15 minute Cities , the latest conspiracy.

[marty21]

In praise of the ‘15-minute city’ – the mundane planning theory terrifying conspiracists | Oliver Wainwright

The frightening prospect of greener, people-friendly streets has sent the online right – and Tory MPs – into a tailspin, says Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright

www.theguardian.com

Only recently started noticing people raging about this town planning/traffic management issue. Main thrust of the conspiracy, it's driven (pun intended) by the WEF, and agenda 30? To force people to stay in these 15 minute neighbourhoods , basically imprisonment. Often linked to covid conspiracies ,covid lockdowns being a dry run for these neighbourhoods

We have LTNs in Hackney , which are part of the same deal , certain streets are resident only basically , so whilst I used to drive down them, I don't anymore , and it's not that big a hassle. Plus those streets are more pleasant to walk down (and cycle)

What does Urban think?

 

[belboid]

It's communism by the back door! And that bloke from Don Valley is a fucking loon.

There are cons to the idea, but its essentially a decent one that loons will loon about.

 

[maomao]

They do know they can walk, cycle or get public transport wherever they fucking want don't they? Or fucking drive tbh.

 

[Crispy]

Please reboot the human race; there's something wrong with it

 

[belboid]

They do know they can walk, cycle or get public transport wherever they fucking want don't they? Or fucking drive tbh.

Yes. But they pretend not to.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

WHAT THE FUCK?!

I mean, most conspiracy theories make a kind of distorted sense if you see the world through a certain weird prism (or choose to for your own nefarious political ends), but to see a sinister, undercover threat in something that banal takes a certain sort of paranoia.

 

[mojo pixy]

Yeah, wilful misunderstanding + mindless anti-authoritarianism + "I'm special" + fear of change = where we are now. It's bloody awful and I'm becoming less tolerant of it as I get older. Nowadays i skip trying to reason, I just take the piss from the word go.

 

[Winot]

Comes down to same issue as anti-LTN fervour - some people are just not prepared to have their ‘freedom’ to drive everywhere curtailed.

 

[lazythursday]

I first came across this concept about five years ago and at the time I was pretty impressed at how it was an easy-to-explain sustainability/planning idea that people could easily get behind / understand. The fact that it's been twisted into dystopia is perhaps one of the most depressing things I've come across in years. Local COVID nutcases are all over it now.

 

[marty21]

Comes down to same issue as anti-LTN fervour - some people are just not prepared to have their ‘freedom’ to drive everywhere curtailed.

In Hackney we've had the LTNs for a few years - there was an anti-LTN party that ran in the local elections in some wards, it wasn't a seat-winning issue.

 

[not henry]

How do they do the big supermarket shop at the weekend? Once the little enclaves become tranquil backwaters every fucker will want to live there in a lovely quiet street where their children could play out side (in theory) house prices will shoot up and it will become an area where it is more expensive to live. Once people start paying top dollar for their house they need their car or land rover right out side
But what the fuck do I know
eta this is london I am on about

 

[MickiQ]

Pretty much do now anyway, the town I live in only has between 7-8000 people and can be walked across in about half an hour and I live in the middle, It's rather nice actually. Definitely in favour of putting up a big fence around it to keep the rest of you out though. The article is quite funny especially the opening line.
"There’s an international socialist conspiracy afoot, and it wants to make it easier to walk to the shops"

 

[Voley]

It's tragic that people can be so way off the mark and I shouldn't laugh. But I do.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

It just seems like this stuff gets ever more bizarre and ever more prominent doesn't it. This is just one particularly stupid example but it's linked in with a whole lot of current right wing thinking. It's really hard to get your head round - with your traditional pro-business type Tory you might disagree with them (or think they're a complete cunt) but at least where they were coming from was comprehensible. This is something else altogether.

 

[LDC]

Was thinking of starting a thread on this in the Climate Change forum, there's a fair bit of this climate related conspiracy stuff about, the 15 minute cities thing is just one bit of it.

Wild, and thoroughly depressing.

 

[platinumsage]

It's all a symptom of the the covid lockdowns isn't it? Obviously they're all batshit conspiraloons etc, but the massive increase in such views after such an unprecedented exercise of government authority shouldn't really be a surprise.

 

[krtek a houby]

"The latest stage in the ‘15-minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.”

