The terrible disaster at the World Trade Center will have long-term effects on life in the City, morally, economically, politically, socially — all for the worse. The retribution/vengeance sentiment is strong, but  more military action, more calls of “war,” hardly seem the answer.  All human life should be sacred, not just ours, and an emphasis on justice and the preservation of human rights must be part of our response.

Impacts on our city, and on us. There will be major impacts on New York City and, perhaps, high-density big cities generally, in the direction of decentralization and further divisions and walls. I would guess a reduction in personal travel, more emphasis on electronic communication.

Employment patterns are likely to change; fewer hyper-concentrations of jobs in service-oriented office buildings, fewer high and the low-paying jobs associated with them. The global status of New York City and, perhaps, other global cities will change as multinational businesses search for security in more outlying areas. The focus will initially be within the same metropolitan regions, but over time this will lead to wider dispersal to other regions and urban enclaves. 

The construction of glamorous ever-higher trophy skyscrapers will stop; the towers in Kuala Lumpur and Frankfurt have already felt the threat, closing and evacuating the day after the World Trade Center collapse, and workers in the Empire State building are afraid to go up to their offices.

The social consequence may be a tendency to exacerbate polarization, with those able to move out of town doing so, those unable to do so remaining behind. The difference between the two groups will be both income- and race-related. The polarization will be both between city and suburb and within the city, with upper-income, disproportionately white households concentrating in more tightly controlled citadels, while others are more and more excluded and segregated.

“Security” will become the justification for measures that can threaten the core of our social and political life. Surveillance will increase and the uses of public space will be more tightly controlled. 

What can be done at the city level?

1. Avoid the hunker-down, fortress mentality, with police, check-points, metal detectors, limited access everywhere.  The costs in terms of everyday life, business activities, and democratic conduct must be considered in any plans to avoid the dangers of terrorism.

2. Focus on improving economic conditions for all of the city’s residents, especially its lower-income working population who have little voice in policy councils, but are the mainstay of the city. Exclusion and separation cannot provide security; acceptance and shared fortunes can.

3. Make it clear that New York is a welcoming city for all peoples, that we do not confuse culture and ethnicity with political causes, that we are and will remain an international city and a multicultural city; brag about it.

4. Shift the focus of economic development policy from major transnational corporations to smaller-scale businesses that draw on the skills and talents of the city’s residents, their creativity, imagination, hard work, and social commitment. These range from media-related activities to specialty manufacturing, from medical research to printing, from education to community-based economic development.  The weight of subsidies should go to such locally-based activities, with job a key criterion for funding.

5. The attack could cause a shift in private market real estate prices in downtown Manhattan and in office clusters throughout the city.  If speculation threatens stable business activities, consider forms of land use control, from commercial rent regulation to speculation taxes on real estate profits to planning policies channeling growth.

6. Maintain mixed use and occupancy and building types, avoiding homogeneous concentrations of activities either at the high or low end of the economic ladder; avoid both attempting to maintain citadels and permitting ghettos, and encourage contact across social and physical dividing lines in the city.

7. Invest heavily in mass transit. The move of businesses from within to outside the city, with the attendant pressure for easier commuting, should be resisted and balanced against the facility of moving about within the city itself, free of congestion, making staying in the city more efficient as well as providing environmental and tax benefits.

Peter Marcuse is a professor of Urban Planning  at Columbia University

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