What Predictions Were Made For NYC After 9/11

April 10, 2020 10:03 AM

Over on Bloomberg Tyler Cowen Wrote about what New York City will be like when this pandemic is over. What did people thing would become of NYC after 9/11? I'm curious about things written in 2002(ish) predicting what things will be like sometime later in the future. Did many writers assume people would flee the city?
posted by Blake to Society & Culture (1 answer total)

Best answer: The Times Machine (NYT archive) would be a great source to explore for this. Yes, people assumed that folks would leave the city, and in fact most major cities. The idea was that people would want to flee density - and the exact opposite happened, over time, of course. There was a lot of uncertainty and it went on in an intense way for at least six months. The recovery was really slow.

You may just want to enter "9/11" and set the the search dates from 9/11 (or 9/20, or so, when people could start reporting on the aftermath and recovery projections instead of the immediate "WTF just happened" stories) through the final dates in Times Machine in 2002. Perusing some of these pieces really brought back the era for me. In my memory it's a fuzzy traumatic haze, but these remind me of what some of the chaotic conversations were like. It's interesting what we didn't know we didn't know. And how the projections of what was going to happen really weren't that great - or at least, missed some of the other important factors that we didn't know yet. You know, like going into a permanent state of war.

Here are just a few of the stories that might speak to your question:
9/28/2001 - First Requiems, Then Resolve
6/27/2002 - Fighting the Urge to Flee: the 9/11/Exodus That Never Happened
3/4/2002 - Tourists to the Rescue of a Wounded City
9/8/2002 - Attack Gave a Devastating Shove to the City's Teetering Economy
12/23/2001 - Downtown is Slower to Embrace Optimism
9/8/2002 - Which Way Is Home?
11/11/01 - Post 9/11 - The Series: How TV Will Deal with the New New York
posted by Miko at 8:54 AM on April 11, 2020 [2 favorites]