Alright Susan, I'll bite - why shouldn't we consider a modern sewer system and (gasp) flush toilets (or tropical equivalent) for people in Haiti, besides surviving your obvious acrimony and cynicism? Howabout running water? Or electricity? As to building codes, granted they are expensive, but what do bureaucrats have to do with them - do you object to bureaucrats enforcing a building code, or to the distinct possibility that bureaucrats might profit from not enforcing a code? What option do you offer - would you accept that people build their own homes again, and suffer the same devastation after the next hurricane, again? Should Haitians just go back to tossing garbage in the streets and gulleys, and wait for it to wash away?

Basic sanitation is a fundamental precept of modern civilization - it helps prevent disease, and relative to its cost is a no brainer. With the extent of devastation there are no expensive retrofits, its planning and laying pipe. From descriptions it sounds like much of Port au Prince's most impoverished areas are served by open sewers in the streets. the Romans managed this - moving Haiti from the 18th century should be part of whatever plan people develop.