The need for another Cocoon is one of the bigger plot holes in the game. Academia flourished down on the ground, and during the course of the game, we can see it surviving almost 500 years, only to be destroyed by a gigantic paradox-like thing (which a Cocoon wouldn't be immune to either). The technology developed by the Academy is likely to be more than good enough to deal with any natural disaster or monster attack.
Anyway, the old Cocoon can't be used because it's built around a power source that is incompatible with non-falcie technology (whatever that means, just sounds like a convenient excuse by the writers to me). Hope's reasoning is terrible. Why is it worse to force evacuate everyone to a gigantic city on the ground, than it is to force evacuate everyone to a different gigantic city in the sky? With all the research, development and resources they poured into the Cocoon 2.0 project, they could probably have built another 2-3 Academia-size cities, and given them even better wildlife-defences. There are flying giant dragons on pulse, what would stop them from smacking a hole at the bottom of Cocoon? If Cocoon's shell is strong enough to withstand attacks like that, why couldn't they just give such a shell to a ground-based city?
We also have flying falcies on Pulse. What's stopping them from flying up to a new Cocoon and just blast half the population with cieth-rays? What, a strong outer shell, you say? Sort of like what you could give to a ground-based city? Unimaginable!
And again, Academia existed for 500 years and showed no sign of declining because of Pulse-variables.
Now, you see, a good story would have explained crap like this. If FF13-2 had a good and well though through story, we would have been given reasons why cities like Academia couldn't exist indefinitely, and why we absolutely had to make a city in the sky. Of course, 13-2 doesn't have anything even resembling an acceptable story.
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