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December  2003                                                    Volume 5 - Number 3

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Perspectives...

Opinion Piece on Terrorism Risk

By Adam Jachimowicz

However symbolic the Twin Towers were in collapse on 9/11, they will be even more symbolic when they are rebuilt. Never has a construction project had such important political, practical, and emotional significance as the rebuilding of the World Trade Center in New York. The issues surrounding the re-building have not been argued on logical terms, rather on emotional and egotistical ones. At the heart of the arguments lie economic, safety, and symbolic concerns that must be addressed.

With the current design of the towers 10,000,000 sq. feet of space would be added to lower Manhattan. This equates to roughly 100,000 jobs. Clearly there is huge potential, for economic benefits directly tied to the development of the area to all sectors of the city. The city collects aprox 40 million dollars a year in taxes alone from occupants of the towers. The work generated by the estimated 4 billion dollar proposed towers would greatly help the New York economic recovery. In general, there aren’t any significant economic reasons for not re-building, however the key question is, if the area is not rebuilt as two huge sky scrappers, will the city suffer? Office space can be built elsewhere, and the area can be developed in a way that will still generate money for the city and businesses.

Safety of the buildings, the occupants, and neighbors has remained a quite issue during the public debate. The current plan, which calls for sky scrapers even larger than before, will be engineered to withstand and impact of two large jet liners full of fuel. The fuel factor was not engineered into the original towers, and they collapsed because of the extreme heat from the fire, not directly from the impact. However, perhaps in the future, jet fuels will burn hotter, or planes will be twice as large. The point is, if it can be built, it can be destroyed. The American society of Civil engineers believes that buildings that are greater than 50 stories inherently pose extra hazards to the occupants. Evacuations will always be a problem in such a large building. There are many things to improve the efficiency, and speed of evacuations, but the absolute distance to safety is a factor that will always remain. In addition to the occupants, the first responders who will be going into the buildings will also be put into jeopardy.

The most visible factor in the public debate, have been symbolic. The proponents for rebuilding largely cite the argument that not rebuilding is admitting that the terrorist have won. However the drive to rebuild is also fueled by New Yorkers egoism, and American culture. New Yorkers live in the “greatest city on earth” as they proclaim, and as the Economic center of the country and the world they have much support to make that claim. American culture is one of competition and innovation. Bigger, faster and better, drives much of what we do and how we do it. So the destruction of the building space offers an opportunity for us to say that as a country “ terrorists cannot defeat us”. Whether they will receive the same message we are sending is yet to be seen.

I have written this paper as a way to explore the factors in making my own decision on whether or not to rebuild the towers. I am close to the end, and I still do not have a final answer. Mainly, I feel that I have no input into the final decision into the matter. What ever is built will be built without my opinion or consultation.

I do believe that safety should be the primary factor in any decision made. I don’t believe that by not building the towers the terrorists “win”. In fact, I think it is a bogus argument. However, I also don’t buy the argument that if the towers are re-built, they you are just adding another target for the terrorists. Whatever is built on that land, I hope that it serves as a reminder to the American public the value of Human life, and how easily and randomly it can be taken.