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Strategies & Market Trends : Guidance and Visibility -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DebtBomb who wrote (17803)	9/22/2001 10:23:08 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 208838

Better to defeat terror . . . . . . than to learn to live with it E-mail this story Printer-friendly format John McCarron Published September 21, 2001 The best defense is a good offense. It's a tired sports cliche, I know. But it has been rattling around my brain this past week as I watch--along with millions of other joyless Americans--the emergence of our new, defensive circumstances. Walls of precaution, both physical and psychological, are rising all about us. Give yourself at least three hours to board an airplane due to enhanced security checks. No parking in the Loop. No leaving a parked vehicle under any viaduct or bridge. Report immediately the sight of any unattended package, purse or briefcase. Show your ID before entering the building. Side door closed until further notice . . . use main entrance The edicts pile one upon the next, pushing back the freedom and spontaneity we once took for granted when using our public and quasi-public spaces. And it will get worse, as those responsible for those spaces--our lobbies, plazas, streets, public conveyances--think of more ways to be "safe rather than sorry." Look for more rings of precast "Jersey wall" around potential car-bomb targets. Expect more lobby guards wanting to know your business. The horrors of Sept. 11 will affect private decision-making more subtly, though no less profoundly. The perceived need for greater security, and a concomitant distrust of strangers, will affect how people behave, what they buy and how they choose to live. There will be a turning away from places and things exposed to the public sphere in favor of those that are protected and private. In real estate, look for increased demand for the secluded, even gated, subdivision as opposed to denser, in-town development. As for buying or renting in a conveniently located high-rise, the memory of 9/11 will be a long time wearing off. Whether we think of this phenomenon as preparedness or paranoia, its long-term effect will not be a healthy one. Not for our local communities. Not for our country as a whole. Just when millions of Americans--especially we post-war Boomers raised in car-bound suburbia --were rediscovering the joys of porch-sitting, of walking to the store for a few things, of playing checkers in the park with an amiable stranger, we suddenly are confronted with this new, scary reason to bar the door, circle the wagons, be wary of foreigners and, when in doubt, stay home. Sure, other societies have adapted to living with fear. In Israel, they're used to folks walking around with Uzis slung from their shoulders. In the new Russia, it's a status symbol to have a bodyguard. But not here. Here we have treasured what FDR called the four freedoms, including freedom from fear. Which is why I'm thinking offense rather than defense. For the time being, to be sure, America must play it both ways. Just now there's no telling how many terrorist "cells" are operating in the U.S. And yes, fanatics capable of synchronized skyjackings and the destruction of prominent buildings may also be capable of--what? Poisoning tap water? Sabotaging a nuclear power plant? The mind reels. Under these circumstances we accept the new restrictions willingly, if not cheerfully. Our parents and grandparents put up with wartime rationing coupons and pulling the shades at night. Now we can do our bit. But over the long haul--which to this impatient Yankee is any haul longer than three years--we must avoid stalemate, win this war, and promptly sound a domestic all-clear. Let us call it V.F. Day, for victory over fear. The coming anti-terrorism offensive will be expensive for everyone and dangerous for those put in harm's way. It will also be ethically murky and politically incorrect. Anyone bothered by the latter may want to reflect on the ethics and correctness of Sept. 11. As if any of us can put those images out of our minds. But let us prevail and be done with it. Or else be prepared to watch our children become strangers in their own land, made paranoid and uncertain by a nation rendered unsafe by terrorism. Let America's offense, then, be swift and sure. So that our home-front defenses--the kind that turn neighbors into strangers and plazas into security zones--may be short-lived. ---------- John McCarron is vice president of strategy and communications for the Metropolitan Planning Council.