

After the 9/11 attacks, once the smoke cleared and the rubble was removed, New Yorkers faced a fundamental question: who gets to decide the future of Ground Zero? Some wanted the towers back, while others believed the site should remain a memorial. So the city decided to do one of the bravest—or stupidest—things in the history of city planning. They gathered 5,000 representative New Yorkers into the largest town hall in American history. People expected chaos, yelling, maybe even a fistfight. But what happened was democracy. And guess what? It was beautiful.