How would you protect a city from terrorism?

July 7, 2005 9:33 AM

If you ran a city, what would you do, in a practical and local sense, to help protect your city from terrorist attacks?
posted by pracowity to law & government (13 comments total)

Have:

• a central reporting and information-sharing system within disparate healthcare facilities (to help catch and quarantine biological attack victims)
• a clear designation of how power is transferred if the heads of city function are killed or otherwise unavailable
• redundant and diverse transportation and telecommunication systems (i.e. not reliant on one local monopoly)
• a well-trained, and well-equipped heath, fire, and police staff who can isolate attack sites quickly and tightly
• redundant supplies of clean food and water
• nodes of radiation detection and chemical sensors placed at points of entry into the city
posted by Rothko at 10:28 AM on July 7, 2005

Thanks for posting this question, I hope it doesn't get deleted.

The most /easiest/ way to "protect" a city is to put it under a proverbial glass bowl. ie: total clamp down on all imaginable liberties, no one comes in out out without complete clearance, no free communication or movement of people, goods or money. In a nutshell: Hell (or a concentration camp).

But that's not your question.
I would do a combination of two technics: "total awareness" and "high security". Something like a combination of Israel's security measures and California's total earthquake awareness policy. Lemme explain.

Israel's security measures (perhaps even, on steroids) is a pretty obvious choice. CCTVs everywhere, security folks stalking the streets, small first-aid offices on nearly every corner, and a well established well published coherent plan for emergencies.
California's earthquake awareness policies. In grade school, every kid is taught what to do in case of an earthquake, they give out little pamphlets in dozens of languages for every type of immigrant language, everyone participates in frequent drills.

Those are the two winner technics in my mind. Keep the population painfully aware of a danger that can strike anywhere, anytime. At the end of the day, it makes a world of difference if the people on ground zero panic or stay calm.
Have a very professional emergency personnel ready at a hat's drop to respond anywhere in the city.

Have city-wide drills. Often and taken very seriously.
posted by ruelle at 10:35 AM on July 7, 2005

assuming that it's being attacked because it's relatively rich (which is i think what you have in mind), i'd try to encourage the redistribution of wealth, to make the disaffected underclass as small as possible. i'd encourage inestigative journalism and high standards in the courts, and i'd make damn sure to come down hard on any internal corruption in the local government. the aim is a critical, but fair attitude that would both keep people "on their toes" and give people confidence in the people caring for them. i would also make sure that healthcare facilities were public and had adequate funding - both for the reasons above and to help cope with any attack. if that seems like an admission of defeat, well, i would be pretty direct in saying to the people that we can't guarantee safety, only provide reasonable protection. and if they asked for overly-restrictive measures i would explain why they are counter-productive. i would also enourage public transport and restrict the flow of cars - a bomb on a bus is bad, but a bomb in a car can be much much bigger. for more details "security" measures i'd get bruce schneier in as an advisor and do exactly what he says.
posted by andrew cooke at 10:54 AM on July 7, 2005

Move it to someplace pleasant, say Switzerland.
posted by trevyn at 11:24 AM on July 7, 2005

Andrew Cooke, aren't you describing what Red Ken, et al. have been trying to do for the last few years?

If the administration of the city is up to one person, I'd say the town probably has little to worry about from terrorists.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:58 AM on July 7, 2005

This is very long-term (years to decades, not days to months), but I'd try to encourage major businesses to spread themselves out throughout the city and suburbs. No traditional downtown business area with a high concentration of businesses (and thus numerous employees at predictable times) which presents an attractive target.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:13 PM on July 7, 2005

Some interesting issues with the question—for example, is there an implicit "at any cost" at the end of the question, or are we also expected to run the city and handle its many other problems? Because solutions like "spread major businesses throughout the city" work well to dilute the effects of a major attack, but the lack of a downtown core arguably cause problems of its own, including increased intra-city traffic and (guessing) lower attractiveness to commercial retail and citizens alike.

