Nagin criticizes World Trade Center rebuilding

[Steff]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14510763/

 

 

 

"During the “60 minutes” interview, a correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of New Orleans’ devastated Ninth Ward. Nagin replied, “You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed, and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair,” according to CBS."

 

 

 

[HuskyCaucasian]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14510763/

"During the “60 minutes” interview, a correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of New Orleans’ devastated Ninth Ward. Nagin replied, “You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed, and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair,” according to CBS."

He's a little insensative about the whole thing, but in principle... he is right. The US Government is largely inept and fast at anythign they do. When something is being run by the US, it's slow, painful, and ALWAYS runsWAY over budget (see N.O., 9/11, Iraq)

Edited August 25, 2006 by Athomeboy_2000

[Jenksismyhero]

This guy is a piece of work. He reminds me of that other racist black wanna-be-politician, Jesse Jackson.

 

"I'm not responsible, blame the white folks."

 

 

While I reserve my angelic view of FEMA and it's response to the Katrina debacle, the majority of the blame should go to the crooked New Orleans politicians, whom Nagin is a part of. The guy had hundreds and hundreds of school buses sitting in a big parking lot and decided not to use them. A day after the hurricane he shrugged his shoulders and said "we did all we could." A week after that, the fact that people were stranded in the city was the federal governments fault.

 

GMAFB

[Steff]

This guy is a piece of work. He reminds me of that other racist black wanna-be-politician, Jesse Jackson.

 

"I'm not responsible, blame the white folks."

While I reserve my angelic view of FEMA and it's response to the Katrina debacle, the majority of the blame should go to the crooked New Orleans politicians, whom Nagin is a part of. The guy had hundreds and hundreds of school buses sitting in a big parking lot and decided not to use them. A day after the hurricane he shrugged his shoulders and said "we did all we could." A week after that, the fact that people were stranded in the city was the federal governments fault.

 

GMAFB

 

 

 

What happened with Katrina has been hashed and rehashed. Would you mind keeping this thread on the topic above.

 

TIA.

[Jenksismyhero]

What happened with Katrina has been hashed and rehashed. Would you mind keeping this thread on the topic above.

 

TIA.

 

 

I'm just saying he's an inept leader and his words should be construed as such

Edited August 25, 2006 by Jenksismybitch

[Steff]

I'm just saying he's an inept leader and his words should be construed as such

 

 

 

Put away your hate. He has a point. You'd have to be a complete idiot to think NO would be all cleaned up and on the way back to normal this soon.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Put away your hate. He has a point. You'd have to be a complete idiot to think NO would be all cleaned up and on the way back to normal this soon.

oh come on entire cities are rebuilt in a year

 

On a side note: Nagin should no better than to criticize the Government. If he hasnt noticed, the government typically doesnt extend to you the hand of friendship if you blast them. If nothing else, it's the exact opposite. You are LESS likely to get help when you criticize Bush and/or the gorvernment.

[Rex Kickass]

Nagin is a jackass who makes a great point.

 

The handling of WTC site has been pretty piss poor. A lot of government agencies and a developer fighting about what goes on at a site around it.

 

The Empire State building was built top to bottom within one year. Five years after 9/11 and they're just starting to work on a foundation for a building that hasn't had its final design made yet.

[jasonxctf]

people blasting these comments are just Nagin-haters. Plain and simple. He made a good point and a fair comparison.

 

our country is pretty piss poor with disaster relief no matter what the circumstances.

 

and for my 2 cents, we need to stop spending so much money rebuilding and assisting other areas of the world (Iraq, Africa, etc) and spend more of our tax dollars fixing our own problems.

[samclemens]

people blasting these comments are just Nagin-haters. Plain and simple. He made a good point and a fair comparison.

 

our country is pretty piss poor with disaster relief no matter what the circumstances.

 

and for my 2 cents, we need to stop spending so much money rebuilding and assisting other areas of the world (Iraq, Africa, etc) and spend more of our tax dollars fixing our own problems.

 

and N.O. should be a "chocolate city" too!

