housing close to the ocean is slowly going to become less popular over the next few years.

I predict coastal land values will drop, rich people will buy it up, then when people forget the danger, newly rich idiots will buy the land at wildly inflated rates, and the people who bought it up will get richer.

I'm with Aaron.

You (as a taxpayer) subsidizes flood insurance for these homes.

The rich people that buy shore front property get paid to rebuild their destroyed homes (thanks to you).

New Orleans is a bit "special" in that it reflects the peril of building a city below sea level (in a hurricane zone).

"it reflects the peril of building a city below sea level (in a hurricane zone)"

funny how clearly stupid that decision was when you say it like that.

"funny how clearly stupid that decision was when you say it like that."

I suppose the city was founded back when stuff like that was considred witchcraft.

The city was *above* sea level when it was established some 300+ years ago. But it is on a delta, which subsides. So unless you lift your buildings and roads up each year, to toss some dirt under them, it will continue to sink.

>> housing close to the ocean is slowly going to become less popular over the next few years. <<

FEMA has changed their flood insurance policies to where they'll rebuild your house *once*, and there's a dollar cap on what they'll pay for (no $1 million restorations). After that, you've got no coverage.

This is assuming that the land you bought is still there, and not part of an inlet now.

There's some historical articles around that indicate that at the founding of New Orleans, the military leader who decided to locate a city there was told by everyone he knew that that was a bad location for a city. But he was stubborn.

Peter, actually the city was a swamp when it was founded. They built the first levees to divert the mississippi from the swampland where they wanted to build houses.

> I'm with Aaron

Hey, what you two do in your private lives is your own business, and we don't want to know anything about it. Apart from the stripper, that is.

Well, no news on the stripper front. (Or back, for that matter.)

I'm wondering who's going to be more "famous" on the internet - Joel Spolsky, or Aaron F Stanton and his stripper :)