Minor Thoughts from me to you

More than two years after Hurricane Katrina, much of New Orleans still lays in ruins. There are those that would blame that on the federal government. They are the same people that blame President Bush for their uncut lawns and unweeded gardens.

Instead, there are two things to consider: one, where are the local leaders who should be stepping up and rebuilding; two, should New Orleans be rebuilt?

There are some leaders stepping up in the city, but they're not from the government.

In Waveland, Mississippi, for example, the manager of the local Wal-Mart worked with the company's corporate officials to open a store under a tent in the parking lot, then later opened a convenient, easily accessible "Wal-Mart Express"-the first-ever store of its type-designed especially for post-Katrina Mississippi.

Down the road in Bay St. Louis, I spoke with resident Alicia Cool, who told me she reopened her flower shop because "without business you can't have people wanting to come back and stay here." Despite the devastation all around her, her perseverance paid off. Her sales went through the roof.

One example is Doris Voitier, the superintendent of the St. Bernard Parish Schools. Voitier became something of a local hero when she realized that functional schools were critical to getting residents to move back to the parish. She decided she'd figure out a way to open them, bureaucracy be damned. ... For her heroic efforts to reopen her schools, Voitier would later be investigated for misappropriation of federal property.

Neighborhood associations are a good example. LaToya Cantrell, who by day works for an education non-profit, turned the 75-year old Broadmoor Improvement Association into a leading example of how to organize a neighborhood to rebuild. ... The neighborhood association wants to open a charter school in an abandoned school building. The parish school board, fighting further the decay of its authority, is doing everything it can to prevent them.

Get the government out of New Orleans and residents might be able to accomplish more. But we should also ask whether it's even worth rebuilding New Orleans.

The Democratic debate over the future of New Orleans somehow passed over the instructive example of Valmeyer, Ill. In 1993, the town of 900 was swamped, not for the first time, by a rain-swollen Mississippi River. It hasn't been swamped since, because it's not there anymore. Rather than remain in a vulnerable spot, the residents voted to relocate their village to a bluff 400 feet above the river.

But no one wants to suggest similar discretion in Louisiana.

The cost of the levee system envisioned by Sen. Clinton is tabbed at $40 billion. Restoring other infrastructure would increase the cost. The question is whether that's the best use of our resources. For $40 billion, you could give more than $61,000 to every Louisianan displaced by Katrina -- nearly a quarter of a million dollars for a family of four.

Here's the question that ought to be considered: Would those people prefer that the money be spent shoring up dikes around a natural lake? Or would they rather get the money themselves and decide whether to stay or migrate to less soggy terrain?

Living in soggy terrain is expensive. It's expensive to keep out the water and it's expensive to rebuild after the water forces its way in. Many residents are finally starting to see that cost.

The extensive damage done by the storms of 2005 has sharply raised the cost of homeowners' insurance in the region, for those who can find a policy at all. Those costs have become a major impediment to recovery.

"It makes it very difficult for people, particularly those of marginal means, who want to come back, to rebuild," said Lawrence Ponoroff, the dean of the Tulane University School of Law here. "It is very tough on institutions and on attracting new business to the area."

The higher premiums have made buying a house -- or selling one -- here more difficult, said Lynda Nugent Smith, who has been selling real estate here for 34 years. "All of a sudden your insurance goes from $2,000 a year to $6,000 a year," Ms. Smith said. "It's just that cherry on top that makes the whole pile of ice cream and whipped cream fall over."

New Orleans residents should make the decision to stay or go for themselves. But they should do so with a full understanding of the costs and risks inherent in staying. It is not the responsibility of the other 49 states in the Union to rebuild New Orleans every time it floods. Nor is it a constitutional right to live in a flood plain and have your home rebuilt each time it floods.

I'm glad to see local leaders stepping up and helping to bring life back to New Orleans. They're proving their commitment to the city by working on the city. But I'm also glad to see insurance prices rising. Those that stay in the city should bear the costs of doing so, not push those costs onto you and me. Insurance is just a way of making those costs visible. It would be criminal to attempt to hide those costs or force others to shoulder them.