I would treat counterterrorism planning the same way I'd treat disaster planning in the abstract: concentrate on response planning and information sharing, while having a clear hierarchy so that decisions can be made swiftly. An interesting case study along such lines is Eric Klinenberg's Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, about how Chicago handled the 1995 heat wave. In terms of preventing a terrorist strike, I'd argue there's only so much a city can do, and much of it would be detrimental to the city's day-to-day functioning. Where you strike that balance depends on how severe the threat is (or is perceived to be).

But to be honest, I don't think about this much. There's far more pressing issues to be dealt with in urban centers than how to respond to a terrorist attack.
posted by chrominance at 12:38 PM on July 7, 2005

Hold mandatory drills for everybody, not just adults. Be honest with kids that there may be a time when they need to react on their own with little adult supervision or guidance, and they need to know what to do. If you look at some of the Cold War era films in archive.org, they were aimed at kids. Everything from the famous "duck and cover" cartoon to a short film about how kids could survive a nuclear blast.

Train as many people as possible in first aid and first responder techniques--again, include kids and teenagers, teach them how to do basic things like stopping bleeding or clearing airways.

Increase neighborhood cohesion--get people to really know their neighbors and their neighborhoods, know if something seems out of place. Think of the neighborhood air-raid wardens during WWII.

Make people stockpile at least some non-perishable food and water in their homes so there won't be a mad run on the supermarkets if an attack happens. (I was actually in a supermarket in Manhattan during midday on 9/11 and you would not believe what went on in there.)

In short: empower individual people to be able to act in case of a crisis--but also make them feel prepared, which is at least as important in preventing panic, should an attack happen.

assuming that it's being attacked because it's relatively rich (which is i think what you have in mind), i'd try to encourage the redistribution of wealth, to make the disaffected underclass as small as possible.

Except that poverty has been proven not to be one of the chief causes of terrorism (rather, it's political repression and extreme religious intolerance). The 19 highjackers on 9/11 were middle-class or better and mostly university-educated; Osama Bin Laden is, of course, a billionaire, and his #2 is a pediatrician.

Other than that, I agree with the rest of your comment.
posted by Asparagirl at 2:04 PM on July 7, 2005

Oh, and have your public officials be as sober and honest as possible in all their news conferences and dealings with the press. No bullshitting or sugarcoating, especially if the news is grim. That will just make people distrust the government and cause rumors that they're hiding even worse news. Look to Bernard Kerik and Rudy Giuliani in NYC as examples of how to lead a city or community in a crisis.
posted by Asparagirl at 2:09 PM on July 7, 2005

This is very long-term (years to decades, not days to months), but I'd try to encourage major businesses to spread themselves out throughout the city and suburbs. No traditional downtown business area with a high concentration of businesses (and thus numerous employees at predictable times) which presents an attractive target.

That's been the trend in American cities for the last 50 years and it's caused urban blight, environmental ruin and crime to be even more threatening to our freedom, our future and our way of life than anything terrorists could do. Sprawl is never the answer.
posted by Pollomacho at 2:20 PM on July 7, 2005

Put a 20 foot high concrete block under it?
posted by idontlikewords at 2:45 PM on July 7, 2005

But seriously (or kind of anyway) though, how big of a city are we talking about too. If it was small enough, you could do the Hunter S. Thompson Freak Power thing and sod all the streets, build a parking lot on the outskirts and let people use their legs. No trucks or trains limits the size of a bomb you could bring to the city center.
posted by idontlikewords at 2:51 PM on July 7, 2005

I'd completely ignore the possibility of terrorist attack and use the funds freed up thereby to increase spending elsewhere:

I'd make sure that public transport worked well enough to get as many cars off the roads as possible, impose a 30 km/h speed limit on all minor roads and a congestion levy in the CBD, put bicycle lanes absolutely everywhere, and require all motorists to give way to all cyclists.

The reduced fatalities from car accidents and the improved public health from increased bicycle use would totally swamp the number of lives lost to terrorist attack in any given century.
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 AM on July 8, 2005