The domestic front of the war on terrorism has forced the country to strike a balance between protecting itself and protecting our way of life. For most Philadelphians, the starkest reminders of the attacks are the barricades surrounding Independence Hall, but for many of the city’s immigrants the changes have been more serious. For them, the last year has been one of uncertainty as many are questioned, detained and deported. Government-imposed changes to everyday life in the city are everywhere, but are they making us safer?

According to a comparison of 30 large U.S. cities by CNN, Philadelphia was joined by Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, Las Vegas and New Orleans in the bottom-of-the-barrel, "less prepared" category. Philadelphia's key problem, according to the CNN survey, was its insufficient ability to transport people to and from emergency sites in the event of a terrorist attack.

Inspector Joseph O'Connor of the Philadelphia police department's counter-terrorism bureau says he "would take exception to that." According to O'Connor, the city has roughly 240 people trained to respond to a terrorist attack and a viable evacuation plan for Center City as well as all of the downtown courthouses. Emergency training is ongoing, he says, and in terms of transportation, "We have the ability to utilize SEPTA buses should the need come."

But is the city even a target? "Philadelphia traditionally has always been a safe place," O'Connor explains. "We're halfway between New York and D.C., which are the primary targets. Because of its location between those prominent places, Philadelphia has remained safe in the past."

In 1998, bomb squad sergeant Richard Fehrle told City Paper that he believed terrorists would try to hit Philadelphia. "We have targets here," he said. "The Liberty Bell. Independence Hall. These are big targets in the historic sense."

The bomb squad, officially known as the police department's Ordnance Disposal Unit, no longer talks to the press for fear of letting would-be terrorists in on their methods and plans.

While New York and D.C. have tried to get back to business as usual in an effort to "not let the terrorists win," Philadelphia has made serious changes to everyday life in Center City by closing Chestnut Street in front of Independence Hall to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. In Washington, D.C., cars drive right past the Supreme Court while the justices work inside. In Philadelphia, traffic is prohibited from driving by Independence Hall, which has not held a Supreme Court hearing in more than two centuries.

Since Sept. 11, the closure of Chestnut Street has become a bone of contention between the National Park Service and the city. Chestnut Street was closed to vehicular traffic right after the attacks and to pedestrian traffic in June.

Park Service spokesman Frank Eidmann says, "I believe [the issue is] still on the table, but the park's position is that we'd still like to keep that closed." The issue will be addressed in the overall security plan being designed for the park as part of its ongoing renovations.

Administration spokesman Frank Keel says that the Park Service "seems to be entrenched in their position that it makes sense to keep it closed." From the administration's perspective, "there's a belief that we [have] possibly erred on the side of too much caution in regards to security, to the detriment of the public."

Aside from the disturbing site of the Cradle of Liberty cordoned off behind barricades, the street closure has created a traffic nightmare on Seventh Street, where Chestnut Street's eastbound vehicles are forced to turn. According to SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney, the Seventh Street traffic adds an average of four minutes to every Chestnut Street bus route. The transit agency is in the process of re-routing buses onto Market Street to avoid delays.

While the Independence Hall barricades are the most visible sign of post-Sept. 11 security changes in the city, members of the city's Muslim communities are feeling the impact more acutely.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, members of a Pakistani enclave in South Philadelphia became the targets of a number of federal immigration raids. Few of those detained have reappeared in the neighborhood. Philadelphia-based immigrants' rights activist Victor Gill says some of the Philadelphians were deported to Pakistan on a secret airlift made public by the Washington Post in July.

According to Sardar Khan, the unofficial leader of the South Philadelphia Pakistani community, there have been no federal raids since July.

Civil liberties advocates say that elsewhere in the country, the raids continue. "We feel the detention problem has not gone away," says Ahilan Arulanantham of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project who works with INS detainees in New Jersey. "There continue to be arrests of people from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa on the basis of immigration charges that we believe involve the selective enforcement of the immigration laws against people from those groups. It is a misguided attempt to protect against terrorism. There is generally no indication that the individuals targeted have any relation to terrorism."

A year after Sept. 11, a lot of things have changed in the name of security, but it still remains a matter of debate how big the threat is in Philadelphia, or whether the government's actions are making us safer.