Jonathan Rauch has written a reality-based article on New Orleans and Katrina. Opening paras:
The evacuation plans were inadequate and then bungled. The rescue was slow, confused, often nonexistent. Yet the most striking fact of the New Orleans catastrophe has received less notice than it deserves: The plan for New Orleans in case of a hit from a very powerful hurricane was to lose the city.In other words, if a severe hurricane struck, the city's flooding and abandonment was not what would happen if the plan failed. It was the plan.
No fooling. When I occasionally think my Deep Thoughts, I've thought that the most promising libertarian analysis on the proper role of government could be based on risk analysis and mitigation. Not that I'm smart enough to do that myself. But Rauch's article is a good example of that kind of analysis and follows through to policy implications.
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