Rich people take care of themselves

From "Gulf Coast: A Vision to Revive, Not Repeat ," in today's New York Times:

Over the next several days, this group of some 200 professionals from around the country will struggle to come up with a comprehensive regional plan to rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It's a design challenge on a grand scale, covering 11 communities in 3 Mississippi counties damaged by Hurricane Katrina...

People know that this took a wrong turn somewhere," said Andrés Duany, the Miami architect and planner leading the forum. "People know this has become honky-tonk, and this is the chance to get it right." "This place has lost its neighborhood structure over the last 50 years," he continued. "This is a chance to rezone it in a much finer grain, so people can walk to the corner store, kids can walk to school."...

The chairman of the commission, Jim Barksdale, a former chief executive of Netscape Communications, said the priority should be low-income housing. "Rich people take care of themselves," he remarked...

It is important to move quickly, Mr. Duany said, or mediocrity and homogenization will fill the void. "Things are urgent," he said, adding, "If we don't start now, it starts happening." The rebuilding effort is already under way haphazardly - casinos have started trying to reconstruct their damaged walls, and people are moving into makeshift mobile homes. The conference is seeking to come up with building codes that will ensure high-quality, well-conceived construction for the long term.
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From Philadelphia Magazine. Click for the article, "House of Girth."

I'm not sure that the "rich" are necessarily the best arbiters of taste and sustainable land use and planning policy.