Debunked: 15 Minute Cities are a plot to confine people into regimented zones

[Ann K]

so what do we do when we're too old to safely drive?

I had heard about some urban planning in the US (Houston?) zoning suburbs as exclusively residential; if you disallow mixed zoning, there's no space for commerce to set up near people's homes.

That's when we become dependents, when we can't drive. Probably into a senior home.

Zoning such as you describe is predicated on using an automobile, thus causing traffic problems for the folks whenever they leave their nice, quiet, separate homes. I spent a week in a business segment of Detroit once, in which our large building (and I think most of the others) had no cafeteria. All the food outlets were in their own district about two or three miles away; too far to walk in a lunch break of an hour, and almost too far to drive in the inevitable lunchtime traffic backup. All the businesses had tiny exit ramps to the main street, and every tiny ramp glittered with pieces of broken tail lights and scraps of metal. It was a nightmare of poor planning.

 

[deirdre]

zoning suburbs as exclusively residential; if you disallow mixed zoning, there's no space for commerce to set up near people's homes.

that's the whole point of suburbs. people move to the suburbs because [allegedly] quality of life is better. As far as i know Houston has no zoning laws...i wonder if voters are clamoring for residential zones because of this. ?

Anyway in AMerica there are mixed reasons for (non-foodbank, farmer markets etc) food "deserts". I'm going to fairly confidently say price of good food is the major factor. It's ridiculous how much it costs to eat healthy here. A pound of frozen french fries is cheaper than a cantalope (and like 6?x the calories)

A few years ago i remember stories about how our "dollar store"s popularity drove out alot of grocery stores from areas. That's my main question with 15 minute cities. can the necessary services even stay in business in 15 min walking intervals? if so...then cool.

But with all of America's regulations and workers rights and insurance requirements... ie. if it was affordable/profitable groceries would be in more locations and would offer fresher foods.
Even our food stamp programs dont encourage healthy eating, they used to tell you what you could buy (and frozen french fries and sugar water for kids weren't on the list), but now you can buy whatever, so people often buy the cheapest foods to make the money fill tummies more.

In America, the not-low-income people eat better, not due to grocery stores within a mile... but because they can afford to. Little bodegos every 200 feet are nice, but smaller stores mean higher prices. (i do like the idea of parks every 15 minutes..but parks do take up space from other [alleged] 'necessary' services in that 15 minute zone.

 

[Mendel]

That's when we become dependents, when we can't drive. Probably into a senior home.

both my grandmothers didn't even have cars, and they still went out shopping by themselves at well over 80, because they lived in small German towns and could.

 

[aconspiracytheorist]

I've been incorrect at least once in my life, I'm sure. Would you care to identify which thing that I've said you are now talking about? If you believe you have counter-evidence to any claim I've made, quote it and provide a link to it.

Unless you're just repeating your - demonstrated by Landru to be completely missing the point - silly screenshot from yesterday. In which case, don't bother, that response has already been laughed at enough.

the zones are in 15 minute regiments and people are kept in these, by design, through removing their need to travel outside of them.

whether or not the intended purpose is nefarious or earnest, the design is clear.

 

[Mendel]

people are kept in these, by design, through removing their need to travel outside of them.

no

people are kept in them by removing the possibility to travel outside them

which even the Australian lockdown example failed to do

open a history book and read up on the Jewish ghettoes in Nazi Germany (e.g. the Warsaw ghetto) if you want to know what keeping people in a zone means

15 minute cites do not do that, you are needlessly scared

 

[Ann K]

the zones are in 15 minute regiments and people are kept in these, by design, through removing their need to travel outside of them.

What's the alternative that you seem to prefer? Forcing people to go outside their area because they can't find the services they need nearby? Removing a convenience so an inconvenience is inevitable? That's the logical opposite of:

removing their need to travel outside of them.

 

[John J.]

the zones are in 15 minute regiments and people are kept in these, by design, through removing their need to travel outside of them.

(Admission: I don't know what a 15-minute regiment is).
If you live in a major city you could probably live without travelling elsewhere. But people travel anyway.

the policy is designed to place all essential services for every human need within 15-minutes walking distance

Let's go back to the original example of a 15-minute city proposal on this thread, Oxford.
You might be aware that Oxford is a University city.
Are the colleges going to be disbanded, or are they going to be "distributed" so that each square mile gets a bit?

