USGBC Working Towards a Greener New Orleans
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany 
on 04. 5.06
What does the future hold for this storm-ravaged city? Perhaps for the first time, we have the opportunity to build a city from the ground up—incorporating a 21st century understanding of ecological issues. The U.S. Green Building Council hopes leaders in urban planning, real estate, neighborhood outreach and architecture will follow its sustainable plan. The organization presented “The New Orleans Principles," 10 suggestions for sustainable development in New Orleans, at a leadership luncheon last month. According to USGBC member Bob Odell, the city should reinvent its history of mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhoods with 21st century technology like solar electric systems, protected underground utilities, and updated public transit.
The principals, simple in form, could be revolutionary, if followed.
The Ten Principles:
1. Respect the rights of all citizens of New Orleans
Displaced citizens who wish to return to New Orleans should be afforded the opportunity to return to healthy, livable, safe, and secure neighborhoods of choice.
2. Restore natural protections of the greater New Orleans region
Sustain and restore the coastal and floodplain ecosystems and urban forests that support and protect the environment, economy, communities, and culture of southern Louisiana, and that contribute greatly to the economy and well-being of the nation.
3. Implement an inclusive planning process
Build a community-centered planning process that uses local talent and makes sure that the voices of all citizens of New Orleans are heard. This process should be an agent of change and renewal for New Orleans.
4. Value diversity in New Orleans
Build on the traditional strength of New Orleans neighborhoods, encourage mixed uses and diverse housing options, and foster communities of varied incomes, mixed age groups, and a racial diversity. Celebrate the unique culture of New Orleans, including its food, music, and art.
5. Protect the city of New Orleans
Expand or build a flood protection infrastructure that serves multiple uses. Value, restore, and expand the urban forests, wetlands, and natural systems of the New Orleans region that protect the city from wind and storms.
6. Embrace smart redevelopment
Maintain and strengthen the New Orleans tradition of compact, connected, mixed-use communities. Provide residents and visitors with multiple transportation options. Look to schools for jumpstarting neighborhood redevelopment and for rebuilding strong communities in the city.
7. Honor the past; build for the future
In the rebuilding of New Orleans, honor the history of the city while creating 21st century buildings that are durable, affordable, inexpensive to operate, and healthy to live in. Through codes and other measures, ensure that all new buildings are built to high standards of energy, structural, environmental, and human health performance.
8. Provide for passive survivability
Homes, schools, public buildings, and neighborhoods should be designed and built or rebuilt to serve as livable refuges in the event of crisis or breakdown of energy, water, and sewer systems.
9. Foster locally owned, sustainable businesses
Support existing and new local businesses built on a platform of sustainability that will contribute to a stronger and more diverse local economy.
10. Focus on the long term
All measures related to rebuilding and ecological restoration, even short-term efforts, must be undertaken with explicit attention to the long-term solutions. ::USGBC
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New Orleans is below sea level and sinking! This city should be abandoned before we see 500,000 people drown when the Gulf of Mexico reclaims it totally. We deny the earth's changes at our own risk. We have been warned and only the foolish would move to New Orleans.
You need to give credit to pop out maps maker Map Group Inc. I recognise the New Orleans you have pictured, and you guys didn't draw this.
At least New Orleans has a head start on all of the rest of the nations low-lying areas. If sea level does come up 3-6 feet during this century, we will be hearing a bunch more people crying about being below sea level. New Orleans has levee protection to +14 in much of the area, and it's going up as I write this.
If we want to save New Orleans and every other coastal/low-lying region then we must adapt to the changing environment. Hurricanes, erosion of coastal ecosystems and rising sea levels threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of people. If a city becomes unsustainable then it will cease to exist; people can't and won't live in a place that lacks opportunity and/or safety.
New Orleans could become the New Venice, but that's a best case scenario. If the levees are not adequately improved, then the city could flood permanently causing a diaspora of its residents, businesses and industries to other cities that won't be able to support them all. Not to mention the loss of the largest port in the nation which would effect all American citizens, and ultimately the world in unimaginable ways.
Even though New Orleans may seem like a lost cause we have no choice but to rebuild it better. The city will be have to be rebuilt no matter what, whether it's all in the same place is up to us.
Vernon is a bone head out of touch with the culture of New Orleans, the History of the US, and environmental dynamics of the Mississippi delta
New Orleans is an amazing place, there's no way we should just right it off.