Promoting Green 'Rebuilding' In New Orleans

26 September 2006 - 11:00am

The winning of a housing design competition sponsored by actor Brad Pitt end environmental non-profit Global Green USA demonstrates how eco-friendly architecture can remake New Orleans.

"The winning architects -- Andrew Kotchen and Matthew Berman of Workshop/APD in New York -- created a versatile model of energy efficient design, using the sun's rays for power, rain for the water system and energy from the earth."

"We estimate that if 50,000 of the homes in New Orleans -- of the 200,000 that are going to be rebuilt in Louisiana -- if 50,000 of them used our energy goals for this project, on a very conservative level, people would save $38 million to $56 million dollars a year. Which, on average, is $1,200 per home, conservatively," said Matt Petersen, Global Green's CEO.

Source: MSNBC, September 25, 2006
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Even if the report overestimates the costs by a factor of two and underestimates the tax-benefit by a similar amount, the conclusion would be pretty much the same: destination resorts cost local government and taxpayers money.