Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Tale of Two Cities: New Orleans & Baghdad

There's a sense of similarity when it comes to redeveloping the destruction of these two cities: New Orleans & Baghdad.

As we look at the Iraq War over the past three years, the redevelopment that we were expecting after capturing Saddam Hussein just isn't happening. As we continue to spend billions upon billions to get Iraq to become civil, now we have a civil war knocking on the Iraqi door. Most of the billions we spend in Iraq is not for rebuilding, but for what? I don't see the promised rebuilding there. The Iraqi people don't look better off than three years ago.

On the other side of the coin is New Orleans. Devastated last fall by an epic hurricane, and subsequent flooding. Will they ever be able to redevelop their neighborhoods to their previous grandeur? Will normal life in New Orleans ever happen for displaced citizens of New Orleans? Will our government spend millions of dollars, just so the rich can rebuild in New Orleans?

It seems that both locales have plans that are going wrong for their average citizens. Normalcy in either location seems a distant and obscure prospect. We can't in all real expectations think that either city can rebuild from such devastations in one or two years. But, you'd hope that they would have a plan and a timeframe to get the job done. A feasible plan that in both cases is not there.

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