The second lesson is that our complex, highly interdependent communications infrastructure is both vulnerable to disruption because its parts are so intertwined and yet able to recover rapidly because its capabilities are so decentralized. When the airlines were forced to stop flying for a few days, the negative impacts rippled through much of the economy. And the psychological shock of terrorism on consumers and investors was devastating. The prosperity of airlines, hotels, resorts, advertisers, sports teams, restaurants, brokerage firms, mutual funds and retail outlets were all seriously injured. The stock market took a nosedive and billions of dollars of wealth vanished. And the events of September 11--geographically confined mainly to two cities--are likely to propel the entire U.S. economy into a recession that could last for at least six months.
Nevertheless, the economy's ability to recoup rapidly and function effectively remains almost unimpaired--even destroying the workplaces of 50,000 workers on Wall Street and killing thousands of them in one day did not seriously disrupt the economy's viability. Firms that lost their quarters were soon ensconced in alternative locations so they could continue to serve their customers. Even though New York's World Trade Center towers held hundreds of major communications computers and antennae, most networks were up and running again within a few days, thanks to the redundancy companies and government agencies had created to avert the Y2K problem. True, the psychological effects on consumers, would-be travelers and investors linger on. And those effects would be aggravated by other terrorist actions. But the overall economy's capabilities have hardly been diminished, even though its performance has been temporarily slowed.
Some observers believe airline travel will remain depressed in the future because more people will substitute driving, trains and teleconferencing. There were similar predictions when the Internet began to take hold. But I have always believed that innovations in long-distance communication increase the needs of people to meet face to face. Introduction of the telephone immensely multiplied the number of persons with whom anyone could communicate in a single day. As a result, each person's weekly total of verbal contacts with others rose dramatically. Even though the percentage of those contacts that generated needs for meeting in person declined, the total number of contacts rose so much that the absolute number of those stimulating face-to-face meetings increased. Hence travel of all types continued to rise rather than fall, due also in part to rising incomes. Although the telephone arrived long before air travel became widespread, since then telephoning has strongly stimulated air travel: The latter is by far the fastest means of conducting in-person meetings over long distances.
The Internet and cell phones have had--and will continue to have--the same expansionary effects on long-distance travel. This is shown by the rapid recent growth of U.S. air passenger enplanements--up 31.9 percent from 1990 to 1998, while our total population rose less than 11 percent. If millions of Americans continue to be afraid to fly, I could be wrong. But most of our leaders, from President Bush on down, have urged us not to let terrorists dictate our way of life. The odds of being in an airplane crash have always been minuscule--and still are. We may have to endure long delays at airports or on runways to ensure security. And it is certainly true that September 11 has destroyed the illusion that America is invulnerable to damaging physical attack. Yet most Americans will eventually decide that fear should not dominate their behavior, and that therefore they can go back to using the most efficient means of travel and communications-- although with more sensible precautions than before.
We have too much at stake to let fear paralyze or weaken our abilities to communicate and move around. The flexibility and adaptability of our decentralized communications and transportation infrastructures will prevail over attempts to disrupt them by exploiting their inter-connectedness--even after we have adopted stringent security measures.
