Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
16.6
Spatial Analysis
16.6.1 General Considerations
In this section we discuss the spatial aspects of external shocks to an economy in
general and with special reference to insidious terrorist attacks. The analysis thus
far has been performed in a relatively aspatial manner. We have identified the
contaminated area as the site of the impacts and translated the impacts into changes
in factor availability and prices for firms located there. This affects firm competi-
tiveness and hence imports and exports of the LA economy as a whole by averaging
the direct impacts across all firms in the County. But several other spatial aspects
have been omitted. Some of these relate to economic resilience, or how BI losses
can be muted by ordinary and adaptive responses to a disaster (Rose 2009a , b ). The
prime example is the response to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, in
which 95 % of businesses and government agencies in the affected area relocated
within several weeks, primarily to mid-town Manhattan or Northern New Jersey,
thus avoiding 72 % of potential BI losses (Rose et al. 2009 ). That study indicates
how the omission of resilience can lead to an overestimate of economic losses.
Walter Isard, perhaps more than any other American social scientist, injected a
spatial dimension into the economy (see, e.g., Isard 1951 , 1956 ; Isard et al. 1969 ).
In the presentation below, we provide an overview of a systematic framework for
the spatial analysis of the impacts of a terrorist attack, primarily with the objective
of improving the accuracy of the estimates of economic consequences. We also
indicate how the inclusion of a broader set of spatial dimensions would affect our
results.
We begin by noting two special features of a chlorine attack that distinguish it
from other types of disasters. The first relates to fear and stigma effects already
analyzed in prior sections. Additionally, because of the uncertainty regarding the
spread of chlorine gas or other insidious weapons whose dispersion is related to
weather conditions and are difficult to detect, we should also consider that the fear/
stigma will not halt abruptly at the financial district boundary. It is reasonable to
consider a fringe zone where these behavioral considerations may spill over and
have impacts, though likely less intensive than in the core area.
A behavioral consideration not addressed thus far relates to the likelihood and
pace of business relocation. The 9/11 example indicates that the response is likely
to be rapid and not far from the original site. Both of these responses were
conditioned somewhat upon broader aspects of resilience, in the form of
demonstrating to terrorists that they cannot defeat their intended targets (Flynn
2008 ). There is every reason to believe that this “we will show them” attitude would
prevail in LA as well.
The spatial dimension is rarely if ever addressed in full in estimating the regional
economic consequences of terrorism, as well as many other perturbations. Most
analyses are undertaken with single region models, and relocation within them or
across regions is rarely analyzed explicitly. When inter-regional or multi-regional
models are used, some consideration of relocation is made but primarily with
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