I think its fair to say that any article that appears on "The Conversation" should be ignored.

That place is a hot bed of Marxist nutjobs from the humanities departments of our various UNI's.

And despite what their name alludes to they're not interested in having a conversation with anybody who doesn't share their far left world view.

Long term readers of this site would most likely consider me a leftie but compared to that lot I may as well be far right nationalist.

One who hope the the Libs review UNI' funding in light of the level of Marxist programming being generated for our UNi's these days.

Terrorists have political aims. The only reason they could benefit from harming you and me, is because it can indirectly influence the politicians.

Once the political class stops attempting to "protect" us against terror and becomes indifferent to it, impervious to blackmail, terrorists will no longer be motivated to kill us.

Thus security from terror should become a private matter. In the case of flights, it should be a matter for the individual airlines. Some could introduce a higher level of security for their passengers, while others may have no security-measures at all: let the passengers judge and decide.

That said, I disagree with the author's centralising ideas - but for other reasons, unrelated to terror.

Agree with the critiqued architects and commonsense planning/decentralising!

Cramming more and more people into smaller and smaller places (look mum tinned people) plainly does make better more condensed targets for mindless terrorism, which mindlessly seeks a greater maximised death toll for every suicide bomber etc.

Other than that, the only folk who want to compress people into smaller and smaller place are the city centric developers with their eye only on the maximised bottom line and little else!

Some of the statistics subjectively ignored by this manifestly moribund writer, are the ones that show a greater pro rata crime rate and mental health issues, with growing centralised populations!

You'd think any decent reasonable human being would want decentralization, affordable homes and family friendly backyards? Not this developer friendly propaganda! It's not like we are a tiny european country short of space!?

All we really need is affordable energy! THORIUM.
Does it work? yes it does and is it vastly more affordable?
Yes it is!
Clean and safe? Ditto!

Affordable potable water and assured eternal supply!
DEIONIZATION DIALYSIS DESALINATION! Double ditto!

And a zonal preferential flat tax system that all but compels decentralization! Coupled to the overdue rollout of rapid rail!

Can we afford to do it? Yes we can! But only if you understand very basic (what works) economics and the (American) woolworth's lower margins based, massive expansion/success story!?

Put the jobs and the economy where the people are and where they can still afford to live and stop treating them as captive cash cows created to serve the interest of profit hungry water barons, energy barons and city centric real estate empire builders!

And all that matters to the hard right, Godless conservatives?
[If the cap fits?]

All while making them better more condensed targets for opportunistic terrorism!
Alan B.