[extropy-chat] culture shock in the big difficult

[spike]

The floods in Fargo North Dakota in 1997 resulted
in a number of housing areas that had to be ceded
back to the river.  In New Orleans, we can see that 
most likely there will be some sections that can 
never be rebuilt, not only because they are prone
to natural disaster but also because they will
remain ever vulnerable to terrorists.  A couple
cases of dynamite can take out a city that many
on the fringe have never liked: the muslim extremists
see the drinking and sin going on there, the
local Baptists have never been comfortable with the 
frequency in which the head deacon goes down to 
Bourbon Street to minister to the harlots, etc.

If large sections of the poorest areas of New Orleans
cannot be rebuilt, then the people there must go
somewhere else.  But once they leave the Big Easy, 
everywhere else is by comparison the Big Difficult.

Looking around the Silicon Valley, I realized this
is the Biggest Difficultest, for so many reasons.  Even
rich people are poor here, since there is almost no
low-income housing and there is little prospect of any 
being built in this century.  The powerful environmental
lobby would need to be defeated, which would be
quite a task in itself.  

But for sheer culture shock to displaced Big Easiers,
the Silicon Valley is unsurpassed.  Just try to imagine
it: the whole go-go attitude here, the work your ass
off in hopes of one day owning a tract shack mindset,
the suspicious looks for anyone who is actually home
on a working day, the whole package, I just don't think
it would work to bring poor displaced Louisianans here.

So where will they go?

spike