Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[847badgerfan]

Water is the reason why the Twin Cities are the Twin Cities. St. Paul remains the effective head of navigation on the Mississippi River, whereas Minneapolis grew up around the industrial power source of St. Anthony Falls.

Correct. People have been building cities right on, or near water, forever. Sins of the past are the problems of today.

[MrNubbz]

 That city should be America's largest wetland - larger than the Everglades, which have also gotten screwed up.

Pretty sure they are making efforts to unscrew it though

[Cincydawg]

By "significant" do you mean "navigable"?

I was thinking that, yes, but it's open to interpretation.  Maybe the river in Dallas is navigable, I don't know.

"Back in the day", the Ohio River were often dry up in August to the point larger boats could not make it.

Some flat boats would load up with barrels of whiskey and head down to NO.  Supposedly, one of the lots of barrels was in a fire and partially burned.  They shipped the whiskey anyway.  Folks in NO liked this whiskey and asked from whence it came and the answer was Bourbon county (or country).  The traders would dismantle the rafts in NO and walk home.

[GopherRock]

By "significant" do you mean "navigable"?

Or lack thereof.

Buffalo, Louisville, St. Paul, and Montreal were all established at break-in-bulk points, where freight is transferred from one mode to the other. 

[847badgerfan]

It's interesting to read about what the Army Corps deems to be navigable. 

[OrangeAfroMan]

That would be completely wrong.

People have been building in water's harms way for thousands of years. That's the problem. People know better now, and it's highly regulated. There is no way Chicago ever gets built where it is with current FEMA, Army Corps and DNR regulations. It was all wetland and floodplain.

Let's not even get into New Orleans. That city should be America's largest wetland - larger than the Everglades, which have also gotten screwed up.

Ehhh, I disagree, with a caveat.  
We all know cities sprang up by rivers/oceans - they had to.  However, even the earliest humans knew not to live right on the water, but close it out, out of harm's way.  The people you've said as building in harm's way would be the slave class or lowest class of that society.  The worker bees.  The ruling class may have either withheld this knowledge from them or, more likely, forced them to live in harm's way.  
.
It takes exactly one spring to learn you shouldn't build right on the riverbank.  It takes more springs than that to learn you don't build in a flood plain, but not more than a generation.  You're selling our precursors short here.  
And New Orleans is the perfect modern example of what I've said here.  The nicer areas weren't flooded because they were on the higher ground.  The submerged areas were full of, you guessed it, the poorest people.  
.
Katrina was merely the most recent example of what's been going on since cities began.  

[847badgerfan]

Ehhh, I disagree 

No shit.

[OrangeAfroMan]

Well I'd agree if you were more right....

[847badgerfan]

People, probably going back only a couple hundred years ago:  See that flood plain?  Okay, we need to build up over there, on that high ground.  You know, to avoid inevitable catastrophe.
.
Recent people:  See that flood plain?  Okay, we need to fill it in and build on it.  You know, anything catastrophic would only be like a once-in-a-lifetime event, anyway (proceeds to build a city that will lasts hundreds of years).

This is completely wrong.

[OrangeAfroMan]

Well if you decree it....

[847badgerfan]

du Sable, who founded Chicago, built his house at the Chicago River's mouth at Lake Michigan. Right on the River.

The US Military built Fort Dearborn. Right on the River.

[Cincydawg]

Poorer people would obviously live where the land was cheaper, which might not have been on or near a river, because that land had a lot of commercial potential.  Over the Rhine in Cincinnati was an elite residential area when built because it was north of the canal, and in the flood plain.   The canal was drained to build a subway which famously was never completed, the tunnels largely remain filled with pipes and cables.  The old canal was nicknamed the "Rhine" and the prosperous folks north of it were mostly German.  The street over the subway was originally Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, or Willy Street, until for some reason it was changed in 1915.

Just back from a walk, the weather is about as perfect as it can be for being outside.

[CWSooner]

I was thinking that, yes, but it's open to interpretation.  Maybe the river in Dallas is navigable, I don't know.

"Back in the day", the Ohio River were often dry up in August to the point larger boats could not make it.

Some flat boats would load up with barrels of whiskey and head down to NO.  Supposedly, one of the lots of barrels was in a fire and partially burned.  They shipped the whiskey anyway.  Folks in NO liked this whiskey and asked from whence it came and the answer was Bourbon county (or country).  The traders would dismantle the rafts in NO and walk home.

The river in Dallas is not navigable.
I was thinking about Austin, which sits in the midst of a bunch of rivers and lakes, but I don't think you'd call the Colorado River (of Texas) navigable.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, though.

[CWSooner]

Or lack thereof.

Buffalo, Louisville, St. Paul, and Montreal were all established at break-in-bulk points, where freight is transferred from one mode to the other.

Yep.  That's the same function seaports fulfill.

Does Buffalo qualify as a seaport?