(Or each 1.099 square mile;
Let's say the average walking speed of a reasonably healthy adult is 5 km/h (roughly 3.11 mph) so in 15 minutes we cover 1250 metres. You could hypothetically divide an urban area into squares, each side approx. 1.768km (about 1.099 miles), with services in the centre of the square- that way, the distance from the corners of the square to the centre is approx. 1250m, a 15-minute walk).

-Or the Mini (car) factory? How do you spread that about? Or the Bodleian library? Or the major trauma centre at the John Radcliffe hospital? The University and Mini factory are major revenue streams that "THEY" might want to preserve.

In reality, it's hard to see how Oxford City and Oxfordshire County Councils could guarantee that there would be specific services within each zone, outside of what local government is already obliged to provide- and often has problems providing.

County councils are responsible for education up to 16, social services, road maintenance, fire and rescue, and libraries (I think). Oxford City Council is essentially a district council, responsible for waste collection, some social housing ("council houses"), parking, planning decisions about proposed new buildings or conversions etc., and setting and collecting Council Tax.

A local council can't oblige a doctor's practice, a hairdressing salon or a grocery store to set up business in a given area, and wouldn't have the budget to hire or subsidise such services. Maybe a council could use planning decisions to prevent new services setting up "in the wrong area", in the hope that the service owner/ provider chooses to relocate to where the council wants- but they can't say "You WILL work THERE". I guess they could selectively reduce business rates as an incentive, not sure.

Plus, as I've pointed out earlier, in the UK, county councils and district councils don't control police forces. They don't have the power to physically coerce the population. Nor can they make decisions in conflict with primary legislation.
The police force responsible for Oxford (and Oxfordshire), Thames Valley Police, is operationally independent of local government.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

whether or not the intended purpose is nefarious or earnest, the design is clear.

No, an emphatic no.

The basic idea is to reduce energy consumption by encouraging the development of areas better served by foot traffic and high occupancy vehicles. These already existed. Prior to about 1950, this is how virtually everyone that lived in anything bigger than a village went about their day. Nowhere is there any "and we'll keep them in there!" aspect because it doesn't make any sense nor is even feasible.

In 1892, if you were a common industrial worker, that's how your life was. You didn't own any personal conveyance because they didn't exist. You walked or took the streetcar to the mill that was 10 or 15 minutes away. Your wife did all of her shopping on foot, because everything she needed to get to was within a couple of minutes walk. When you were done with your busy day of pouring out molten steel or whatever, you staggered to the tavern to get good and loaded, then went home to eat something. On your day off, you, the wife, and your 8 kids piled into the interurban and went off to the amusement park for the day. Which was probably an hour or more away.

The only social engineering aspect here is that there is a general idea that a simpler lifestyle is a happier lifestyle, rather than getting crammed into a car for an hour or two a day. Now, I'd possibly dispute that because people had pretty miserable lives in the industrial hellscape back then, so I'm not sure there's any basis for the claim. But hemming people into pens? No way. That's not even possible.

 

[FatPhil]

the zones are in 15 minute regiments and people are kept in these, by design, through removing their need to travel outside of them.

That would only be true if all people are incapable of doing anything that they don't absolutely need.

People are capable of doing things that they don't absolutely need.

Keep -> ~Capable
Capable
=> ~Keep

Therefore people are not kept in these zones.

 

[Mendel]

The only social engineering aspect here is that there is a general idea that a simpler lifestyle is a happier lifestyle, rather than getting crammed into a car for an hour or two a day.

I've lived car-less for over three decades of my life and enjoyed it very much. That includes life time with small children, but it stopped when we moved to a small village.

 

[FatPhil]

I've lived car-less for over three decades of my life and enjoyed it very much. That includes life time with small children, but it stopped when we moved to a small village.

Oxford was bike-able when I was at uni. (80s/90s)
The suburb of NW London where I got my first job was bike-able too. (90s)
Helsinki was walkable when I moved to Finland, as my accomodation and job were right in the centre. (90s)
Loughborough was bike-able when I returned to England. (90s)
The district in Espoo was walkable, and Helsinki was tram-/bus-able, when I returned to Finland, but I will confess the distance between the two was a bit annoying. (00s)
Tallinn is walkable, and when we're feeling lazy, trammable. (10s-20s)

To me, a car is little more than someone else's smelly annoyance. I don't even have a driver's licence. Neither does the g/f, as she's visually impaired.

