Safe-Water Elevation

The man made strucutres that failed and flooded New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina passed the city have been the subject of much less talk than, say, the idea that "people shouldn't live in a city below sea level." Even though the city is not below sea level and people have lived here for hundreds of years, just like humans have lived in cities near rivers and coastlines for millenia.

The appropriate question is rather: "why do we appear to make the same mistakes over and over, even as recent events have demonstrated how costly those mistakes can be?"

.