In the 1700s, why did people settle in New Orleans and surrounding areas despite the region clearly being a floodplain?

The author notes that even though the southern region of Louisiana is a large floodplain, people settled in the area in the 1700s, and New Orleans and other communities grew for military and commercial purposes. He blamed ambition for driving people to the region to build towns even though the Mississippi River meanders over floodplains.