[Texsox]

Over budget for projects of this scope and scale? I'd be shocked if they got to within 15% either way. Too hard to project out 3-4 years. Currently cement is sky high, which pushes concrete prices high, then the trucks that haul to stuff are running on $3.50 per gallon fuel and not $2.50. Private projects run into the same problems. The US government (you and me and the people we hire to do the work) are no smarter or dumber than the private sector. The private sector also has a lot less rules that we have insisted that be followed for spending public funds.

[Balta1701]

and for my 2 cents, we need to stop spending so much money rebuilding and assisting other areas of the world (Iraq, Africa, etc) and spend more of our tax dollars fixing our own problems.

Is it worth pointing out that 1 of the 2 examples you gave is an order of magnitude or two more expensive than the other? In 2004, the U.S. Gave about $3.4 billion in aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (there's some that goes to Egypt otherwise because of the Camp David agreement). That same year we spent what, about $100 billion on Iraq?

[Texsox]

Is it worth pointing out that 1 of the 2 examples you gave is an order of magnitude or two more expensive than the other? In 2004, the U.S. Gave about $3.4 billion in aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (there's some that goes to Egypt otherwise because of the Camp David agreement). That same year we spent what, about $100 billion on Iraq?

But now we don't have to worry about terrorsists and WMD

[jasonxctf]

Is it worth pointing out that 1 of the 2 examples you gave is an order of magnitude or two more expensive than the other? In 2004, the U.S. Gave about $3.4 billion in aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (there's some that goes to Egypt otherwise because of the Camp David agreement). That same year we spent what, about $100 billion on Iraq?

 

 

good point. those were the 2 things that came to mind first. I'm sure we drop billions in aid to other areas of the world too. its not that i'm against helping others, its just that our priorities are backwards. shouldnt we be spending us taxpayer dollars in the us first before giving it away to other areas of the world?

 

i commend aids relief in Africa... but we have an Aids problem here in the US. Why not work on relieving/reducing this problem first before solving the rest of the worlds problems. (homelessness, education, public works, etc)

 

and N.O. should be a "chocolate city" too!

 

 

poorly worded, but i think the point he was trying to make is that New Orleans should not just be rebuilt for the haves without the have nots. See my other thread in the Sex, Lies and Music category. Housing/Rental prices are keeping the poorest individuals from coming back to the city. If the city was 60% African American prior to Katrina, somethings wrong with the rebuilding effort if its 70% Caucasian afterwards.

[Texsox]

good point. those were the 2 things that came to mind first. I'm sure we drop billions in aid to other areas of the world too. its not that i'm against helping others, its just that our priorities are backwards. shouldnt we be spending us taxpayer dollars in the us first before giving it away to other areas of the world?

 

i commend aids relief in Africa... but we have an Aids problem here in the US. Why not work on relieving/reducing this problem first before solving the rest of the worlds problems. (homelessness, education, public works, etc)

 

We do spend the money here. As a percentage of our national budget, foreign aid isn't all that much. I have read through the years that we actually rank behind many countries as a percentage of our GNP. Here's some links, pick what you want to believe

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...113/ai_18864338

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_..._4/ai_n11832668

 

I dn't have time to vette this last one, it could be a very biased site, but I'be also heard a large percentage of our foreign aid is spent on Israel. http://www.washington-report.org/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm

[whitesoxfan101]

He has a point on this, however he might be the dumbest man in America so it's going to get lost. Maybe he wants a chocolate World Trade Center.

[southsider2k5]

good point. those were the 2 things that came to mind first. I'm sure we drop billions in aid to other areas of the world too. its not that i'm against helping others, its just that our priorities are backwards. shouldnt we be spending us taxpayer dollars in the us first before giving it away to other areas of the world?

 

i commend aids relief in Africa... but we have an Aids problem here in the US. Why not work on relieving/reducing this problem first before solving the rest of the worlds problems. (homelessness, education, public works, etc)

poorly worded, but i think the point he was trying to make is that New Orleans should not just be rebuilt for the haves without the have nots. See my other thread in the Sex, Lies and Music category. Housing/Rental prices are keeping the poorest individuals from coming back to the city. If the city was 60% African American prior to Katrina, somethings wrong with the rebuilding effort if its 70% Caucasian afterwards.

