Will it be called Kelo City?

Avedon posts on something I've been thinking about today. What will the "new" Nawlins look like. I've been reading today that there was a feeling among the survivors that the somehow the levy breaches were engineered to wipe out the poor side of town. A theory given some creedence when you look at a map of the damage. The only sections that seem to have been spared were the monied enclaves of the French Quarter and the pricey riverfront properties and the dispersal of the levee breaks seem somewhat odd and yet convenient, if your plan was a massive urban removal program.

In any event, whether done by design or just a chance of nature, there is a fly in the works. Many survivors of those neighborhoods are refusing to leave. Some have reported being forced out of their homes at gunpoint by their "rescuers." The people that own those properties won't necessarily want to sell.

Avedon thinks the unique character of New Orleans is forever lost. I'm afraid she's probably right. I'm predicting that before this nightmare ends, we will see Kelo used as a tool to take the neighborhoods away from the poor and hand them over to commercial interests.