We Have An Answer

On Sept 8th I asked:
Is anyone taking bets on how long before the vultures start picking at
the corpse and proclaiming that this is a historic opportunity to show
just how sustainable a new city built on Smart Growth principles could
be?

We have an answer:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1012/p01s01-ussc.html

Within days of hurricane Katrina, urban planners, architects, and engineers flocked to the city to get a first look at the potential. If their efforts seem uncoordinated, their goals are lofty. Many planners and politicians don't want to merely re-create New Orleans, but to make it better - socially, culturally, economically, environmentally, and physically.
...
Other planners toss out ideas for change that are more physical: replacing the freeway network that looms over the downtown with a boulevard system, for instance, similar to what San Francisco did after the 1989 earthquake. Or developing better public transit.

"They should get the streetcar system back to where it was at the end of World War II," says John Norquist, former Milwaukee mayor and president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, who also suggests the freeway transformation.
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$200 billion to "replicate" what's been not working for 50 years in a place that is more exposed to re-losing the effort than any other random place that could be chosen. Worst case of OPM I've ever seen. [Other People's Money]

Let's just think about $200 billion. That's a MILLION $200,000 houses. The problem being houses don't pay the salaries of urban planners and spending all the money on things like adequate housing for the masses leaves nothing for pet projects like tearing down freeways or building transit or high density mixed use experiments.