Feel like greenin' it up!

It's important to remember that not all the news is bad news. There are, in fact, numerous creative, engaged, and inspiring people and communities in New Orleans. Unfortunately they keep hitting road blocks from the city, the state and the feds. If government and insurance would get around to doing the right thing, I have no doubt New Orleans would rise like a phoenix. Check out Ariane Wiltse's great story in last week's Gambit Weekly on the efforts in the Lower Ninth Ward to rebuild green and rebuild for the 21st century. The work of Charles Allen III (the new president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association and also the assistant director of the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier universities) and the resident of Holy Cross is moving.

From Day 1 after the federally-constructed and managed levees failed I wondered why we couldn't rebuild a New Orleans that preserved its character while giving it a 21st-century infrastructure. New Orleans should be a showcase of building best practices: efficient, adaptive, fair, and green. Anything less tells is a disgrace.