What if your city befell New Orlean's fate?

Would you leave your ruined city?


  • Total voters
    79
a space oddity said:
I agree with Narz on this matter. Heritage is something you have anyway, whether the buildings are there or not. Of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to preserve them when you can, but you need to let go if you must. Life is more important. That being said, I think New Orleans can and will be "rebuilt".

On topic: I would return and see how things develop. If it proves too hard and for instance my children couldn't go to school anymore I'd leave.

No. Guess I can't explain that, because it is probably an emotional stuff, but when you look on your city and know it is a heritage of a countless generations of your people who have been living there for a thousands of years, you are obligated to preserve that for the future generations.
 
a space oddity said:
I agree with Narz on this matter. Heritage is something you have anyway, whether the buildings are there or not. Of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to preserve them when you can, but you need to let go if you must. Life is more important. That being said, I think New Orleans can and will be "rebuilt".

On topic: I would return and see how things develop. If it proves too hard and for instance my children couldn't go to school anymore I'd leave.
Trust me. Places keep memory. Even destroyed places. When you walk in Warsaw, there's a special feeling, it's been rebuilt, you feel it. When you walk in Berlin, that's the same. You feel the History, you feel the burning of the Reichstag in the new stained glass dome, the bombing out after WW2 in the destroyed buildings, the City divide in the Karl Marx Avenue, the new capital looking in the future in the new chancellery.

Places keep memories. New Orleans wouldn't be the same without it's Jazzy "French" district, People from New Orleans wouldn't be the same. That's your own identity.

If your conception of a city consists only in Walmarts and gas stations as Narz described it, then it means you live in a society with no memory.
 
I did say try to rebuild *if you can*. The reality is that it not always can be done. You can try to replace the lost buildings with those that look like the ones that were lost, but that isn't the same thing. Some will be better, some wille be worse. Everything is transient, life is like that. Again, try to rebuilt if you can, accept it if you can't.

edit: Marla, I know that places keep memory, I've been to Knossos, it was wonderful! But they were rebuilding some of the structures in concrete and I found *that* horrible. To mix new with old there I find obnoxious.
 
a space oddity said:
I did say try to rebuild *if you can*. The reality is that it not always can be done. You can try to replace the lost buildings with those that look like the ones that were lost, but that isn't the same thing. Some will be better, some wille be worse. Everything is transient, life is like that. Again, try to rebuilt if you can, accept it if you can't.
Well, the problem is that in most cases it's less profitable to build something brand new somewhere else than it is to rebuild something damaged, even severly.

As I've told before, outside of Pompeii, which was mostly a suburb from Neapolis, I can't see any city which hasn't been built back after destruction. The first post of this thread talks about "Port Royal" in Jamaica, but I doubt it was a major city. Try to find an example of a city of the size of New Orleans not being rebuilt in History, I doubt you'll find a lot.
 
We'll need another Noah's flood to get my feet wet where I live ;)
 
De Lorimier said:
I don't want to live in a world where Montréal doesn't exist.

I don't want to live in a world where Fredrikstad doesn't exist. No and No.

Fredrikstad is a coastal city FYI.
 
I think it depends on the probability that it would happen again in the near future. I would try not to leave though. A sense of place is important.
 
FearlessLeader2 said:
Nice.

There is a ten character limit on posts, which is actually kind of silly when you stop and think about it, because then people can't simply say, 'Nice.' when they read a post so eloquent that it begs an eloquent reply, but, the world is what it is, and some people just want to elevate their post counts by spamming threads with one-word replies, which is why I think Post Count should be an average length of posts instead of a simple count of their number, as it would reflect far more accurately on the content of their posts, as longer posts are generally more informative, speak more usefully to the topic in question, and are generally superior in every way to shorter posts-excepting the case mentioned above, of course- which is, of course, a statement that brooks no contradiction (saying something brooks no contradiction is of course a fairly fascist point of view, and not one I am comfortable making, but in this case I make an exception), but there's always someone who'll contradict anything anyone says, just to be contrary, and I've managed to gather quite a flock of people who'll gainsay me just because I'm an irascible, opinionated old coot, but what are ya gonna do, cry about it, I mean seriously, what good is that going to do, will it raise the dead, end world hunger, or bring about world peace; no of course it won't, I doubt any human institution will do any of those things: the first is nigh miraculous, the second a symptom of human greed, and the third a consequence of human self-rule, there's no escaping any of them while this world lasts...still and all, rmsharpe's post was great, absolutely fantastic in fact, it was short, to the point, and cuttingly funny, all good things in and of themselves, but when combined, pretty sweet indeed, so nice job rmsharpe, couldn't have said it better myself.

Nice. :hatsoff:
 
I certainly would leave the city, no point in living in a place that's prone to floodings, thank you. my life's more important to me than my home. if i were the mayor I'd stay, however.

The only thing that could make me stay as a private citizen would be if I got some kind of guarantee, that something like this won't happen in the future. But can anybody really give such a guarantee in the case of New Orleans?
 
I'm with Marla and Winner on this one.

And the city has been flooded several times, the result was to improve the countermeasures. Sure there will always be a certain risk, but that's life.
 
Moving lots and lots I don't have a sense of belonging to a 'place'. Where my family and friends are is home. So I'd move it. In this case, I'd have looked for a better system to hold back the water in case of a hurricane before it happened.
 
Your nationality is pretty much subject to the vagaries of where you're born, so it is illogical to be proud and patriotic. But, you have some sort of loyalty to your city such that you should stay there despite an increased risk of disaster there? :confused:

Sorry, not here. I happen to be in a suburban area right now (and I abhor living in a big city anyway) but as a private citizen I feel no real ties to the area I'm living in - should it become a dangerous area, or adopt a government I don't like, or have the local economy subside, I'm outta here.

As a mayor, I'd have other responsibilities. Those may include deciding to "move the city" but nevertheless I'd expect to be the last one to move.
 
I would try to just live like the Venicians, I'd pull out my jon boat, fish from my deer stand, and live on my roof. I will take my generator up there, hook it up to my TV and my satellite dish and take up a cooler full of brew.
 
IglooDude said:
Your nationality is pretty much subject to the vagaries of where you're born, so it is illogical to be proud and patriotic. But, you have some sort of loyalty to your city such that you should stay there despite an increased risk of disaster there? :confused:
That's not so much a matter of nationality or patriotism but more one of a sense of what "home" is.
 
Hitro said:
That's not so much a matter of nationality or patriotism but more one of a sense of what "home" is.

Hmmm, maybe having moved every 3-4 years since I turned 18 (and generally more than a thousand miles each time) has given me a different sense of what "home" is, then.
 
IglooDude said:
Hmmm, maybe having moved every 3-4 years since I turned 18 (and generally more than a thousand miles each time) has given me a different sense of what "home" is, then.
I guess so, seriously. I've lived here all my life, that makes it somewhat different.
 
Hitro said:
I guess so, seriously. I've lived here all my life, that makes it somewhat different.

I guess this is different from person to person and not dependant on how long you lived there. I still live within 10km of my birthplace, but I'd have no trouble at all to move somewhere else (as long as it's not Zürich ;) ). Some people obviously just have a stronger sense of home than others...
 
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