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Some thoughts on class, race, and catastrophe from left, right, center, and all over the place:

…every aspect of the catastrophe was shaped by inequalities of class and race. Besides unmasking the fraudulent claims of the Department of Homeland Security to make Americans safer, the shock and awe of Katrina also exposed the devastating consequences of federal neglect of majority black and Latino big cities and their vital infrastructures.

from The predators of New Orleans by Mike Davis)

Of the $100 billion that may be spent on New Orleans, let’s be serious. We love Louisiana and feel for Louisiana, but we all know what Louisiana is, a very human state with rather particular flaws. As Huey Long once said, “Some day Louisiana will have honest government, and they won’t like it.” We all know this, yes? Louisiana has many traditions, and one is a rich and unvaried culture of corruption.

from Whatever It Takes’

Is Bush’s big spending a bridge to nowhere? by Peggy Noonan

It will not be long until…many Americans wonder whether rebuilding schools and sewage-treatment facilities in Iraq competes with rebuilding them on America’s Gulf Coast._

from Leviathan in Louisiana by George F. Will

For decades, various radical nationalists in Asia have written off the American working class or denied it even existed. Yet here for all to see was the elementary class truth that workers on the Indian subcontinent are in the same boat as their class brothers and sisters in the United States.

from The Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Kashmiri earthquake: lessons for the working class by Wije Dias

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The Urban Conservancy is dedicated to research, education and advocacy that promote the wise stewardship of the urban built environment and local economies. See their archives for great insight into the situation.

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