. They have lived it. Outside the shell of an old Baptist
church in the lower ninth, a scruffy piece of board is scrawled with
the prophecy from Ezekiel in which dead bones are reformed into living
human form. "Can these dry bones live?" is the question.
In the increasingly lawless central district, the resurrection is given
a hedonistic inflection through the tradition of the second line. The
first line is the sombre procession to a funeral. The second line is
the exuberant, jazzy, band-led, umbrella-popping return. Most Sunday
afternoons, thousands gather to dance their way through the wreckage,
reclaiming the streets for music and laughter.
Last month I watched as the second line jigged down Washington Street
and came to rest outside one of the city's social housing projects,
declared out of bounds by the civic authorities. The music intensified.
A huge number of the projects are fenced off, even though many received
only superficial damage. It's surely no coincidence that some are in
areas of prime real estate. Residents were evicted at gunpoint during
the storm and have not been allowed back.
Mark Twain said there were only three cities in the US with any real
culture: Boston, San Francisco and New Orleans. What a tragedy if this
once-great city is to be saved from the waters only to be destroyed by
developers set to rebuild another generic US metropolis, designed for
profit and not for people.
· Dr Giles Fraser is the vicar of Putney and a lecturer in philosophy
at Wadham College, Oxford 
giles....@btinternet.com

cough up the $30bn-plus the work is expected to cost.
Cioe' le assicurazioni non vogliono scucire soldi e il governo non ha
detto un ca**o riguardo a tali opere.
-Stefano