The lady of my life and I have been talking about just this sort of thing these past couple of days. <br><br>For the two years I worked downtown, my nightmare scenario was the lone fanatic with a paper bag of anthrax-laden powder on some roof…<br><br>There’s nothing I personally can do to prevent this, and not much I can do to survive it. Like someone hearing rumors of the black plague in the 14th century, the best I can do is not be there when it happens. I think sometime in the next five years or so, we’ll be pulling out of the DC area. It’s a great market for my skills, but I don’t want to die here.<br><br>What do you do when you unexpectedly receive fire, and there’s no cover? You spread out. <br><br>It’s time to decentralize this society for a number of reasons. Decentralization is why the net and web work. Decentralization is why there will still be a stock market next week. Decentralization is why the Prez didn't come running right back. Our huge, centralized cities, and the impossible hundreds of millions all commuting in lockstep are legacies from the industrial age that we’ve otherwise mostly left behind. Other than stupid 19th century management practices that won’t die, there’s no reason that the large percentage that are “information workers” (estimated at 80 percent in this area) have to be physically present in the same buildings every day, and as a society we can no longer afford the insane costs, even without incidents like this. <br><br>Demand that they lay fiber and build microwave towers, instead of ever-more perpetually inadequate highways. Learn to do what you need to do over the web. If it has web access and UPS can find it, no place is isolated any more. Spread out.<br><br><br>