 

How exactly would you propose finding a labor force to build a city of about 500,000 people in a really poor city, where half the city has not returned, much of the city is still in ruins because many residents are using their constitutional rights to resist wholesale demolition of their buildings and property in many instances, meanwhile resisting such historical tools of segregation such as quick bulk housing projects which are getting torn down in the rest of the country?

 

There are a ton of factors at work here. Its not just as simple as the article wants to make it. Read between the numbers here...

 

-You have to find enough people who have the ability to build, and all of the different skills that it takes to do so, for both commericial and resident facilities. You aren't talking about the usual building that goes on perpetually in a city, but literally the largest sustained construction project ever undertaken in the history of the United States. So on top of needing a way larger construction force than ever did exsist in New Orleans, you are talking about a city that has lost half of its residents by most estimates. In other words your labor pool has just fallen by half, while needing an astronomical amount more labor. How many people just have the ability to uproot and leave to work in New Orleans because that is where the labor is needed? Most people working construction are probably pretty fixed into their labor market, as are most people. They have a solid job, with a good salary, family, friends etc. Basically to cut between the lines there are going to be two types of people who will go to NO work, and that is either people who can't resist a bunch more money, or people who need work really bad and have the ability to just up and leave for it. That means a lot of illegal labor, and a lot of high wages. It only makes sense that home prices are going to go way up, because it is going to cost a lot more to get extra labor to build NO.

 

-Materials have to come from somewhere to build all of these places again. Once again, when demand surges for something, the cost of it is going to go up. No one planned on Katrina happening in 2005, including the people who supply homebuilding materials. With a fixed supply and a jump in demand, once again that means higher costs, which means higher home prices.

 

-Much of New Orleans is still a disaster area, which means there are still big areas that aren't being built in. large swaths of NO still don't have basic infrastructure such as passable roads, electricity, phone, etc, which limits how many areas can be built in at one time, even if you were to have enough labor to meet demands. Again there is yet another limit, this time on housing supply.

 

-If New Orleans were predominatly poor before the storm, and these poor people lost what little they did have, where are they going to find the money to buy into a market that costs way more than when they left? The answer is, they aren't. There is going to be a demographic shift towards the people who can afford to buy in New Orleans, which by and large isn't the former poor black residents.

[NorthSideSox72]

And I have to say, I find it bizarre and kind of sad that property values and housing costs are indeed so high in New Orleans. Price and value should be influenced by demand. You'd have to be pretty stupid to "demand" to have a house in a city that sits on a hurricane-prone below-sea level flood plain, and which has some of the highest crimes rates and worst schools in the country.

[Steff]

And I have to say, I find it bizarre and kind of sad that property values and housing costs are indeed so high in New Orleans. Price and value should be influenced by demand. You'd have to be pretty stupid to "demand" to have a house in a city that sits on a hurricane-prone below-sea level flood plain, and which has some of the highest crimes rates and worst schools in the country.

 

 

 

Previously didn't they have a pretty diverse mix? I recall seeing s***holes as well as mansions all within a 5 mile radius.

[Texsox]

SS,

 

Great post, that was worth my annual subscription fee.

 

There is a lot of unskilled labor, close by, who would love to build homes and eventually buy one. Problem is, most American's do not want them here. So we need another plan.

 

I was just listening to a NPR report that basically stated the government and its planners are trying to avoid a jack-o-latern development. That is, flying over at night one sees lights on here and over there and ong stretches of darkness in between. The two competiting factors here are

 

A. The cities ability and resources to bring utilities to every neighborhood

and

B. People wanting to rebuild their home in their neighborhood.

 

It seems that not only is New Orleans facing the problems you have just described, but there is no master redevelopment plan of which areas will be rebuilt and in what order. The idea of telling someone not to rebuild their home because the government wants them over there smacks of failed Russian social planning. But unplanned will result in slower, more expensive growth.