 

[TheNZThrower]

To comeback a year later, I am having trouble deciphering the insinuations that 15-min conspiracists make whenever they mention that the COVID pandemic contributed to public perception of the idea in Paris. For example, this article says:

The fact that it took the Covid lockdowns to really give the idea a boost is telling in this regard.

The big moment for the 15-minute city came in 2020, when the Socialist Party candidate for mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, won re-election. Much of her campaign was based around the 15-minute concept. As Politico noted earlier this year, Hidalgo's 'pitch to turn the French capital into a "city of proximity" – where children walk to school and residents know their local baker – struck a chord at a time when Covid-19 lockdowns meant people were suddenly spending a lot more time in their own neighbourhoods.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/25/the-madness-of-the-15-minute-city/

This video by a Coin Bureau also claims the following:

Transcript (T-1:48)

now what's interesting is that the concept of a 15-minute City didn't really take off until the start of the pandemic in early 2020. The Story Goes that city planners in Paris noticed that people would stay in their local areas because of the pandemic this gave them the idea to try out Carlos's 15-minute Concept in the city

It is hard for me to precisely figure out what is being insinuated here. But to my knowledge, they're claiming that because 15-minute city plans were implemented in a top down manner by urban planners when they noticed that people were staying closer to their neighbourhoods during the pandemic, it follows that this must prove some nefarious conspiracy of some sort. It's hard to debunk precisely because of how vague it seems.

 

[Mendel]

The big moment for the 15-minute city came in 2020, when the Socialist Party candidate for mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, won re-election. Much of her campaign was based around the 15-minute concept.

Voters like the concept.

city planners in Paris noticed that people would stay in their local areas because of the pandemic

it turns out people like to stay in their neighborhood when they're not forced to commute

so what politics did here was enable something that many people clearly want!
Given these facts, it makes no sense to attach a narrative/CT of coercion to this that lacks evidence of any kind.

 

[deirdre]

I am having trouble deciphering the insinuations that 15-min conspiracists make whenever they mention that the COVID pandemic contributed to public perception of the idea in Paris. For example, this article says:

i dont see any insinuations in that article that would make Slate a "15 minute conspiracist".

But to my knowledge, they're claiming that because 15-minute city plans were implemented in a top down manner by urban planners when they noticed that people were staying closer to their neighbourhoods during the pandemic, it follows that this must prove some nefarious conspiracy of some sort.

ionly listened to like a minute from your embed time in the video but i'm not seeing any insinuations of nefarious in that either. Maybe youve been watching too much conspiracy concepts and the paranoia is rubbing off on you?

 

[TheNZThrower]

Voters like the concept.

it turns out people like to stay in their neighborhood when they're not forced to commute

so what politics did here was enable something that many people clearly want!
Given these facts, it makes no sense to attach a narrative/CT of coercion to this that lacks evidence of any kind.

Looking back on the article and video I cited, the argument I can derive seems to be:

1. the 15-minute city plans were implemented during the pandemic in Paris
2. the pandemic lead to people finding 15-minute cities appealing and/or necessary
3. People found 15-minute cities appealing and/or necessary primarily because they make lockdowns during the pandemic more tolerable
4. If people find lockdowns more tolerable, then they are more willing to tolerate lockdowns
5. (insert nefarious group e.g. the WEF) benefits from implementing lockdowns
6. If (insert nefarious group) benefits from lockdowns, they have an incentive to get the public to be more tolerant of lockdowns
7. C: therefore 15-minute cities are a plot by (insert nefarious group) to get away more easily with implementing lockdowns.

 

[Mendel]

(insert nefarious group e.g. the WEF) benefits from implementing lockdowns

How?

(Most) People tolerate lockdowns because they see the necessity when there's a pandemic.
Nobody likes it, no matter how attractive their neighborhood is.

 

[deirdre]

If (insert nefarious group) benefits from lockdowns, they have an incentive to get the public to be more tolerant of lockdowns

where was that said or implied in either of your sources?

(hard to imagine there are NOT conspiracy groups saying that sort of thing, but you have not provided evidence of that. So far, in this thread, you are the only one making those claims)

 

[TheNZThrower]

How?

(Most) People tolerate lockdowns because they see the necessity when there's a pandemic.
Nobody likes it, no matter how attractive their neighborhood is.

Your typical conspiracist will say "control and power". But this raises the question of what do they gain from obtaining said control and power, and what do they lose?

