Who said anything about eminent domain or buying people's property? I said the area should be re-zoned as commercial only. No need to kick anybody out, just grandfather all current residential property to the CURRENT landowner ONLY. If the current landowner wants to sell, his land is residential 'current use' in a commercial zone. It wouldn't take long for all current residents to move, and no eminent domain would be necessary. Compare the cost of my re-zoning suggestion to say, the cost of re-building New Orleans, AS it WAS, before Katrina. Both my re-zoning suggestion and (rebuilding New Orleans) would cost significantly LESS than we've spent rebuilding infrastructure in oil-rich Iraq in the past year, but which would cost less? Still think it's such a pathetic idea? Well, you probably do.
That's a totally separate topic. We need to keep people out of there anyway, so what's the rush to clean it up? Seems to me if we allow the ocean to reclaim New Orleans (already happened, apparently), then there won't be much of a cleanup cost there.
What about
Tornados, wildfires, hailstorms and meteor strikes? Well now you're just being silly. But there are some areas nowhere near any ocean that flood regularly. It could be argued that those few areas SHOULD indeed be re-zoned commercial use only, also. If all land within 500 miles of the ocean is commercial only, no need to worry about tsunamis, either. For that matter, the major earthquake danger in the U.S. would be pretty much solved by rezoning the first 500 miles of California (by the ocean) as commercial only. When the whole state drops into the Pacific, at least loss of life would be lower. Yes, earthquakes hit other areas of the U.S. once in a blue moon, but the major earthquake risk is in Cali . . . and coincidentally, close to an ocean. If volcanic erruptions that cause loss of life are a frequent occurrence, rezone areas around volcanoes, also. I don't think this is really necessary, though. Hurricanes are a yearly happening, with some years (like this one) worse than others, so it is a good idea to prepare for them. The last volcano that I remember being a problem (in the U.S. anyway) was Mt. St. Helens. (SP?) -Dave
