REBUILD HAITI? world wide damage assessment raises questions

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Construction and earthquake specialists from around the world are looking at images of Port au Prince these days, trying to figure out what needs to be done and how large the effort might be. It is important to remember, however, that questions were properly raised after Katrina whether it was worthwhile to rebuild a city that was essentially at the mercy of the water levels and will be as long as it is populated.

Here is a clip from the Miami Herald (2.3.10)

DAMAGE REVIEW

The World Bank and other organizations have organized a damage review based on aerial photographs and infrared images of Port-au-Prince and areas southwest of the capital city. An ad hoc group of 500 earthquake experts and engineers in 22 countries volunteered to pore over the images to help estimate how much must be rebuilt -- and address how to fortify the city against future temblors.

``I suspect that's going to mean a long-term reconstruction project that is the largest ever imagined for a single country,'' said Mark Schneider, a former administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Here is a question, which will not be welcomed by some, but one which I think needs consideration and discussion: is it necessary to rebuild all of Port au Prince? There has already been open discussion among Haitian leadership about whether the capital of the country should be located right on such a massive, earthquake prone fault line. Another question should be whether so many people should live there.

Haiti is one of the most blatant examples in the western hemisphere of a failed state and a failed economy. If all the buildings could magically be replaced overnight and all the people put back in them, Port au Prince would still be a place of dramatic poverty where people search daily for basic necessities. The best built housing in the world cannot be maintained to any standard by people too poor to pay for health care and food. The level of poverty in Haiti makes some of the poorest parts of America look well off.

Even before the devastation of the earthquake, if you had made an announcement that people would be permitted to leave Haiti, you’d have a million signing up before the day was out. Those Haitians who have managed to gain legal status in the US have created a lifeline to Haiti of financial and other support and probably fifty per cent or more of the population would like to join them here.

Migration is an ordinary part of world history. Since the beginning of humans on the planet, people have left where they once lived to find a better, safer place. Even the so called “native Americans”, the Indian population, is believed to have migrated to North America ten thousand years ago from Asia. The whole history of the world, on every continent, involves the story of migration, its benefits and conflicts. We now have large barriers to such changes, called nations. The richer nations, quite naturally, want to protect themselves from poverty and the problems of health and violence that go with it.

Haiti is, and will remain for many months, an international emergency zone. If this disaster were in a more developed country, the population would already be loading up on jumbo jets and legal provisions would have been made to accept them here.

Is there no place for some Haitians to go? The United States could likely take a hundred thousand without too much trouble. There are nations in central and South America where people with a strong work ethic and long history of not living in luxury might be welcomed.

Consider the cost of supporting a managed migration over the raw cost of, first, supporting that population in Port au Prince for months to come and then helping to pay for the rebuilding. The so called “world community” is now engaged in an effort that literally will take billions of dollars over the next five to ten years. All options should be considered to give Haitians a chance, and perhaps a choice, toward a better life.

Doug Terry, 2.3.10

LINK TO THE MIAMI HERALD ARTICLE ON REBUILDING HAITI

http://tinyurl.com/yf6dnf8

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