How much do the Feds collect in taxes from the city each year? How much more will they collect in the future because the city floods less? A few hundred million dollars to protect a major city sounds like an incredible bargain with a great ROI.
I say it’s time to move people to somewhere above sea level and let NOLA return to being the river delta it is so desperately trying to be.
[1] https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-...
From the sources I found (from 2017) GDP per capita is $52,536 (from Open Data Network), and population is 393,292 (US Census Bureau), giving a GDP of right around $20B.
We’ve already spent 14 on it, and will continue to need to spend indefinitely, so the numbers really aren’t great.