The sense of immediate emergency following the Katrina catastrophe has now subsided a bit and an issue rising to the top of the priority list is where should the refugees go so that they can get on with their lives. I've read two recent posts on this issue. From the Right, comes Rod Dreher's suggestion:

I got to thinking, though, that some smart people ought to look into a government program to resettle willing New Orleanians in the small Plains towns that have been emptying out for more than a generation. It might not be feasible -- after all, what would these folks do for a living? -- but on the other hand, it just might work. Anywhere you have a critical mass of folks, you are going to have a local economy. Hundreds of thousands of people have nowhere to go and nothing to lose. The government is going to have to do something for them anyway -- why not offer to stake willing pioneers with money to buy or renovate a house, and start a small business in one of these dying rural towns?

And from the Left, (well really from Marginal Revolution) comes Kevin Drum's post:

The United States government already operates a program that would enable low-income families to pay the rent for these units. The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program currently serves about two million families throughout the country. It enables participants to occupy privately owned units renting for up to, and somewhat above, the local median rent.

News for Rod, those dying rural towns are dying for a reason - the lack of opportunity. Shipping thousands of urban poor to rural towns and expecting them to buy local businesses and revitalize the town with their urban sophistication and Joie de vivre is a plan completely divorced from reality.

As for the MR/Drum suggestion, there is already a reluctance amongst landlords to accept Section 8 tenants because of the problems they typically cause. Now what's happened in many people's perceptions of the tragedy is an association of all refugees with the horror stories that focused on the Superdome refugees and the transformation of New Orleans into a war zone. However, 80% of the city evacuated without incident and those people have also lost their homes. These refugees are already being associated with the criminal perception as this account makes clear:

I personally overheard employees there stating that they wish they could choose who from New Orleans would be allowed to stay in Baton Rouge. They went on at length about all the "criminals" from New Orleans and that they were happy when they heard some of those in the Astrodome stating they would be staying in Houston.

Let's face it - this is going to be a tangible issue for local communities. A horrible disaster doesn't wipe away the horrible criminals who were a part of the New Orleans community - the nature of these criminals isn't transformed by moving to a new location. Of course there is Razib's point:

my point is that there are higher order effects when you concentrate individuals of type x in a small spatial region. For example, if you have have 9 crack addicts, and 90 non-crack addicts, a situation where you distribute the crack addicts among evenly among 3 groups of 30 (so 30 non-addicts and 3 addicts per group) is I think preferable to throwing the 9 into one group of 30 and leaving the other 2 groups crack-addictless. The synergistic effects of greater numbers of socio and psychopaths is a definite cost.

about dispersal which certainly mitigates against a negative cultural norms developing within a concentrated population of criminals but really, there is little to gain for communities that accept refugees, other than feeding their sense of compassion to those in need, and as more stories like this start to hit the public consciousness:

A Hurricane Katrina evacuee staying with a Plano family was arrested Tuesday and accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, police said. . . .

"As heart-wrenching as these evacuees are, and as wonderful as it is to see the outpouring of support, when we invite anybody in our home, we have no idea what their background is," Ms. Donovan said. "As parents, if we open up our home, we need to put up conditions and boundaries. We need to not leave our children alone."

the issue of refugee settlement may likely become a NIMBY issue. Sure, the compassion for these refugees will still exist, but that will be counterbalanced by the baggage many of the refugees bring with them, some have criminal tendancies, others are drug addicts or drug addled, while still others have some form of social dysfunction. What's been fixed in the public mind is the graphic dysfunction we witnessed in New Orleans post-Katrina and the 80% who evacuated are now unable to disassociate themselves with that perception.

I think that both of these plans have as much likelihood of success as having "Compassionate Conservatives" (ie Tom DeLay winning his district by only 38,000 votes) inviting the refugees to settle in their swing congressional districts or of liberals inviting the refugees into their communities, (ie Georgetown residents voting against building a subway stop in their enclave thereby making it more difficult for all of D.C.'s residents to have easy access to the neighborhoods.) I can just imagine liberal pundits going to work at their newspapers and having to be surrounded by new communities of refugees.

The plan with the largest chance of success is for the Feds to buy out the New Orleans property owners for fair marktet value fairly quickly. Those who were smart enough to be insured will be financially restored to pre-Katerina asset levels, and those without insurance will still be compensated to a degree and have to live with the consequences of their insurance decisions. There is no "do over" on this insurance question. On top of the asset payouts I'm sure there will be disaster payouts for all, renters, students, etc, to cover immediate living expenses, like the $2,000 debit cards announced a few days ago. Now, while the balance sheet of the refugees is restored their income statements are in tatters. The absorptive capacity of only a few local cities is not sufficient to provide employment, education, daycare, health care etc for the majority of refugees. Dispersal is the key to getting people on their feet again as quickly as possible. Give the refugees the financial means to restart their lives and let them come to accept that there is no going back. Rather than labeling the refugees and slotting them into special programs give them the means to blend in with their neighbors and to move to which ever cities they prefer.

Finally, the Federal Government should keep title to all of the property it buys in New Orleans and refrain from putting it back on the market after the debris is bulldozed away. Consolidate the property into a park, or better yet, a protected marine environment.

Related: The Economist and Reuters.