Friday morning on Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer did a very interesting piece people jumping out of the windows of burning buildings. She prefaced it by saying something along the lines of "this is something of a taboo subject which is rarely discussed, and which we never show the pictures of it happening." (Voice over to the footage of the person preparing to jump from the window of the WTC, followed by the footage of a body falling through the air after jumping).

I had already heard earlier that one firefighter on the ground had been killed by a falling body outside the WTC. So I listened to the report.

Turns out there are some firefighting statistics about the phenomenon. Those who jump from the 6th floor of a building have almost 100% rate of fatalities. But those who jump from the 5th floor have only a 50% fatality rate. But that is ONLY with a net/giant pillow sorts of things set up for people to jump into. Without those sorts of devices to land on, your chances are about as good for surviving the jump from the 5th floor as they are on the 6th.

So why build anything higher than 3 stories? Who says everything needs to be in New York anyway? Why not relocate some of those jobs, businesses, and industries to areas where economic development is needed (like many rural areas), and where sustainble growth and responsible development could become "the norm"?