 

This is unprecidented in our history. I wonder what Japan did after WW2?

[jackie hayes]

Now, I tend to be liberal, at least relatively, but there's a big difference between cleaning up and rebuilding. 'Why haven't you towed these cars?' is different than, 'Why haven't you decided on and completed the proper multibillion dollar symbolic and economic replacement fusion in the heart of Wall Street?' This is just bs posturing.

[Flash Tizzle]

Nagin is a jackass who makes a great point.

 

The handling of WTC site has been pretty piss poor. A lot of government agencies and a developer fighting about what goes on at a site around it.

 

The Empire State building was built top to bottom within one year. Five years after 9/11 and they're just starting to work on a foundation for a building that hasn't had its final design made yet.

Where he'll run into trouble isn't the underlying message of his quote, but insensitively referring to the World Trade Center as a "hole in the ground." His characterization of WTC would be similar to me labeling New Orleans a "puddle."

 

Government agencies and developers are fighting because victims families have united to throw their weight around. Collaboration between various agencies, contractors, etc., and families is difficult because you can't exactly tell these people frankly what you desire. I don't mean to sound insensitive, but from previous WTC proposals and proceding responses I've read, families demand a sizable portion of perhaps the most profitable land in the United States to remain a memorial. Not realistic.

[Rex Kickass]

Well, Nagin may not feel the need to tow flood damaged cars out of neighborhoods since the first hurricane to be of 2006 appears to be headed right for New Orleans.

[southsider2k5]

And I have to say, I find it bizarre and kind of sad that property values and housing costs are indeed so high in New Orleans. Price and value should be influenced by demand. You'd have to be pretty stupid to "demand" to have a house in a city that sits on a hurricane-prone below-sea level flood plain, and which has some of the highest crimes rates and worst schools in the country.

 

 

Something I saw Sunday I wanted to site...

 

Commerical building costs skyrocketing in Chicago

 

Every $1 increase in materials costs can lead to a $1.75 rise in a project's total development cost, estimates Rick Cavenaugh, president of Chicago-based Fifield Realty Corp. A more expensive building can mean higher costs for city permits, sales taxes, insurance and interest payments, Cavenaugh said.

 

Over the past year prices of non-residential construction materials have been rising at twice the rate of the finished goods measured by the producer price index: 8.3 percent compared with 4.9 percent. But price hikes for some materials far outstrip that.

 

For instance, nationwide the price of gypsum products used for drywall is up 23 percent, plastic products like pipes are up 20 percent, steel mill products 18 percent, aluminum mill shapes 15 percent and concrete 11 percent, said Ken Simonson, Chief Economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, a trade group.

 

The 33 percent rise in crude oil prices since 2005 affects materials like asphalt and synthetic rubber roofing as well as the cost to deliver materials, run machines and remove debris.

 

The radical spike in materials costs has many causes. The massive rebuilding required by last year's hurricane damage in the Southeast, greater demand from the growing economies in Asia and India and the nation's insufficient industrial infrastructure all play a role. U.S. makers of critically important steel products have not always pumped up production to meet rising demand.

 

"There hasn't been a supply side increase to match demand," said William M. Shook, an executive vice president at Bethesda, Md.-based Clark Construction Group LLC, who is directing the Hines project here. He said that explains, in part, why the price of a steel beam is now $675 a ton, up from $450 two years ago.

 

 

SS,

 

Great post, that was worth my annual subscription fee.

 

There is a lot of unskilled labor, close by, who would love to build homes and eventually buy one. Problem is, most American's do not want them here. So we need another plan.

 

I was just listening to a NPR report that basically stated the government and its planners are trying to avoid a jack-o-latern development. That is, flying over at night one sees lights on here and over there and ong stretches of darkness in between. The two competiting factors here are

 

A. The cities ability and resources to bring utilities to every neighborhood

and

B. People wanting to rebuild their home in their neighborhood.

 

It seems that not only is New Orleans facing the problems you have just described, but there is no master redevelopment plan of which areas will be rebuilt and in what order. The idea of telling someone not to rebuild their home because the government wants them over there smacks of failed Russian social planning. But unplanned will result in slower, more expensive growth.

