The resilience economy

Not sure what the big deal is here.

Coastal towns would enjoy an economic boon from a massive oil spill in the Great Australian Bight, BP claimed in newly revealed documents from a 2016 drilling bid.

The oil giant said any cleanup operation following a huge spill would bring a “welcome boost to local economies.” The claim was uncovered via a freedom of information request by the U.K.-based Climate Home News website.

It's true, though, right? At least that's what New Orleans's political and business leaders have been telling us for years. As Ray Nagin once famously said, "There's big money in disasters."  Ray was always an idea man, though.  It wasn't until the following administration that we really professionalized the notion of resilience as an economic development opportunity. 

BP, Ray, Mitch, et al are really the optimists here. Sure, climate change is going to destroy cities, threaten food supplies, and endanger millions. But we chose to allow that to happen a long time ago. The challenge now is for global corporations,  political elites,  and well placed entrepreneurs to go to work figuring out how to profit by it.  That's just what leaders do.

True facts about Ed Blakely

According to ABC News Australia, former New Orleans "recovery czar" Ed Blakely is "Bringing Brooklyn's urban cool" to a shopping mall fountain in Sydney. Gambit explains.

Dr. Ed Blakely watchers know that former Mayor Ray Nagin's "recovery czar" declared mission accomplished on the rebuilding of New Orleans in 2009 and took his metaphorical "cranes in the sky" to Australia, where he now works with the University of Sydney's United States Study Centre (bless their hearts).

But now Blakely has a new challenge. He's teaming up with "urban designer" Ethan Kent to revitalize a shopping mall in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta.


That revitalization seems to center on restoring a fountain built in 1986 in the midst of the mall, a rather different task than rebuilding New Orleans. But certainly Blakely is the man for the job; as a report on ABC News Australia stated this morning, he was appointed to fix New Orleans by none other than President George W. Bush:

Professor Blakely was called in by then president George W Bush as "recovery tsar" after Katrina and has now been commissioned by Parramatta City Council to rebuild its central square, Church Street Mall.

He says the task in New Orleans was massive.

"The city fell down. 80 per cent of it was ruined," Professor Blakely said.

"We had to build it from the ground up and that's what we did.

"But I worked on a lot of other cities around the world: San Francisco, some in New York, Moscow, Paris."

There once was a time (I think this was just after the "Chocolate City" speech) when we were fond of pointing out the similarities between Mayor Ray Nagin and President Bush.  But we were pretty certain at the time that Nagin and not Bush hired Ed Blakely.  But if ABC says differently, then I suppose there's a lot we didn't know about Ed Blakely.

And that's why I did some checking.  You might be surprised at the Ed Blakely facts I found. I would like to share these facts with you now.  Not many people know these facts so you are likely learning them for the first time.  If you find them shocking please consider the feelings of others you may share them with before you do.

• Ed Blakely was hatched in a secret laboratory operated by Monsanto in Anaheim, California at Disneyland's original Tomorrowland exhibit. In the basement.


• Ed Blakely trained  in the meditative arts by walking a topiary labyrinth for 20 years uninterrupted while he communed with the infinite.. or possibly the ghost of Robert Moses.


• Ed Blakely was appointed by President Rutherford Hayes to re-crack the Liberty Bell after it was repaired by well-meaning locals who didn't want to wait around for the damn gub'mint to solve their bell problem for them.


• Ed Blakely once escaped from Liliput shouting defiantly at its inhabitants, "I don't have time to talk to little people."


• Ed Blakely personally administered the neighborhood charrette that produced Adrien de Pauger's original plan of New Orleans.


• Ed Blakely restored power to Superbowl XLVII by smiling brightly at a newborn child.


• Ed Blakely once bike toured all the way from Cuba to Florida.
   

This afternoon, we received word that the Voyager 1 Spacecraft is believed to have finally exited the solar system and sailed  on into interstellar space. But Ed Blakely was already there so it turned around and came home.

Tactical error

All that time we wished Ed Blakely would go back to Australia we were just wishing him into optimal position to do more harm.

THE controversial figure who led the reconstruction of New Orleans following hurricane Katrina has suggested increasing the GST to "future proof" Australian cities from natural disasters.

Sydney based academic, Professor Ed Blakely, headed the New Orleans clean-up until mid 2009, drawing headlines for inflamatry comments during his time as the city's recovery Tsar.

The professor, who reportedly likened some New Orleans residents to “buffoons”, has now offered advice on the clean up effort in Brisbane.

He said it should be followed by an attempt to “reposition the city’s eco system”.

He called for residents to be moved to less hazardous areas and advocated the construction of new waterways including “channels” and “canals” in Brisbane.

“I think it would be gradual. You would buy people out. You would offer them equivalent properties near by and you would move people to nearby areas… It would be a prettier city with water courses in it and so on,” he told The Australian Online.

While many Australians are wondering today just how much more repositioned their ecosystem could get as it is currently coursing through their cities and not in the prettiest way might we offer our best future-proofing advice: Don't give this guy a job.