15 minute cities and the conspirators

[ivykaty44]

15 minute cities being organised to mean that you don't have to rely on a car to get to everything and can easily walk to many places therefore only have to use the car for longer journeys

the conspiracy theories im seeing on social media are suggesting its a world wide control formula and we will be fined for moving from one district to another.

www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2023/02/08/15-minute-city-conspiracy-theories-insane-says-15-minute-city-creator/?sh=121378916156

I'm wondering if the car manufactures are behind the conspiracy, as they would have a lot to lose if people live in places where they don't need a car and can just ave one family car or hire a car. Billions of sales could be lost if this takes off.

Some cities have gone car free - theculturetrip.com/europe/spain/articles/the-car-free-spanish-city/ and found after much objection, that it works well - especially for the elderly

the ghettoisation happens because there's a big variety of price/quality combinations for each type of business.

in an affluent area (where house prices are enormous) the local offering includes cocktail bars, bijou little independent stores, delicatessens, artisan bakers and organic grocers, interesting cuisine restaurants and various businesses aimed at capturing the wallet of the wealthy locals, but the people who work in these businesses will generally not be able to afford to live locally and probably can't afford to do all their shopping there either, and there are also a lot of people who culturally and for preference want to be able to spend their leisure and shopping time in such areas but can't afford to live there.

The more affordable areas don't have such shopping areas because the local population in general can't sustain them - they've got a "local value" convenience store, a fish&chip shop, a barber and a vape store, with an aldi/morrison low cost supermarket and a pharmacy a short drive away on the ring road. but a significant minority of the people living there would have loved to be able to live in one of the posh areas, and may even have a job there, but they are living where they can afford to live.

making the lovely area into a pedestrianised low traffic zone excludes all the people who can't afford to live within 15 minutes walk, or who like to stop by there on their way from affordable suburb to different suburb where they work.

gentrifying all these hinterland suburbs isn't a solution - the low budget options are needed by a large proportion of the local population, but don't meet the needs of a significant proportion of those living there, who want a different quality/price point for their goods and services. but while the population of a single zone will be variable, the economics of pricing and market for each business mean you simply can't put a low-budget version and a posh version of the same kind of business on the same street and let both attract their own customers from among the local population, it doesn't work like that. The low budget version goes in the poorer area and the posh version goes in the posh area, but people can move freely and go to where the businesses they want to use are located.

all the pilot schemes are about making it more difficult to use the lovely areas if you aren't lucky enough to live nearby, but the problem about how to give access to the same kinds of spending and working opportunities to those who would otherwise be driving to those areas regularly (but are now being prevented) isn't being addressed, because there isn't really a workable solution so it's easiest to just ignore it and focus on how much lovelier the lovely area is now that you can hear the birdsong rather than the streets being lined with the parked cars of those who you have now excluded.

Whatever the merits/limitations of the scheme, it's clearly become a magnet for dickheads - Lawrence Fox was at a recent protest. It doesn't bode well for our future that something so mundane (and yes, it is mundance whatever hyperbole people use) can become so fractious.

The last time I went into Cambridge (20 years ago), the Park and Ride had no parking! I very much doubt that it has improved.
Local government should be providing more and better public transport/ parking not punishing people who are trying to do their best.

Won't it be a bit boring if you only mix with people from your neighbourhood, especially if you are young, everything will be very small.

Maybe the flyer about it should have put the rest of the country or everyone else instead of the rest of Oxfordshire to make it clearer.

the flyer is correct, there will be 6 roads around the city that cars are restricted. That doesn't mean people can't drive to the city using other roads, it doesn't mean people will be banned from driving or leaving their homes, not will not affect people being able to use any of the 4 park and rides

There is rumours happening again about road charging, so charging people to turn on their engine and drive on the roads - particularly around London.

TBH those protesting do need to think about which would be better, as doing nothing isn't an option for most councils with the clean air bill.

would you rather be restricted on certain roads or pay to drive on the roads? roads have always been a lefty socialist idea that they are free to use, but this government wants to do away with the NHS and will the free roads be next?

Cambridge is looking at bringing in a £5 charge, I think I would prefer that if I lived there than to be restricted to an area for the rest of my life.

All of these things affect poorer people though, I could easily afford the road charge, likewise I wouldn't have to live in the ghetto area of a restricted city.

I'd love to have everything I need within a 15 minute walk. Around here the Local Authority is busy filling the whole area of green fields around our small town with new houses, with zero extra shops, doctors, schools etc and no road or public transport improvements and certainly no extra provision for pedestrians or cyclists. Our roads are choked with cars and parking wars are already happening on the new estates and our Council doesn't give a shit.

the conspiracy theories im seeing on social media are suggesting its a world wide control formula and we will be fined for moving from one district to another.

I don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories but I feel we should be wary of relinquishing too much freedom in favour of government on the assumtion they know best and will always act in our interests. The way China uses social credit to control citizens shows what technology can be used for in the wrong hands - and too many people here saying stuff like "it's for our own good" or "the government isn't interested in my data" makes us vulnerable to a power grab that would be hard to overturn later.

And we know exactly how the government really is as that was made very clear during Covid, has nobody learned from that.

Incompetent?

(I suspect you think the answer is 'authoritarian' but no, it's incompetent.)

I ignored the fines anyway as I could easily afford to pay them

Yup, it's mostly the same people. Thick as mince, and for the most part just incredibly gullible, incapable of critical thought, and being led by very devious pied pipers playing the dog whistle.

Not enough eye rolls.

I can assure you I am very far from a freedom of the land nobber.

As for critical thought - I'd say the belief that everything every government and official does is always 100% reliably in our interest shows a lack of nuance and critical thought.

The advantage of a charge is that it can be used to fund improved public transport. This scheme makes driving difficult/impossible in some time frames eg drop kids at school in an Oxfordshire village and get to work on time in Oxford, but doesn’t offer improved public transport.

The disadvantage of a charge is that it’s harder for poorer groups. However the gates are harder for time poor groups…

The improved public transport should come first. It's ridiculous to start penalising people without providing an alternative.

The advantage of a charge is that it can be used to fund improved public transport. This scheme makes driving difficult/impossible in some time frames eg drop kids at school in an Oxfordshire village and get to work on time in Oxford, but doesn’t offer improved public transport.

so everyone gets charged instead of some people not paying wrap round care

@DogInATent

Yup, it's mostly the same people. Thick as mince, and for the most part just incredibly gullible, incapable of critical thought, and being led by very devious pied pipers playing the dog whistle.

We've had a quite a few of the 'Freemen of the Land' people in my country pushing the boundaries somewhat, usually with traffic violations. They do appear comical rather than courageous (as they likely imagine themselves to be), and yes, rather slow on the uptake. They are simply handy targets of misinformation spreading the stupidity around at no discernible profit to themselves, ie. pawns.

15 Minute City conspiracies are so demented even Americans are now laughing at us: www.wired.com/story/15-minute-cities-conspiracy-climate-denier/

This country is a joke

I used to come in to contact with Freeman of the Land types in an old job, they were often very mentally vulnerable peeope, who latched on to it as a desperate way out of financial difficulty. It was all a bit sad really.

Genuine question

if there's nothing to worry about, why aren't politicians reassuring people that that's the case?

1. They are l. Local councils that are considering this type of town planning are holding public meetings in the normal way. Some of which are being disrupted by loons

2. Because even in asking that question you are legitimating the notion there is anything to deny. The government (which isn't really involved given that this is local council business) aren't denying there is a WEF plot to lock us in our homes for the same reason they aren't denying that aliens landed last Tuesday or the Queen was a lizard or Bill Gates invented covid. Because it's bollocks.