Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Cardassians
4. The Los Angeles Riots Helped Inspire Deep Space Nine's Scorched Promenade
When Deep Space Nine was greenlit, developing the Cardassians became a top priority for Rick Berman and Michael Piller, with Ira Steven Behr also commenting that creating Cardassian monologues became one of the high points of writing for them.
Berman and Piller were able to work on fleshing these villains out. Piller, when writing the script for Emissary, was inspired by the recent LA Riots. This led to the Cardassians 'having a little fun' as they left the station - destroying much of the merchants' area on the promenade and killing several Bajorans.
Overall, this was part of a plan to make Deep Space Nine as different as possible from The Next Generation. While the inspiration for the show, and the station itself, came about separately from the Cardassians, once they decided to include them, this influenced everything from the tone of the show to the design of the setting.