Slowing Down Ground Zero Rebuilding

The federal jury verdict that rejected a double insurance payout to WTC leasholder Larry Silverstein gives "all parties to downtown's rebuilding a pause to think--and that's not necessarily bad. After all, the World Trade Center had never been the monument to capitalism the terrorists believed it to be. Rather, it was the product of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's peculiar brand of government gigantism--immense office towers built on private land acquired under eminent domain, exempted from city building codes, and freed from all taxes to compete with the private sector... Now Mr. Silverstein--the leaseholder, but not the owner--and the government agencies in charge of rebuilding must rethink their options."