I really do not want to meddle in anyone’s life.  There is this, however: when someone is beaten down by a hurricane or a related business failure, the opportunity is there to offer a helping hand.  People of my ilk, those interested in the utopias past and present (please direct me to the nearest functioning one) see opportunities in the disasters of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the complete breakdown of services to handle the miseries of the millions who have been dispossessed and torn from their water-logged homes and neighborhoods, beg to bring order out of chaos.

My interest is in the opportunity to do some community planning, building and restoring life to regions that have been devastated.  There is no need to have the shell-shocked displaced peoples wondering where they will land and what will a nation fighting a losing war in strange lands is able to offer in the way of a way out.

There are sections of New Orleans that have been devastated that perhaps should be abandoned, left to become the swamps they once were or parks where natural life is allowed to restore itself.  The midden heaps of debris can be covered up with soil and raise the surface of the land above sea level.  Leave it to future archaeologists to dig down through the detritus and find about us from our refuse.

But the real challenge is to find land that is perfectly habitable and is available for constructing new communities complete with workshops, businesses, schools and stores. The directionless and hapless activities of multiple  private, parochial and public agencies reminds us at once of the huge governmental machine of the UN with its conflicting parts that do not work in concert.

We have plenty of models for (forget the term “utopian”) model communities that provide habitation for different income levels and for incorporating stores, schools, parks and recreation.  These have lasted for decades and have gone through evolutionary changes that are necessary and fruitful.  Change should be built into these model communities and they could be built from the ground up in new lands not yet occupied.  If placed on crossroads from old to new areas there is the hope that public transportation could be incorporated into the placement of these “NEWTOWNS” or “CENTRAL CITIES”.

What is needed here is not just vision but a will to work while the opportunity and energy is there.  If we let this place and time go down, we go down with it.