Designing for disaster

What does design for future cities really look like?

Susie Kahlich
UX Collective
Published in
6 min readMay 2, 2021

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The skyline of a large waterfront city at sunset is viewed through a broken chainlink fence. Skyscrapers and a suspension bridge are in the distance, and a highway with cars traveling on it runs along the bay of water.
Photo by Matteo Catanese on Unsplash

I think a lot about future cities because I believe that physical self-defense is a very human reality that should be included in future design. Anywhere a large number of people gather to live, work, educate and play — and journey between those points of existence— will also include some levels of crime and violence.

“Future Cities” has been a buzzword around the tech and start-up world for the past few years. What will they look like? Who will live there? What do they need to do?

I’ve watched the conversation evolve from enthusiastic tech bros who design cool Star Trek-inspired metropolises that seem to completely forget that people of color, women, children, the elderly, and the disabled exist, to the current buzz that conscientiously design for diversity and inclusivity, specifically focusing on women’s safety and mobility to create more balanced and harmonized urban environments.

The projections and proposals for well-lit city squares and safe mass transit, greener cities where flora and fauna become part of the urban circular economy, cities built on biometrics seem like a utopia within our reach.

Recently I’ve been doing research about the relationship between climate change disasters and gender-based

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CEO of SINGE | Founder of Pretty Deadly Self Defense @ prettydeadlyselfdefense.com | Former producer of art podcast Artipoeus: art you can hear @ artipoeus.com