Anthony - From my limited direct observation of the DR and my observation of Haiti filtered through the media, they are orders of magnitude apart from each other, and have very little in common aside from being on the same island. The DR is far from being a wealthy country, but there are some industry, tourism bringing in money from abroad, a middle class, etc., and importantly, capital investment. I don't believe Haiti has much of any of those, for a variety of political, historical, and natural reasons (a discussion best left to a forum on politics or economics, rather than eng-tips). The DR is actively pursuing seismology and earthquake engineering. In 2001, the government of the DR sponsored a big conference on seismicity and earthquake engineering. It was well attended, mostly by Dominicans, with some Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and others from surrounding areas, and a few of us norteamericanos. [The president of the DR made a quick appearance, as Gov. Schwarzenegger did for the conference in SFO for the 100th anniversary of the 1906 EQ.] I don't believe a single person from Haiti attended. Most likely, that was because of the very small number of engineers and seismologists in Haiti that would have the interest and the money to go.
I am not real optimistic about the "clean slate" attracting the kind of capital investment it would take to build a new Port-au-Prince. Private charities and other governments will be the main forces. This is very different from the Chicago fire or the SFO earthquake, because outside of those two cities, there was a functioning national economy as a source of capital, along with a middle class, insurance, etc. The earthquake in Haiti will be far harder and slower to recover from.
