August 20, 2006
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The Places That 9/11 Really Struck
Some curveball thinking from Dalton Conley, an NYU sociologist, in New York’s “What If 9/11 Never Happened?” feature:
Five years later, I think New York is perhaps the least-affected place in the country. And that’s simply because the wheel that 9/11 set in motion has led to two wars and the largest deployment of military reserve forces in recent history. This means that places like Scranton, Pennsylvania, or Mobile, Alabama, have had their daily rhythms and lives continuously uprooted, and New York, and Manhattan in particular, with perhaps the lowest percentage of reservists of any area in the country, has not really felt the impact of Afghanistan and Iraq as much as Peoria, Illinois.
Posted August 20, 2006 at 2:34 | Comments (2) | Permasnark
File under: Briefly Noted, Society/Culture
File under: Briefly Noted, Society/Culture
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I mentally highlighted that bit as well. I didn't live in NYC before or during 9/11/01, but it's an awfully big place that can absorb a lot, even something on the cultural, political, and demographic scale of 9/11.
I call bullshit.
The fine folks of Peoria, Illinois, don't have to walk by a mass grave every morning on their way to work. The fine residents and commuters of New York City are affected every time they pass the WTC site, ride the E train, or look at the skyline. It's been that way for 5 years. Those feelings don't dissipate after Oliver Stone decides to make a movie -- particularly when there's still a huge hole in the middle of your downtown.
I can only guess at the number of random bag searches the good people of Scranton have had to endure since 9/11. Military reservists are trained for combat, whereas most subway commuters are not.
Army Pfc Rayshawn S. Johnson of Brooklyn, New York, was killed in Iraq on Wednesday.
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