Terror and Urban Design, from The New Yorker

At Westgate, a New Model of Terror for the Shabaab in Nairobi?

The first implication of the attack is on Nairobi's urban development. Will the city choose to become more open or more closed? With its population set to double to eight million in the next decade or so, design choices are powerfully relevant. The poor are already excluded from prosperous life by security arrangements. The temptation will be for more reinforcement. But if walls get higher, and those who drive cars between fortified points are further separated from those who go on foot and live in crowded places, the result will be a metropolis that is uncompetitive and unsafe.

Comments

[Russ F.]

Very well said - AND one of the first to say it (not that I've done a bunch of looking, really). One of my concerns is that it won't be long until copycat incidents such as this will became a problem world-wide. At the risk of being fatalistic, I'm surprised that hasn't started happening already. Much like the (unfortunate) result from Newtown, will the response from the general USA public and city councils be to simply armor-up shopping mall security and security personnel? And, should an incident such as this happen in the USA, will the arms and munitions industry (as well as PACs like the NRA) again use it as an excuse to ramp up fervor to bolster profits and/or memberships? Dire straits, indeed...