Hazard Perception and the Urban Geographies of Place: Insights from New York City's Financial Executives Following 9/11

Abstract

Theories of place have yet to be developed to explore societal responses to terrorism in the post-9/11 city. Urban geographers have shown the relevance of place for understanding the way people live in cities, including conceptualizations of the way people perceive those places. Geographers working on environmental risk have also conceptualized perception, but only in regard to hazard perception. They have not focused on the city itself as a hazard site, nor have they studied how the contours of place affect hazard perception. Joining urban geography and risk-hazards scholarship, this study argues for a terrorism-place nexus that links terrorism hazard perception to urban place. Using survey and interview data collected from 79 financial service executives in New York City, it will be shown that terrorism has created a place-based ontological dissonance among financial executives, and we speculate about the implications for the city should these workers restore ontological order by moving away their establishments.

Keywords:

• terrorism
• financial industry
• New York City
• place
• hazards perception