The reconstruction of New Orleans is being discussed in this week’s Gambit, as well as today’s Times Picayune and The New York Times. But the themes vary widely according to location. While New Orleans media are concerned with the lack of progress and crooked dealings of FEMA and individual contractors, the New York Times article is more upbeat. These different points of view both reflect and guide the reality of the readers. While people far away can imagine that reconstruction progress is being made, New Orleanians are living in the proof that it isn’t.

The Gambit features an analysis of the Bush administration’s failure both to deliver the funding they promised, and to come up with a viable plan for the future. In the article Quinn Hillyer examines the expenditures of FEMA, revealing atronomical mistakes reminiscent of the FEMA’s ineptitude during the storm. In one example, “about $900 million was wasted by FEMA on manufactured homes that are unusable because they don't meet FEMA's own guidelines for use in flood zones.”

The The Times Picayune examines the plight of residents shafted by contractors who did shoddy work or no work at all, before leaving with the insurance money. I questioned the actions of contractors in one of my first blogs, but it’s easier for me to question from a distance. The people being taken advantage of were desperate to get back into their homes and acting hastily, making them perfect prey for opportunists.

The New York Times reported that FEMA is about to perform the long awaited shift of up to $3.6 billion worth of temporary-housing maintenance contracts to small and minority-owned businesses across the South. While it sounds great on the surface, I question the lack of experience of the companies that won the bids. Several of the businesses “appear to have experience in related fields,” but none are experts.

If FEMA really wanted to restore New Orleans, they would organize locals to rebuild, providing housing, tools, and other necessary resources so revenue would remain in the city when the rebuilding was done. New Orleans had plenty of small and minority owned business before the storm. The businesses that won these contracts may have been from the south, but that doesn’t meant the money they earn will benefit New Orleans. This is just FEMA thowing out bones without meat on them so people stop complaining for a minute. We're going to be hungry later on.

So don't believe the hype. And if you don't understand how important this question is, go to New Orleans. Two thirds of the population and eighty percent of the businesses are gone. As Hillyer points out, the regrowth of New Orleans is integral to the whole country. “Its port is the nation's largest by tonnage, the fifth largest in the world, and its health is vital for the health of the farmers throughout America's heartland. Cement, steel, and rubber, meanwhile, all flow upriver to the industrial Midwest. And much of the nation's seafood is spawned in Louisiana's marshes and harvested from its waters.”