Okay class. I’ve given y’all some time to spot, beyond the elementary arithmetic error, the other significant flaws in Rysdad’s little thought exercise. Either you’re too polite to point them out or you have lives to lead and have better things to do than participate further in this absurdity.
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I don’t know what Rysdad has against poor people, but being poor in and of itself does not necessarily mean that you live in a run-down near slum. Some poor people undoubtedly do, many do not.
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Rysdad did not correct for population density. Given that lower income housing is usually more congested - - smaller lots, smaller houses - - than upper income housing, merely multiplying the poverty rate by the land area is not going to provide accurate numbers.
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Unlike other third world cities, New Orleans doesn’t confine the poor in shanty towns or slums. Neighborhoods are mixed fairly equally around the city. So rather than one BIG block of poor folks, there are lots of little blocks of poor folks. Remember #1 above though: poor ≠ run-down near slum.
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Contrary to Rysdad’s recollections and his 18 year-old armchair book, not all of New Orleans’ poorest residents were in areas that flooded. The former St. Thomas Housing Project - razed and rebuilt as River Garden - was not flooded (the photo Rysdad, the photo). The Irish Channel on the lake side Tchoupitoulas was dry. Bywater along St. Claude Avenue towards the river - dry as a bone. The Fisher Housing Project in Algiers didn’t flood. Carrollton upriver of S. Carrollton: no water.
So if we put some corrective factors into place:
Let’s say 10% of the poor in New Orleans don’t live in run-down near slums.
Let’s say that population density means that there are 2x as many poor people in run-down near slums.
Let’s say that 1/3 of the poor neighborhoods didn’t flood.
Run the numbers and Rysdad=:wally
Actually, you get 36.46 squre miles of Rysdad’s initial poor New Orleans x .9 x .5 x .667 = 10.94 square miles of flooded run-down near slums.
Now, factor in that these flooded run-down near slum areas were spread around a city that had 145.84 square miles of flooded area, or 7.5% of the flooded area was run-down near slums. Still a deplorable number, at least as far as caring human beings are concerned.
Now, for an interesting comparison, let’s apply the same analysis to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Rysdad’s hometown.
According to Wikipedia, the poverty rate in Minneapolis is 11.9% and the land area is 58.4 square miles. St. Paul’s poverty rate is 15.6% and the land area is 56.2 miles. The raw poverty area, using what passes for Rysdad’s own logic (multiply poverty rates x land areas) is 15.71 square miles. Correct for 10% of poor folks not living in run-down near slums and double the population density and you get 7.7 square miles of run-down near slums in the Twin Cities, AND Rysdad still =:wally
7.7 square miles is 64.6 percent of 10.94 square miles. So the Twin Cities have nearly 2/3 the amount of flooded run-down near slums as New Orleans, and it probably isn’t even raining there at the moment. Pot meet kettle; kettle, pot.
Are there areas of New Orleans that were in desperate need of urban renewal pre-Katrina? Unfortunately, absolutely so. Many of these buildings are nearing 100 years old and were looking rather shabby before being flooded. Miles and miles? Not hardly - - blocks and blocks, sadly so.
Still, we’ll do our best to put things back together down here, even if only for the satisfaction of the small minded who will take delight should we ever be inundated again.