Lol, not seen them up in arms over gated communities, though.

 

[Yossarian]

Apparently a lot of the outrage was hyped up by shithead professor Jordan Peterson, who lives in what might be the most walkable part of Toronto.

How ‘15-minute cities’ became the latest global conspiracy theory

This silliness around ‘15-minute cities’ will die down in due course, writes columnist Max Fawcett. Still, it speaks to a larger problem that won’t go away any time soon.

www.nationalobserver.com

 

[liquidindian]

It's also a rebadged "climate lockdown" conpiracy, which was popular a couple of months ago.

Oxfordshire County Council to trial congestion-reducing traffic filters, not a ‘climate lockdown’ that stops residents leaving neighbourhoods

An article being shared widely online is falsely claiming that a local council in England will trial climate lockdowns from 2024. It says the move would prevent residents from leaving their neighbourhoods without permission from authorities.

www.reuters.com

 

[liquidindian]

house prices will shoot up and it will become an area where it is more expensive to live...eta this is london I am on about

Unaffordable house prices in London, you say?

 

[pinkmonkey]

The Alt right is at it again, that's what I think, as I said on another thread, I think this is more about scaremongering Americans, where they seldom have walkable cities and everyone relies on/loves their cars, than it is Europeans, but people actually do believe there'll be turnstiles and checkpoints with gun toting guards on the borders of neighbourhoods and that you'll be shot if you don't have ID.
I'd find it amusing if it isn't so damaging. I think it'll have to be rebranded, or not branded at all.
If only they'd said, 'we want to reduce your commuting times', instead of branding it. I think the alt right gets hold of any branding - eg. Great Reset - and then twists it to mean something else.

 

[pinkmonkey]

It's also a rebadged "climate lockdown" conpiracy, which was popular a couple of months ago.

Oxfordshire County Council to trial congestion-reducing traffic filters, not a ‘climate lockdown’ that stops residents leaving neighbourhoods

An article being shared widely online is falsely claiming that a local council in England will trial climate lockdowns from 2024. It says the move would prevent residents from leaving their neighbourhoods without permission from authorities.

www.reuters.com

What I find even more wild about this is that Oxford is a city of lefties who cycle everywhere, I remember when we were up in the Cotswolds on our boat in summer 21, when we had our car with us, how utterly shit it was driving into Oxford and it does need sorting. Re. LTN's they are nothing new, not in Europe anyway, for instance the entire centre of Florence is a ZTL (Limited Traffic Zone). I used to have an agent there, he lived in the centre and had a car, they had this mad scheme where even if you did have a car and live in the centre, you could only use it on certain days, I don't know if this has changed since. Hong Kong has also had restrictions on private cars for years AFAICR, I worked with a Chinese factory owner and he was always bragging about being allowed to use his car in Hong Kong.

 

[Leafster]

I've been reading and watching videos about 20 minute liveable neighbourhoods (or 15 minute cities) for years and have noticed some criticisms but I've not seen the sort of conspiracy theories mentioned in the article before. I can see why they may gain traction with some people just as other conspiracy theories do. They feed on the unfounded fear of losing freedoms.

I think some advocates of 20 minute neighbourhoods aren't doing themselves (and the concept) any favours by extolling the virtues of the most extreme examples which many people who live even slightly car-centric lifestyles find completely alien. Showing parts of neighbourhoods where you can't have cars is a scary idea for some. It fuels their fears of being trapped and why being 'imprisoned in a 15 minute radius' of your home strikes a chord even if it's not the reality. It shouldn't be about banning cars but more that you won't need one most of the time in 20 minute neighbourhood.

 

[Elpenor]

If you live on a new build estate on the outskirts of a town you’re already trapped in a prison ffs

 

[lazythursday]

In one sense the loons do have a point. While 20/15 min neighbourhoods are not about locking people into their zone, they are - along with LTNs, cycle networks etc - part of a suite of measures that are fundamentally about reducing car use, because it just isn't possible to radically reduce carbon emissions fast enough without doing so. The academics all know this. Most local authorities do to, at officer level, and so too must plenty of civil servants. But no-one with political authority is prepared to grasp the nettle and explain this to the public properly, here or anywhere else in the world. So instead these various measures happen stealthily and that opens the doors to conspiracies. I think the Welsh announcement about scrapping the new roads programme is the first step towards some honesty about this but there's going to be such a furious backlash to the science.

