Many big visions for new Big Easy

"It may turn out that there are areas where it was a bad idea to build in the first place, and there are going to be hard, painful decisions, but we as a community need to make those decisions together," says Geoff Coats, cofounder of the Urban Conservancy, which works to protect New Orleans buildings and communities. "It's very important that it not be some commission of 12 wise men."

Others suggest that relocating areas like the Lower Ninth Ward could help combat the concentrated poverty that was an entrenched problem in New Orleans. Instead of rebuilding on flood-prone land, such planners suggest, developers could create mixed-income, infill housing on the city's higher ground near the river. Some envision projects that have been used in other cities to replace failed public housing with integrated affordable housing.

More than one-quarter of New Orleans residents lived below the poverty line - one of the highest rates in the nation. Its high school graduation rate was about 65 percent.

Successful rebuilding "is going to take tackling the socioeconomic problems that bedeviled the city long before Katrina," says Thomas Campanella, an urban planning professor at the University of North Carolina and co-editor of "The Resilient City." "There's going to be billions and billions of dollars thrown at this, and it should be spent to fix the preexisting conditions that led to this massive underclass being in such a bad condition."

He ticks off a list: affordable housing, education, job training, preventing gang violence.

Other planners toss out ideas for change that are more physical: replacing the freeway network that looms over the downtown with a boulevard system, for instance, similar to what San Francisco did after the 1989 earthquake. Or developing better public transit.

"They should get the streetcar system back to where it was at the end of World War II," says John Norquist, former Milwaukee mayor and president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, who also suggests the freeway transformation. "They'd see that real estate investment would follow, and they'd be able to rebuild a lot of the neighborhoods faster."

Mr. Norquist and others also emphasize that New Orleans already was one of the more dense, urban, walkable US cities - qualities they hope will be preserved with any rebuilding effort. "The closer they stick to New Orleans' own forms, the better," says Norquist.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question is whether former residents will return.

Part of that is related to safety assurances, and civil engineers are debating how well New Orleans can be protected from a future hurricane, and whether some modifications can help: higher and stronger levees, closing the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (a shipping canal that may have contributed to the flooding), raising ground levels, restoring wetlands, and replacing canals with culverts.

But the reality is that any project will take many years, and New Orleans will always be at some level of risk.

"With every passing day, more and more of these families are setting up homes elsewhere and deciding to leave for good," says Professor Campanella. "That's going to play havoc with the future of New Orleans as a robust, real city. It's the kind of thing where the clock is ticking."

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