Abstract
This chapter summarizes a study on the economic impacts of a radiological bomb attack on a major office building in Downtown Los Angeles financial district. A radiological bomb will generate effects within an extensive radiation plume that is divided into two zones with varying evacuation times, an inner zone with 1 year evacuation and an outer zone with only 1 month evacuation time. The SCPM (Southern California Planning Model) is employed to simulate household and firm relocation in three scenarios: (1) an exit scenario where households and firms in both the inner and the outer zones disappear, (2) a relocation scenario where households and firms in the inner and the outer zones relocate to somewhere else within the five-county metropolitan region, and (3) a hybrid scenario where the households and firms in the inner zone disappear while those in the outer zone relocate. The impact analysis focuses on business interruption effects only. It finds that the effects on the inner zone play a dominant role because of its long evacuation period. The exit scenario has an aggregate impact of $5.9 billion of output losses and 40,391 job losses. The relocation scenario has neutral effects from a regional perspective but direct losses in the impacted zones are 7,257 jobs and $2.617 billion of output. The hybrid scenario may be the most realistic one but its impacts are only marginally lower than the exit scenario because of the dominance of the inner zone impact.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
There are no Fortune 500 Co. headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. We have no reason to expect that relocation plans differ significantly among the secondary offices of the firms affected in this scenario.
References
Abadie A, Dermisi S (2006) Is terrorism eroding agglomeration economies in central business districts? Lessons from the office real estate market in downtown Chicago. WP No. 12678, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA
Abadie A, Gardeazabal J (2003) The economic costs of conflict: a case study of the Basque country. Am Econ Rev, XCIII, pp 113–132
Balvanos T, Lave LB (2005) The economic implications of a terrorist attack on commercial aviation in the USA. CREATE, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Blomberg SB, Sheppard S (2007) The impacts of terrorism on urban form. Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs. pp 257–296
Clark WAV, Huang Y, Withers SD (2002) Does commuting distance matter? Commuting tolerance and residential change. Reg Sci Urban Econ 33:199–221
Cousins T (2007) Impact of radiological terrorist events. In: Proceedings of the CRTI summer symposium, Gatineau, 11–14 June 2007
Cushman and Wakefield (2005) MarketBeat midyear. Los Angeles
Dermisi S (2007) The impact of terrorism fears on downtown real estate office market cycles: the case of Chicago. J Real Estate Portfolio Manag 13(1):57–73
Drennan M (2007) The economic cost of ill-intentions: permanent or ephemeral? In: Richardson HW, Gordon P, Moore JE II (eds) The economic costs and consequences of terrorist attacks. Edward Elgar, Northampton, MA
Frey BS, Luechinger S (2007) Terrorism: considering new policies. In: Richardson HW, Gordon P, Moore JE II (eds) The economic costs and consequences of terrorist attacks. Edward Elgar, Northampton, MA
Gordon P, Moore JE II, Richardson HW, Pan Q (2005) The Economic Impact of a Terrorist Attack on the Twin Ports of Los Angeles – Long Beach. In: Richardson HW, Gordon P, Moore JE II (eds) The economic impacts of terrorist attack. Edward Elgar, Northampton, MA, pp 262–285
Gordon P, Moore JE II, Richardson HW, Pan Q (2006) The economic costs and impacts of a terrorist attack on terminal Island, Los Angeles. In: Haveman J, Schatz H (eds) Protecting the nation’s seaports: balancing security and costs. Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, pp 71–90
Gordon P, Moore JE II, Richardson HW, Park J (2007) The economic impact of a MANPADS air attack. Risk Anal 27
Gordon P, Moore JE II, Park J, Richardson HW (2008) The economic impacts of international border closure: a state-by-state analysis. In: Richardson HW, Gordon P, Moore JE II (eds) Global business and terrorism. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK
Government Accounting Office (2002) Review of studies of the economic impact of the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center, Washington, DC
Leamer E, Thornberg C (2006) Ports, trade and terrorism: balancing the catastrophic and the chronic. In: Haveman J, Schatz H (eds) Protecting the nation’s seaports: balancing security and costs. Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, pp 31–70
Mills ES (2002) Terrorism and U.S. real estate. J Urban Econ 51:198–204
Murray CL, Lpoze AD, Chin B, Feehan D, Hill KH (2006) Estimates of potential global pandemic influenza mortality on the basis of vital registry deaths from the 1918–20 pandemic: a quantitative analysis. Lancet 368:2211–2218
Park J, Gordon P, Moore JE II, Pan Q, Richardson HW (2007) Simulating the state-by-state impacts of terrorist attacks on three major ports: applying NIEMO (the national interstate economic model). In: Richardson HW, Gordon P, Moore JE II (eds) The economic costs and consequences of terrorist attacks. Edward Elgar, Northampton, MA
Regional Economic Models, Inc. (2006) The REMI policy analysis and simulation models. REMI, Amherst, MA
Rose AZ, Asay G, Wei D, Leung B (2008) Macroeconomic impact of shutting down the U.S. borders in response to a security or health threat. In: Richardson HW, Gordon P, Moore JE II (eds) Global business and terrorism. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK
Rubin C (2004) Major terrorist events in the U.S. and their outcomes: initial analysis and observations. J Homeland Sec Emerg Manag 1(1), 2
Rubin C, Cumming W, Renda-Tanali I, Birkland T (2003) Major terrorism events and their U.S. outcomes (1988–2001). Natural hazards research working paper #107, Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado
Santos JR, Haimes YY (2004) Modeling the demand reduction input–output (I-O) inoperables due to terrorism of interconnected infrastructures. Risk Anal 24(6):1437–1451
SCAG/LAMTA (2004) Regional screenline traffic count program: final report. Meyer, Mohaddes Associates, Inc
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Richardson, H.W., Pan, Q., Gordon, P., Park, J., Moore, J.E. (2015). A Radiological Bomb Attack on the Downtown Los Angeles Financial District. In: Richardson, H., Pan, Q., Park, J., Moore II, J. (eds) Regional Economic Impacts of Terrorist Attacks, Natural Disasters and Metropolitan Policies. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14322-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14322-4_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14321-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14322-4
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)