 

[FatPhil]

How?

(Most) People tolerate lockdowns because they see the necessity when there's a pandemic.
Nobody likes it, no matter how attractive their neighborhood is.

If they're seeing "the necessity", then they're hallucinating, as there was no *necessity*. We never had *anything like* a lockdown. The worst it got, just for a few weeks twice, was the closure of bars for drinking, and restaurants for eating in, but at no point was my ability to visit any shop or public space infringed upon. During the work week, apart from those few exceptional weeks, I ate out in the same restaurants I used to every lunch time, just as I usually would do (sure, some mothballed, but most didn't). And for those few weeks, it was pickup or delivery. I even continued to hold and attend my regular beer tasting sessions with my usual small group of friends, and that was all fine and legal. The only reason our national stats don't look great is that there's a large minority demographic who definitely mucked things up for themselves, and nearly mucked things up for everyone else (they had <50% vax rates, whilst the rest of the population was at 80%, for example, and the obvious happened). Within months of the vax becoming available, we had open-air festivals and crowd events running again - entry with proof of vax or a negative instant test. Where prudent, things were simply run at lower capacity than normal so that social distancing was easier.

So no lockdown necessary at all, just a scientifically literate and considerate population (or about 70% of the population in our case), with a little bit of help from a health ministry spokesperson who was 100% on top of the science and how to communicate it to the masses (and who afterwards declined a very lucrative promotion to the office of health minister, because she felt she could be of more use staying where she was, rather than taking on a more paperworky role).

 

[deirdre]

If they're seeing "the necessity", then they're hallucinating, as there was no *necessity*.

yes, every country but yours (and sweden, was it?) were hallucinating our hospital staffs being absolutely swamped and surrounded by death.

 

[Ann K]

If they're seeing "the necessity", then they're hallucinating, as there was no *necessity*. We never had *anything like* a lockdown. The worst it got, just for a few weeks twice, was the closure of bars for drinking, and restaurants for eating in, but at no point was my ability to visit any shop or public space infringed upon.

We had closures here, and yes, it was necessary. You could ask the hospitals who had to bring in refrigerated trucks as makeshift mortuaries and erected quarantine tents in their parking lots. I knew several people who died of Covid, and I had a friend who died of something else entirely, but there was no room for the hospital to take her because they had patients on rows of gurneys in the hallways since the rooms were all full. My friends are mostly in my age group (elderly), and we had greater need to be careful before the vaccines were available than younger, healthier folk.

 

[Ann K]

there was no *necessity*

I just turned away from this site and was faced with this article, in which a Republican tried to pretend that "things were better four years ago".

Let's climb back in our time machine to March 6, 2020. In early March, 2020, the coronavirus was spreading rapidly. Some colleges were beginning to close to prevent the spread, Trump planned and then canceled and then rescheduled a trip to the CDC, and his administration was considering tax cuts (no, really!) for airlines and cruise ships who were already hurting because of the spread of COVID-19.

Even at that early stage, it was obvious that the Trump administration had completely screwed up the national response to the virus, meaning more deaths were coming.

Tune the time machine to a week later, and Trump had given an address from the Oval Office which didn't help matters at all, Nancy Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin were working on a coronavirus relief package since it was obvious the virus was going to slow, if not shut down, the economy at that point. Testing was virtually non-existent as the virus raged across the country, and Mike Pence was out on the air blaming Democrats for panicking the country while downplaying the threat of the virus. Oh, and the burial pits for people dying of the virus were so large they were visible from space. Stocks dropped 25 percent that week, even though Steve Mnuchin reassured everyone there would be no recession..

On March 15, 2020, states were beginning to lock down. It was clear by then that there had been no real coordinated response to what was clearly going to be a pandemic.

We all should remember what ensued after that. Grim images of refrigerated trucks storing bodies, hospital workers having to reuse their gowns and masks because supplies were running so low. Everyone home, schools closed, businesses closed, markets running out of basics like toilet paper, lines around the block waiting to even get into markets to shop. Bogus "cures" like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were all the rage with the wingers who would also refuse to wear masks or isolate properly when infected with the virus. Get vaccinated? Forget about it.

Over 1 million people died.

https://crooksandliars.com/2024/03/elise-stefaniks-magnificent-self-own

 

[JMartJr]

Respectfully, we seem to be wandering a bit from the topic, friends!

