"So violence is coming down out of the mountains, Kilcullen explained, and it is taking root in the spaces of everyday life, in cities and suburbs where both infrastructure and governance have failed. This is the 'future environment' or operational theater that military planners both fear and rigorously prepare for, one populated by feral cities — one of my favorite phrases of all time, coined in 2003 by Richard Norton — dystopian urban wastelands ruled over by loose constellations of gangs.

However, these same military planners are not the ones who should be most closely focused on the darkening horizon: rather, Kilcullen emphasized, we need to push civilian designers and professionals into thinking about 'urban environments that are dramatically under stress,' as he phrased it during his talk."