Ed Blakely (disasterous Katrina planner) picked for New York disaster recovery committee

[Sgent]

Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune

The city's post-Katrina recovery director -- deemed a failure by many New Orleanians despite his self-congratulatory book taking credit for the city's rebound -- has been appointed to a commission aimed at arming New York state for future disasters.

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Blakely, who once famously forecast "cranes on the skyline" in New Orleans by September 2007, now directs an urban planning center at the University of Sydney in Australia.

He has opined on various occasions that New Orleans "isn't likely" to exist a century from now; recommended that the 9th Ward be left to wash away; compared former Mayor Ray Nagin to President Abraham Lincoln; and published a book about New Orleans with a photo of a flooded Slidell on the cover.

The book, called "My Storm: Managing the Recovery of New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina" and published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, details how his work -- not New Orleanians or community organizers -- led to the city's recovery. Blakely's "target zone" recovery plan is considered by many a failure that accomplished little of what it set out to do.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/ed_blakely_picked_for_new_york.html

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This guy is a self-aggrandizing disaster. Speak to anyone familiar with New Orleans recovery operations, and they can confirm it -- from both sides of the political spectrum. I urge New Yorker's to try and get him replaced.

[sakabatou]

1. Ugh...

[glinda]

2. Note to self when Cuomo runs for President.

[snot]

3. Who picked him??

[hrmjustin]

4. I am sure our idiot mayor Bloomberg had something to do with this.

[KamaAina]

5. The only silver lining

is that, if history is any guide, he will continue to spend most of his time Down Under rather than gumming up the works in NYC.

[niyad]

6. so the victims of sandy have not yet suffered enough?

[Selatius]

7. I wonder why Cuomo decided that Blakely would be a good disaster planner.

Surely, his cabinet would've given Blakely's background to Cuomo before he decided on the guy.

[ReRe]

8. It's just a commission appointment...

...not the Chairmanship of the thing. Yeah, Cuomo screwed up big time on this one, unless he has something we don't know up his sleeve. I wouldn't trust anyone who would equate Mayor Nagin to Abraham Lincoln. Besides, who believes a braggart? "My Storm..."? My ass. If he's so damn good on disaster recovery, why is he in Australia? Just opining...

[sabrina 1]

9. He's a Disaster Capitalist obviously, like Giuliani and all the other ghouls

around the globe who rush to the scene of every disaster, not with shovels in their hands or food for the victims, but with their accountants and their lawyers to see how they can profit from someone's else's suffering.

I wonder how much he made on Katrina so far, and how much he donated to the victims?

When did he arrive in Australia? Remember the awful disasters there a while ago? I am willing to bet that's when he got there, to invest in some more suffering.

No wonder they are called Vulture Capitalists. Disgusting people.

[ReRe]

10. Something tells me you read Naomi Klein's.....

.....Shock Doctrine? Yeah, it's here. I didn't know if Katrina was at first, but now that Sandy has hit, I know it for sure. You know the Repubs used to believe in Climate Change, but in the past 20-30 yrs they shifted? I think they knew it was going to keep getting worse. And as long as they could keep our society at bay on the issue, they (the disaster capitalists) could swoop in and reap all the benefits of fixing it. Cut right down to the bone, you could call it "making work" for themselves. Some of these cut-throat, cannibalizing crony capitalists are diabolical, let me tell ya'. They can figure out how to squeeze money out of turnip. With Bush/Chaney, it was just plain war capitalism.. for the MIC. Jesus, Holy Jesus...aren't You paying any attention to what is going on down here on Your little blue dot?