(small preface: a lot of my replies to your comments are not intended to be combative or smug, but i fear they may come off as such. Apologies. I don't intend it, but i'm also too tired to rewrite. So fair warning :)

> Flood control has historically been used to forcibly evict black communities, particularly along the gulf coast. Its a bit of a dog whistle here.

To what end? I'm not disputing you here because frankly i have completely zero idea - but i struggle to even understand the assumed motivation. Evict black communities from their home, but then later let them return (as most evacuations are temporary)?

Or is eviction different than evacuation here? Do they kick out the black communities calling the area unsafe, then move white communities in? Seems bizarre, but i'm often quite abstracted and puzzled by racist behavior. Again, not disputing, merely questioning.

> Ever notice how it's only the majority non-white cities people are calling for forcibly evicting everyone from? Case in point: Houston, but not Galveston or Corpus Christi. New Orleans but not Baton Rouge or Covington.

I really haven't, but this isn't something i pay attention to. I certainly wouldn't have read someones comment about forcibly evicting someone to assume they wanted to then, later, move white folks in.

> Ever notice how it's the poorest communities that are at risk of losing their land, and not the wealthy-but-equally-flood-prone communities next door? (E.g. no one's saying "force people out of Katy", they're saying "force people out of the third ward")

I'd be in favor of this situation if the state/taxes were paying for the "third ward", but less so Katy. Rich folks tend to live in nice areas, regardless of how much of a risk that area was in before money moved in.

Which isn't to say that taxpayers didn't _also_ cover the rich folks. I'm just saying i wouldn't immediately assume rich areas need tax payers to have their homes protected from floods. And, i'm generally against tax payers helping constant flood areas. Seems a waste of resources.

> Historically, that same argument (it'd be better for everybody if no one lives there) is at the heart of a lot of egregious behavior by local and state governments (mostly local).

Plenty of things have been used to commit horrible things - i don't see that as an argument of the idea being inherently bad. You can do good or bad with just about any tool/power.

You may be correct, but does it make living in Tornado Alley (or w/e random example) any more safe? Any less of a burden on the taxpayer? I'd imagine not.

> And it's why targeting the main African American population center in the state specifically (Houston -- I'm not talking about Lake Jackson in this, as I don't know it that well.) and falsely claiming it's flooding all the time and constantly having to be rebuilt at taxpayer expense tends to provoke a strong response here.

That seems perfectly fair. With all of this said, i haven't changed my view, but i imagine we agree more than disagree. Since i'm not making, imo, any grand exclamations. Merely saying that we shouldn't live in areas that cost too much to be worth it.

I know very, very little about the New Orleans incident, rebuild, etc. It just seems foolish to build a house on sand, is all.