Because the City Council-as-regulator can be astroturfed and snowed easily by false promises about "black-start" capability for power plants and work on distribution systems?
The fact that Entergy has to do so much to convince the city to allow a power plant to be built, should be all the proof you need, as far as why no one wants to invest in the city.
And that black start capability proved it's worth this week.
If they would have done a black start, rejoining the grid would have apparently been more complicated.
But the bigger point is: why does the city fight local investment and improvement of infrastructure? As if the city is doing everyone a favor that wants to build something.
That's what's killing the city, not fear of flooding.
[1] https://energytransition.umn.edu/modernizing-minnesotas-grid...
It's not fear of flooding that prevents anyone from investing in, eg New Orleans East. It's two decades of zero policing.
And there's a reason Entergy continues to operate as a completely separate corporate entity in the city, and it's not because "used to be nopsi".
The water guys can't even operate a billing system, let alone engineer the distribution network. They ran through probably a dozen companies post- Katrina just to do an assessment and map and maintenance plans, and they all quit for having to deal with the city.
That's why they can't keep the water on. But an unnecessary new airport? They had no problem throwing a billion dollars at contractors for that.
If people were afraid of sea level rising, they wouldn't just be moving into another swamp/marsh outside of city limits or across the lake. People don't want to live at sea level without a levee on the North Shore, they just don't want to live in New Orleans, despite the +20ft msl and up levees.