 

[MapperGuy]

The idea of a 15 minute city is a city you don't HAVE to leave regularly to get and do everyday things. The idea has been perverted into it being the idea of a city you CANNOT leave when you want. Two totally different things.

A 15 minute city is a convenient place to live, that's all.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

It is such a colossal failure of reasoning.

No two buildings can possibly have the same 15 minute area associated with it (which isn't even 15 minutes in the first place. That's just a nice round number. Which is an actually an odd number, but you know what I mean.) It is just a buzzword because people didn't like "transit oriented development" because it didn't just imply that you have to take the bus, but was literally baked into the name, and they didn't like "mixed use" because somehow people think that means you're living next to ALL of the kinds of uses and there's a slaughterhouse and a steel fabricator in the same block as your dentist.

 

[Mendel]

Australia had distance-based restrictions:

Article:

A "modest" easing of restrictions is happening from Wednesday September 29, including the lockdown radius widening to 15 kilometres from your home.

Source: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/city-file/article/how-see-whats-within-your-15-kilometre-lockdown-radius-instant

Germany had a similar rule instuted for "corona hotspots" in January 2021. Both with sensible exceptions, I trust. (Maybe France did, as well?)

 

[deirdre]

I'm not sure conflating 15 minute cities with quarantine zones is going to make the conspiracy people feel better.

 

[FatPhil]

yes, every country but yours (and sweden, was it?) were hallucinating our hospital staffs being absolutely swamped and surrounded by death.

Did you do this bit first:
> a scientifically literate and considerate population, with a little bit of help from a health ministry spokesperson who was 100% on top of the science and how to communicate it to the masses
?

Horse before cart.

 

[deirdre]

Did you do this bit first:

you could just say "hallucinating was a bad choice of words. i apologize"

 

[FatPhil]

you could just say "hallucinating was a bad choice of words. i apologize"

Mendel's statement was an absolute, not contingent on any particular context or conditions. It only takes one counter-example to show that "necessity" was not true. Those who think otherwise have an inaccurate perception on how a society can deal with an infectious disease.

 

[deirdre]

Mendel's statement was an absolute, not contingent on any particular context or conditions. It only takes one counter-example to show that "necessity" was not true. Those who think otherwise have an inaccurate perception on how a society can deal with an infectious disease.

no. no. and no.

 

[FatPhil]

no. no. and no.

Comprehension fail, logic fail, and ... can't be arsed to work out what kind of fail the third one is, but it's another fail, that's for sure.

 

[Mendel]

Mendel's statement was an absolute, not contingent on any particular context or conditions.

I stated, "(Most) People tolerate lockdowns because they see the necessity when there's a pandemic." Your "counterexample" was of a place that did not have lockdowns, missing my fundamental condition that there be a lockdown for people to tolerate. Whooosh.

There have never been lockdowns that were "not contingent on any particular context or conditions", to my knowledge.

But thank you for the insight that many people did not see the necessity for lockdowns in places that did not have them, I'm sure that advanced the topic at hand greatly.

 

[FatPhil]

I stated, "(Most) People tolerate lockdowns because they see the necessity when there's a pandemic." Your "counterexample" was of a place that did not have lockdowns, missing my fundamental condition that there be a lockdown for people to tolerate. Whooosh.

A place that does not have lockdowns when there's a pandemic is certainly a counterexample that lockdowns are a necessity when there's a pandemic.

 

[Mendel]

A place that does not have lockdowns when there's a pandemic is certainly a counterexample that lockdowns are a necessity when there's a pandemic.

Yes. And I explained in my previous post that a counterexample to a straw man is worthless. Try and negate (properly, with logic) what I actually wrote, and then support that negation. Don't just cut the subordinate clause out of my statement and claim it stands absolute.

Elaborating my point:
When there was a lockdown, in that historic situation most people tolerated it because they understood that it was necessary in that situation. If a politician went and said, you have a 15-minute-city now, you can no longer move outside that radius, people wouldn't tolerate it because they don't see the necessity.

People want 15-minute-cities because it frees them from the need to take long trips for routine tasks. They now have a choice they did not have before. For CTists to portray this as a restriction means that they do not actually understand that.

 

[FatPhil]

Yes. And I explained in my previous post that a counterexample to a straw man is worthless.

No. Your statement about lockdowns was not contingent on any conditions, it was an absolute. If the man is straw, that's because you constructed it that way.