Guest Blogger: How to Improve Culture, Save the Gulf

Great ideas get better when they are shared and as part of that effort, we have asked several people to share their ideas with us! Today’s entry was written by our guest, Chanpory Rith at LifeClever, an interaction designer with a fresh perspective on the world. You can subscribe to LifeClever here.

Imagine this: it’s 2050.

You're moving to a world-class city that rivals Paris, New York and London. Through ingenuity, this city has tamed dangerous environmental forces to emerge as a nexus of culture, business, and technology. You’re leaving your old home behind, because in this new city:

The past is both preserved physically and integrated symbolically into everyday life. Beautifully restored buildings respect history while coexisting with new and sustainable developments that look towards the future. This is not a soulless techno-utopia.

Thinkers and artists are flocking here to foster new innovation and culture...jobs are plentiful and housing is affordable...so where is this city?

Is it Amsterdam? A city that conquered the encroaching Atlantic Ocean that threatened to swallow it? Nope.

What about in East Asia, with its numerous artificial islands and rapid modernization? Nope.

Or perhaps it’s Dubai, the logical culmination of its extreme urban development in the desert? Nope.

It’s New Orleans, USA..

That’s right, the Gulf Coast. After the Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is ripe for a massive resurrection that will restore our hope in America and set an example for the rest of the world. Here's how:

1. Minimize the risk of catastrophic flooding through hydraulic engineering on a massive scale.

How: The storm surge of Hurricane Katrina exposed forever the inadequacies of the century-old federal flood protection system, with its ad hoc system of sandbag fortifications, crumbling levees, and feeble floodwalls. But it need not be this way. The Dutch, over the course of the 20th century, incredibly pulled its lowlands (and really, Amsterdam) from its early Atlantic grave. Maybe we should give the Dutch a call to pick their brains on the subject of hydraulic engineering.

Benefit: Prevents the next Katrina-like disaster while generating jobs and attracting leading innovators to the city.

2. Once tamed, begin to harness the power of the Gulf itself to explore and understand its still-hidden mysteries.

How: As a vast interior ocean basin and emptying point of America’s mightiest river, the Gulf is one of the world’s largest bodies of water. It’s location as a key strategic hub of commerce in the Western hemisphere makes the relative lack of scientific and geological understanding of the area stunning. The Gulf deserves to be explored and understood—always responsibly—for the sake of making the most of what we have. Why not dedicate swaths of the Gulf to non-exploitative field experimentation in the research sciences? Why not invite scientists of international acclaim to come work in the world’s largest research department to add their ingenuity to our own?

Benefit: Beyond the potential for discovering more fossil fuels, the Gulf Coast could also serve as the greatest working natural laboratory for research scientists in the country, if not the world. The still-young and woefully-neglected research in the fields of renewable energy resources (hydroelectric power, ocean energy, and geothermal energy) could see significant breakthroughs, if the Gulf were dedicated to their continued development and growth.

3. Collaborate with—and not compete against—the international community to broaden the range of the possible.

How: Part of rebuilding New Orleans means, not only asking Americans to participate, but reaching out to the world. We must invite world leaders, artists, and thinkers to participate in revitalization projects. For example, create collaborative projects for large public art installations, new educational models, preventative health care and sustainable housing solutions.

Benefit: The whole world has a stake in the survival of New Orleans. If its mysteries and passions are lost to history, it is all of humanity that will be deprived of its audacious charms and rich heritage. The renaissance of New Orleans will reawaken real American national purpose and patriotism while engendering respect from the international community. It could also serve as a bridge in rebuilding the half-century of needless animosity between the United States and its Gulf neighbor, the island of Cuba.

4. Promote New Orleans as a true American melting pot of ideas, peoples, languages, cultures, and social values.

How: The longstanding multi-ethnic and diverse Creole culture of the

Gulf Coast region including New Orleans have produced unique cultural breakthroughs like jazz and Cajun cuisine. New Orleans can stand as the ultimate symbol of American diversity and the ability to create new cultural forms through the nurturing of difference.

Benefit: It is now often considered the “most unique” city in America. In the future, it can be the “most unique” in the world, while attracting ever more varied and exotic cultural influences from the rest of the world, breathing life and sustenance into the new old city.

Why it matters to you!

1. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! For scientists, engineers, urban planners, skilled craftsmen, and laborers. The perfect place and opportunity to retrain Big Auto’s Lost Generation.

2. The New Economy will demand full and efficient utilization of all our national resources. Resource management will become more important as the “greening” of the economic and social life moves forward. Research concentrated in the potentially giant organic laboratory of the Gulf Coast could provide the spark for true breakthroughs in resource management and efficiency. The United States would finally shake its well-deserved reputation as a resource hog and move forward with the rest of the world in creating more sustainable approaches to efficiently and responsibly managing the resources we have.

3. Because "We the People" simply cannot afford to lose the nerve center of authentic American cultural production. As American culture becomes dominated more and more by suburban sameness, it’s ever important to preserve and promote the unique, rich, and meaningful aspects of American life and history. Without rebuilding New Orleans, a unique part of American culture could simply be lost in the next hurricane. But with enough focus and support, New Orleans can become the Amsterdam of the Gulf.

Have comments for Chanpory? Please post them! If you enjoyed this article, you might also like some of the other ideas popping up on PasstheBall.com. Come look, rate, comment and add your own!

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Great ideas get better when they are shared and as part of that effort, we have asked several people to share their ideas with us!