BY: EDWARD L. GLAESER
Harvard University
Department of Economics
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
The Brookings Institution
JESSE M. SHAPIRO
Harvard University
Department of Economics
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
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Paper ID: Harvard Institute of Economic Research Paper No. 1942
Contact: EDWARD L. GLAESER
Email: Mailto:eglaeser at harvard.edu
Postal: Harvard University
Department of Economics
Room 315A
Littauer Center
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
Phone: 617-495-0575
Fax: 617-495-8570
Co-Auth: JESSE M. SHAPIRO
Email: Mailto:jmshapir at fas.harvard.edu
Postal: Harvard University
Department of Economics
Littauer Center
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
ABSTRACT:
What impact will terrorism have on America's cities?
Historically, large-scale violence has impacted cities in three
ways. First, concentrations of people have an advantage in
defending themselves from attackers, making cities more
appealing in times of violence. Second, cities often make
attractive targets for violence, which creates an incentive for
people to disperse. Finally, since warfare and terrorism often
specifically target means of transportation, violence can
increase the effective cost of transportation, which will
usually increase the demand for density. Evidence on war and
cities in the 20th century suggests that the effect of wars on
urban form can be large (for example, Berlin in World War II),
but more commonly neither terrorism nor wars have significantly
altered urban form. As such, across America the effect of
terrorism on cities is likely to be small. The only exception to
this is downtown New York which, absent large-scale subsidies,
will probably not be fully rebuilt. Furthermore, such subsidies
make little sense to us.