Tag Archives: New Orleans

Insurers suing for lack of preparation for record floods

What if, in addition to the record floods of 2009 and 2013 and 2014 apparently caused by local lack of planning in our watersheds, what if we got 15 inches of rain in one 24 hour period like Pensacola did a few weeks ago? Local governments might get sued by insurers for lack of planning, like 200 communities in the Chicago area already got sued. Maybe we should plan ahead for greater weather variability caused by climate change.

Eric Holthaus wrote for Future Tense on Slate 30 April 2014, The Calamitous Climate Responsible for Florida’s Record Rainfall, Continue reading →

Solar rooftops in a New Orleans neighborhood

Want people to get rooftop solar? Put solar on rooftops where people can see it. Cities and power companies and even NGOs like Habitat for Humanity can help with that.

Andri Antoniades wrote for Takepart.com 10 November 2012, Katrina-Ravaged Neighborhood Reemerges as ‘Largest Solar Housing Development in Southeast’: The former St. Thomas Housing Projects are reborn into a square mile of solar-powered homes,

The St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans used to be known best as a high-crime area, until Hurricane Katrina swept it it all away. But seven years after the fact, St. Thomas has been reborn as the mixed-income River Garden Apartments, which has once again gained notoriety, but this time as the “largest solar neighborhood in the Southeast.”

The River Garden Apartments encompass eight blocks that cover about one square mile of New Orleans. The brightly colored homes are topped with solar panels and according to Clean Technica, the development is Louisiana’s largest solar project to date.

And also in Oakland, California:

Continue reading →

Greening the ghetto —Majora Carter

Child of the ghetto grows up to raise a park out of trash and to invite the rich and famous to join her to make sustainable development that works for all three of developers, community, and government sexy and profitable. A stray dog one day led her down a forgotten street to the river. She got a seed grant, leveraged it 300 times, and turned that street into a park.

She’s talking about the south Bronx in New York City, and the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, but I think in her problems and solutions you will see some similarities to the south side of Valdosta. If the Chamber was helping with this kind of thing, that would make a far more positive difference to education and real estate values for the whole community, both inside and outside Valdosta, than pushing destructive school “unification”.

It’s a TED Talk.

-jsq

PS: Owed to Scout Smith.