thoughts

I was thinking about our conversation on how to re-build the World Trade Centers in the context of these articles about New Orleans.  While these are both really tragic disasters, we are privileged in the United States that have the opportunity to consider how to re-build them.  The United States very rarely fields attacks on our soil and when we do it is very rightly a national crisis.  I am curious how other places are re-built when they have been the site of war and catastrophic violence.  Is there as much dialogue about the importance of memorializing a place?  Or whose responsibility it is to re-build (the owner or the state)?  It seems to be that in other places where the violence is more widespread and all consuming rebuilding would be a makeshift process.  I think this relates to the processes of climate change that are affect different parts of the world very differently.  Who are we to tell people to re-locate because of a phenomenon that we are primarily responsible for?