Cities Must Spread Out

"It would be dense for business leaders in New York and other key cities to believe that the assault on the World Trade Center, and the heightened security around all high-profile locations, will not profoundly impact the future of major urban areas. What is needed now is a new vision of urbanity that responds, and overcomes, our altered reality. The giddy period of urban resurgence -- nurtured by mayors like Rudolph Giuliani, plummeting crime rates and the stock boom of the late 1990s -- has come to an end. A new organizing principle for cities needs to be developed, and fast. It should rely not on handouts and tax breaks to developers and companies, as has been the case in the past, but on an unleashing of the entrepreneurial instincts and assets of our urban population."