Just how valuable is New Orleans to America?
Posted on September 3, 2005
Filed Under American History, US Affairs Leave a Comment
Usually I draw upon this website for global geopolitical intelligence reports, which the catastrophe in New Orleans doesn’t quite qualify (that I’m aware of). However, George Friedman, Founder of Stratfor, has written a very interesting take on the value, the national worth of New Orleans. I’ve never thought about New Orleans this way. Get ready for a quick lesson in US History!
New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize – News Archive – Stratfor — The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography — the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one — the Mississippi — and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.
Read the whole article, then be sure to bookmark this website and visit often. One cannot be too informed in these days!!! (If you’re a blogger and don’t know about Stratfor, you’re only getting half the info you need!)
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