First, keep a clear inventory of all critical systems—power, water, communications—so you know exactly what can fail and where the bottlenecks are. Second, enforce a strict redundancy policy: every essential service must have at least one backup that can be activated within ten minutes. Third, set up a rapid response protocol that triggers automatically when a system’s health metrics fall below a threshold, not just after a catastrophe has happened. Fourth, limit the number of high‑risk experiments by requiring a formal review and a proven safety margin before they’re allowed to run. Fifth, maintain a transparent log of every change and incident; nobody should be able to make a modification without an audit trail. Finally, establish a community council that includes residents and experts who can make tough decisions when the city’s survival is at stake—no one person should have unchecked power to push the system past its limits.

It’s a balance. A guardian on every line gives you a safety net, but if it’s only a chain of switches you’ll feel like you’re walking on a set of gears. The key is to let those guardians also act as a conduit for the people—have them report back in plain language, not just numbers. Then the city feels monitored, not just monitored. The council should be real people, not ghosts. Their job is to weigh the risk of an experiment against the benefit, and they must be able to make a decision before the next glitch happens. If they sit behind screens and never speak out, you’ll get exactly the silence you fear. A pen on standby is a good idea. It reminds you that sometimes the fastest way to solve a problem is to write it down and talk it through, not to chase a screen. Just keep the plan simple, keep the people involved, and the city will stay alive rather than be a ticking time‑bomb.