Throughout history, cities have been at the forefront of civilization and culture.
Cities, before anything else, represent the unique creative milieus that have advanced societies in science, technology, architecture and the arts. From classical Athens to present-day New York, cities represent the ultimate cultural landscape.
The world's great cities represent civilizations that transcend the nation. In that sense, New York is more than the United States. As so many foreign visitors to the Big Apple can testify, you don't have to be an American (or a capitalist or a Christian or a Westerner) to marvel at the towering presence of this mother of all modern cities, to love New York.
When the historic 2,000-year-old Bamiyan statues of Buddha were exploded in the Afghan desert on March 11 of this year, that was an assault on civilization. And when New York's skyline was ravaged on Sept. 11 - apart from the thousands of individual human tragedies involved - that, too, was an assault on civilization.
Which is not to suggest that the perpetrators are one and the same - it is to say that these were equally appalling and senseless acts from a strictly cultural point of view.
The course of human civilization is and has always been a struggle between creation and destruction.
It is a lot easier to destroy than it is to create. Destruction can be swift and is driven by hatred and envy.
Creation is an arduous process and is in essence driven by the artistic urge and a need to express a collective human identity and purpose. In the long run, creation prevails over destruction. And it has to be like that.
The much referred to sophistication and organization of the terrorist attacks is nothing compared to the creativity and dedication that went in to building this city, or the twin towers alone. And I really mean nothing.
Relatively speaking, such terrorist acts take just a little bit of organization and inventiveness in combination with unbounded ruthlessness and madness.
The building of a great city is the work of generations. It is the work of hundreds, thousands, millions of people from different backgrounds, religions, races, gender, ages and professions.
This is why a great city is by definition a place of diversity and tolerance. To be sure, New York, more than any other great city in the history of the world, represents such multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. It is estimated that over 60 nations are represented among the casualties in New York.
New York's creativity and innovativeness was, and is, multifaceted, to be sure, but by far the most important innovative development in the history of that city has to do with technological engineering: skyscrapers, elevators, bridges, tunnels, subways and skylines. All the things, one might say, that have defined urban landscapes ever since. New York became the architectural mentor and pacesetter to the world.
What is more, many of these feats of engineering became symbols of urbanity and modernity: Brooklyn Bridge (1883), Grand Central Station (rebuilt in 1913), the Chrysler building (1930), the Empire State building (1931), and, of course, the Twin Towers (1973).
In his monumental book Cities in Civilization, the famous British urban geographer and historian Peter Hall describes the world's great cities as places that ignite "the sacred flame of the human intelligence and the human imagination." We may find consolation in the fact that, in New York City, this sacred flame is burning brighter than ever.
Jan Nijman is a professor of Geography and Regional Studies at the University of Miami.