Stealing from the Poor, Giving to the Rich

There’s a “Team America” pall that gets cast by the outside media about most of New Orleans, but the black areas in particular (the same traits aren’t to be found in the primarily Vietnamese areas, so “minority” doesn’t work.) You remember the line that went something like,
[quote]“Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.”[/quote]

When you have direct, personal experience over a decade with New Orleans, you laugh as you hear the media describe it as they have, and cry when people from other states buy it hook, line and sinker.

The primary point of my post was to dispute the picture painted by Racewire and the source links. I don’t have any problems with houses of ill repute or with poor people. There is also something we’re losing sight of (my bad), which is probably the result of a poorly worded original article… [b]3,000 units of affordable housing in the city’s housing projects[/b]. That seems to implicate those 3,000 units were *not* private property to begin with. Most of the housing in the 9th was private property, so I believe they’re getting things confused by using neighborhood tags interchangeably.

Someone is on the special flavor of crack. I’ve been through, around, and in nearly every “neighborhood” southwest of the CBD and none of the projects could be categorized as in relatively good shape with a straight face.

Nearly every link through that article is a puff piece that romanticizes utter garbage. Shotgun shacks that have a “link to the past” because they still have original clapboard siding, or someone famous ran a whorehouse there? Give me a break. The city and FEMA *did* make attempts to warn the owners, and they most certainly could view their property before December. If we can all agree that a house burned to the framing represents “blight”, then what was left of the 9th ward and St. Bernard parish certainly fits the definition.

I dislike government takings as much as the next libertarian, but this argument is being colored with way too much fictional history by outsiders. These homes, were not exactly in the greatest shape to begin with precisely because their owners would not, or could not provide for their effective upkeep. This would seemingly preclude said homeowners from being able to gut and rebuild their home, even provided the money.