September 11th – how urban planning dealt with the terror problem – culture

What did September 11, 2001 do to the city? At first glance: nothing. The fear of terrorist attacks, which raged through the western world like a shock wave after the attacks by Osama bin Laden’s students of violence, has not turned any metropolis into a fortress, has not led to the installation of combat towers on high-rise buildings, has not left the streets orphaned anywhere. The initial fear that cities would become military security zones did not come true. The barbed wire and checkpoint images, such as those from Belfast in the 1970s or Beirut in the 1980s, were not repeated despite the global panic of Islamist violence.