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Press Room — Perspectives on Current Events

Another Way to Save New Orleans

High tech driven by expensive private or public investment increasingly pushes aside softer more humane and potentially more effective and efficient solutions. People and the spirits that motivate them increasingly fade into the back round. Attention has been given to the unmatched expertise of the Dutch and their modern system of dikes built to withstand a 10,000-year storm. But maybe there's another story that the Dutch have to teach us from their history.

The Dutch have a sovereign queen but for hundreds of years they have been a society of decentralized government in terms of many human services. For education the Dutch use vouchers to send their children to public or private schools as they chose with government supported tuition.

Dutch Sovereignty not Dutch Engineering Could Be a Solution for New Orleans.

This practice stems from the diversity of religious beliefs within Dutch society that made it hard to come to agreement on a standard curriculum. This Dutch system of decentralized communities has been traced to the historic need for communities to mobilize rapidly to repair breaks in the traditional dikes that threaten both the immediate population and large numbers of surrounding areas. Local autonomy in return for local responsibility became a hallmark of a nation directly tied to protecting itself from the periodic flooding.

What if we had treated New Orleans similarly? What if instead of scattering every body and leaving it to federal, state and local politics as to how to invest in highly expensive solutions, we had focused on bringing people back home from day one? What if efforts had been made to quickly network local groups, offering them the information and authority over the budget and letting them decide how they wanted to invest in reconstructing their community lives. Sounds ridiculous? Well governments don't have to build cities. Just look at Salt Lake City. The Mormons built it in with the strength of their faith and the unity of their community without federal assistance. Why can't we do the same today?

Certainly there are pragmatic constraints but in the end maybe it comes down to a question of power. If you give people the power to build their own community you make other interests subservient to their local sovereign authority — a situation often not attractive to parties with other plans and purposes. It's unfortunate because life is really not about concrete cities and constructed houses. It's about communities working together and families functioning as mutual support units while working with their neighbors for the greater good.

Does it sound idealistic? Well those dams that the Dutch built for a 10,000-year flood once also sounded idealistic. But they were determined to protect their land and way of life and had faith in their ability to do so. We could do the same. The problem isn't engineering. The problem is more a lack of unity of conscience on a community level and a lack of faith that working together rather than as individuals in the end yields the greatest benefits for all.

© JGrayzel: May be reproduced and quoted if proper attribution is given.