 

This is unprecidented in our history. I wonder what Japan did after WW2?

 

Some facts and figures to also back up the loss of labor I referred to initially.

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...na.1a64643.html

 

LOST POPULATION

 

350,000

 

Estimated people who left the New Orleans metro area; slowly returning

 

 

LOST HOUSING

 

135,000

 

Homes and apartments damaged or destroyed in New Orleans; 38,600 building permits issued

 

 

LOST WORKERS

 

190,000

 

Workers displaced in the metro area

 

 

LOST JOBS

 

7.2 percent

 

Current unemployment rate, compared to national August rate of 4.8 percent

 

The lack of a coherant plan, and the willful decesion (it seems) not to have one, is a big part of the problems in rebuilding according to many familiar with the pace of rebuilding.

 

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll...NYT02/608270848

 

Lacking a Master Plan

 

With little direction from the top, long-term planning for the citys future remains incoherent. A year after the storm, there are no plans for large-scale infrastructure and redevelopment in the city. One group of official planners took the step of attacking a second group in a full-page advertisement in The Times-Picayune this month, even warning citizens to stay away from its rivals.

 

The absence of a plan has forced developers, who might otherwise be building housing for the displaced, to the sidelines. The developers, they want to know what the plan is; said Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

 

The latest notion, after earlier false or incomplete starts, is to turn planning over to the citizens, allowing neighborhoods to choose from a list of planners, with the hope that at the end it can all be folded into one giant framework. It was pushed by state officials holding the redevelopment purse strings who grew impatient this summer with the citys abortive planning efforts.

 

In the neighborhoods, New Orleanians are skeptical. Why does it seem that every time someone swoops in to help us, it winds up being a mess? asked Jenel Hazlett, of the Northwest Carrollton Civic Association, a neighborhood group. They keep moving the players around, and we as citizens keep getting jerked around.

 

Like others, Ms. Hazlett professes bewilderment at a planning process, now stretching out for nearly a year, that involves an ever-shifting cast of characters, embraces and then swiftly rejects differing visions, and calls for repeated consultations with the citizens — and still produces no plan.

 

The longer the city is without a master plan, the shakier the fate of the ruined neighborhoods, some planners say. The need will become even greater in a few days, when $7.5 billion in federal housing aid begins putting up to $150,000 in the hands of thousands of homeowners hoping to rebuild.

 

It is highly probable that there would be many neighborhoods, with block after block of one or two houses restored, surrounded by vacant abandoned houses, no police stations, no services, low water pressure, an unsafe and unhealthy environment, said John McIlwain, a senior planner at the Urban Land Institute, the Washington research group whose early plan for a shrunken city was rejected by the politicians here.

 

Publicly, Mr. Nagin insists the city will come back stronger than ever, saying its repopulation is ahead of schedule even while more cautious demographers suggest it is lagging. Rejecting the idea that New Orleans must shrink, he says City Hall will not dictate where citizens can live.

 

You can't wait on government Mr. Nagin said at a news conference here this week. You have to figure out a way to partner with your neighbors

 

Mr. Nagin has endorsed the current version of the planning process, in which neighborhoods map out their own future — so far only a tiny handful of the city 73 districts have done so — and the individual plans eventually merge into a larger one. This week the mayor blamed unnamed powers that be for a flow of recovery dollars he deemed painfully slow.

 

Nagin calls the lack of a plan "democracy in action".

 

http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://w...IAE1Q24_MZtQ60_

 

Mayor C. Ray Nagin has referred to the process as “democracy in action.”

[Texsox]

This is an intersting crossroads. Telling people they can not rebuild in their neighborhood doesn't seem right, but the alternative, houses without infrastructure doesn't work either. I can see why a master plan hasn't been finalized in a year. Could you imagine the infighting that must be occuring? Where would you rebuild in Chicago first? Gold Coast? Southside, Westside, Downtown?