 

[Leafster]

In one sense the loons do have a point. While 20/15 min neighbourhoods are not about locking people into their zone, they are - along with LTNs, cycle networks etc - part of a suite of measures that are fundamentally about reducing car use, because it just isn't possible to radically reduce carbon emissions fast enough without doing so. The academics all know this. Most local authorities do to, at officer level, and so too must plenty of civil servants. But no-one with political authority is prepared to grasp the nettle and explain this to the public properly, here or anywhere else in the world. So instead these various measures happen stealthily and that opens the doors to conspiracies. I think the Welsh announcement about scrapping the new roads programme is the first step towards some honesty about this but there's going to be such a furious backlash to the science.

It's definitely about reducing car use but promoting the positives of liveable neighbourhoods always seem to take a back seat in any discussions. People only seem to notice what they can't do rather than what liveable neighbourhoods will allow them to do.

Although not part of liveable neighbourhood scheme there was a recent planning application for a smallish supermarket at my end of the town. Great, I thought. It'll be quicker to walk to so I can get some shopping more easily and perhaps go more frequently. Nearly all the criticisms on Facebook were about lack of parking and causing traffic chaos. Not one person mentioned they would now walk to the local store as it would be closer so I can only assume they'll continue to drive from our end of town (which isn't very big) to the other to do their shopping and therefore perpetuating the traffic levels that end.

As I said, it wasn't part of a liveable neighbourhood scheme but it's an example of where everyone was focussed on the negative impact on their ability to drive somewhere else instead of the positives of possibly not having to drive anywhere at all! It's a huge mountain to climb to change the perception that every time you go out you need to get in the car but better promotion of the positives will help.

ETA: I realise that last paragraph may not be so relevant to anyone who lives in a large European city but for suburban and rural areas everywhere and probably North American cities it's a significant issue.

 

[marty21]

What I find even more wild about this is that Oxford is a city of lefties who cycle everywhere, I remember when we were up in the Cotswolds on our boat in summer 21, when we had our car with us, how utterly shit it was driving into Oxford and it does need sorting. Re. LTN's they are nothing new, not in Europe anyway, for instance the entire centre of Florence is a ZTL (Limited Traffic Zone). I used to have an agent there, he lived in the centre and had a car, they had this mad scheme where even if you did have a car and live in the centre, you could only use it on certain days, I don't know if this has changed since. Hong Kong has also had restrictions on private cars for years AFAICR, I worked with a Chinese factory owner and he was always bragging about being allowed to use his car in Hong Kong.

Yep, I've driven around Oxford on the ring road, but wouldn't dream of actually driving into Oxford as it is a more bike friendly/walkable city.

My home town , Bath, is trialling something similar - saw a post on Twitter with a picture of a familiar Street - turned out to be a very familiar street - my brother lives on it Tbf, he isn't that keen on the LTN, they have blocked one side of the street with planters - and bizarrely Americans on twitter were terrified of his people were complaining about getting to the hospital - my brother works at the hospital, it's practically at the end of his street .

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

Could do with some of this in Dover. There's a level of expectation that we might have to travel as far as Canterbury for healthcare and a lot of shops and services just do not exist in Dover, requiring trips to Folkestone or Deal/Margate, etc.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Yep, I've driven around Oxford on the ring road, but wouldn't dream of actually driving into Oxford as it is a more bike friendly/walkable city.

My home town , Bath, is trialling something similar - saw a post on Twitter with a picture of a familiar Street - turned out to be a very familiar street - my brother lives on it Tbf, he isn't that keen on the LTN, they have blocked one side of the street with planters - and bizarrely Americans on twitter were terrified of his people were complaining about getting to the hospital - my brother works at the hospital, it's practically at the end of his street .

Thats one of the problems, gaps in public transport, we drove into Oxford for trains. Because there was no public transport where we were moored on the upper Thames.. t's so inconsistent, some places are well connected, some don't even have a bus service.

 

[marty21]

Thats one of the problems, gaps in public transport, we drove into Oxford for trains. Because there was no public transport where we were moored on the upper Thames.. t's so incosistent, some places are well connected, some don't even have a bus service.

In order for these places to work as 15 minute neighbourhoods, they need to have these services in place before they block access, etc .