VICKSBURG - Opportunity presents itself in strange ways.
For idealists, Katrina's clean sweep of Mississippi coastal and many inland areas offers a shot at starting almost from scratch.
Literally hundreds of people are at dozens of drawing boards, and they're working fast.
The idea is for planned development to take the place of random development. The idea is to have sturdier structures, more reliable utilities, quicker emergency services, big roads and small roads where needed, and safer intersections. The idea is to have strategic locations for schools and for residential areas to include small parks. The idea is to pinpoint some areas for small shopping centers and others for larger, more centralized retail stores. The overarching goal is creating stronger communities where functional design spells convenience and convenience spells a better quality of life.
Are these folks breaking new ground?
Not really.
When America's first cities were created, lessons were imported from the metropolises of Europe. Boston has its Commons; New York has Central Park, and Washington, D.C., the only fully planned community of its size, has broad streets and green spaces, open areas, height limits on buildings and strict enforcement of design codes.
Through the years, however, the importance of not making every square inch of land available to commercial development fell by the wayside, especially as cities like Houston and Dallas and Los Angeles began to grow. Yes, those cities have parks and outdoor art and other amenities - but they also have sprawl, nightmarish traffic and miles and miles of box-shaped stores with litter-strewn asphalt parking lots. No medians. A few scraggly trees. Ugly. Uncomfortable. Impractical.
In the 1970s, community planning was born anew. The federal government created a program called Urban Renewal, which, truth be told, was pretty much a flop because it focused on pretty facades rather than the real, everyday needs and habits of people.
But since then, several American towns have made their own ongoing transitions. San Antonio, Texas, with its Riverwalk area, is an example of one that has become a world-class destination. Madison, just north of Jackson in Mississippi, has grown rapidly for more than a decade, but has stuck fast to design criteria that make sure gas stations, discount stores and medical clinics are well-built and attractively landscaped.
That approach, more or less, is what the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal has as its agenda.
In one of his early press appearances after Katrina's devastation, Gov. Haley Barbour said that coastal communities would not only be rebuilt, but would be better than ever. That quip set the specialists in motion. They took it as a challenge.
The commission, with key members chosen by Barbour, has his blessing - but no public funds and no legal authority. The layered group, however, is moving with extraordinary speed to prepare - in about 10 weeks - a comprehensive strategy.
Big names chair the dozen or more sub-groups assigned specific subject areas (tourism, agriculture and forestry, health care, finance, small business, education) with James Barksdale, former Netscape CEO, as organizer in chief. But the voices of people who live and work on the coast - and their ideas - are being aggressively solicited through a series of meetings and at the commission Web site, www.governorscommission.com.
No one on the commission wants this thing to smack of pie-in-the-sky being handed down from on-high. A guy who used to have a coffee shop in Biloxi may not think his views carry much weight if they differ with those of super-designer Andres Duany of Miami, the guru of the makeover envisioned for 11 coastal communities.
But the truth is, it will. The coffee shop owner, you see, votes in local elections. Duany does not.
When the pros gather the data and synthesize it into a plan, they'll tie a ribbon around it and hand it to the commission.
In turn, the commission will pass the findings and recommendations - their vision - off to officials in the 11 communities who will, in turn, decide whether to say thanks and go about business as usual, or dive in and take a more ambitious approach.
"We're only offering these tools," is what Duany told The Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi. Actually, they're also pledging one more thing - to help the communities which want to pursue redesigns find the money it will take. But after that, it's up to the locals.
