The cameras at best might help find her murderous abductors after they’ve killed her. If they were from a protected class, they might not even do time.
It sounded as if she said “Mom” rather than “Mum”, so clearly she’s a tool of Big Oil!
If the trial is successful we could slowly increase the sample size by say including Antifa protestors as well.
The FBI would be useless if the agents can’t leave their block.
(But the FBI isn’t officially “antifa”. Yet.)
marlene
February 19, 2023 7:11 pm
Hey, it’s only a prototype, an enticement for those without foresight, and a nightmare for those who think ahead. Think, really think, how bad, really bad, the endgame might be. You will be “The Prisoner.” Her speech makes it clear these cities will be for people who believe in climate change sacrifices and carbon footprint bills. She knows her safety is not a concern of the “Sustainable” Solution and that trading freedom for safety doesn’t work. Especially when we lose our freedom first, and then our safety! And we won’t find it in cameras. We shouldn’t be discussing the problems with 15 minute cities; we should be discussing how to stop them. Or at the very least, how to avoid them. Because if we don’t avoid them, we won’t every be able to escape them.
schmoozer
February 19, 2023 7:41 pm
For those of us who live in rural areas, that gives us ~900 square miles to roam around, more if you drive faster🤔
Not that I agree with the concept. They want to ban private fossil-fuel car ownership to keep you locked down. With EVs, they will/are able to shut you down at any time.
Izaak Walton
February 19, 2023 8:05 pm
This just conspiracy theory nonsense. Clearly she has no idea of what is mean by a fifteen minute city which is fairly ironic given that she appears to live in Oxford which is probably the closest thing to a 15 minute city that there is in the UK (almost everywhere within the ring road is less than a 15 minute bike ride to the city centre).
The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars. Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way or to restrict anyone’s travel but just to give people the option of doing so if they wish.
Ben Franklin got a lot of things right. One of the greatest figures in American history. But he got one thing very wrong. He wanted to make the turkey the symbol of America.
Not the eagle, the turkey. He had some good reasoning for this, but ultimately, the turkey isn’t what we’re about. We soar, we want to explore, to constantly learn more about the world (as long as we can stay clear of those nasty turbine blades).
This isn’t about designing cities for people. It’s about designing cities for bureaucrats to use to control people like they would a flock of turkeys being raised to serve up at Thanksgiving.
So Joe, just far do you have to drive to work in the morning before it stops being a plan by bureaucrats to control you? I would have thought a mile long traffic jam on the motorway is a much better way to control people than letting them walk to work.
I read many many years ago that city sizes through the millennia have been remarkably consistent at how far people can travel in one hour, more or less.
Your 15 minute cities are unnatural, inhuman, barbaric.
It’s a choice, like any other life choice. If I commuted to a centrally-located job, I might take that into account when purchasing a home. I might be willing to give up seeing trees outside my window. I might be willing to listen to the steady thump-thump-thump of someone else’s stereo. I might put up with the occasional robbery at gunpoint (15 minutes is also about as long as the police can detain a criminal in our new zero-bail world). Then again, I might not.
Generally, your concept means stuffing people into dangerous apartments or paying enormous premiums for the privilege of having any semblance of safety or personal space. Your plan works if people are kept addicted to Soma, uninterested in travel or even a change of scenery. Dependent on the state for everything, cradle to grave, childhood extended so long that even modern voters think you’re too old to run for president.
Do *YOU* want industrial plants making toxic things or using toxic things in the midst of your residential neighborhood? Just so you can walk 15 minutes to your job there? Just how much do you value your family that you would put them in such a situation?
How do you support yourself? Do you *ever* get out of your basement? Can you even imagine the logistics costs for putting *everything* you need within 15 minutes of everyone? You’ll have delivery trucks clogging all the roads carrying goods to dispersed stores everywhere. A multiplicity of clothes stores, hardware stores, drug stores, grocery stores, lumberyards, etc all having their inventory replenished every single day. All so everything you need will be within a 15 minute walk from where you live.
It would be a nightmare of monumental proportion.
And that doesn’t even start to address the “Big Brother” aspects!
There are no :Big Brother” aspects. That’s your paranoia. There is no logistical cost of getting goods close to housing. That fear shows your lack of imagination.
“Logistics” is defined as “the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from point of origin to point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements.”
I’d say that covers “getting goods close to housing.” And there are costs involved.
“It really is amusing how the socialists amongst us really do believe that Big Brother loves them, and will do only what is in their best interest.”
It really is amusing how some people can make assumptions about others without having any idea of what they are talking about. I’m a capitalist, through and through. I’ll remind you that cities have been planned for presumed social benefits for hundreds of years in the USA. Furthermore many so-called ‘conservatives’ seem to like HOAs which are basically Big Brother socialism in action.
“This isn’t about designing cities for people. It’s about designing
cities for bureaucrats to use to control people like they would a flock
of turkeys being raised to serve up at Thanksgiving.”
That is a conspiracy theory. There is not a hint of evidence for it. It almost amazes me that so many people let ideology make them believe such stupid things.
What would you say the required evidence is? Could it be the flow of events? Ban ICE vehicles, require EV vehicles, get rid of natural gas for heating and cooking, require all-electric homes, close fossil fuel power plants, move to inconsistent windmills and solar power, control the grid because these will never generate enough power. That would tend to make living in close quarters the best situation, since all other options have been banned or controlled by the State.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s right out in the open.
None of your examples are evidence that bureaucrats want to design cities to control people like a flock of turkeys raised to serve up at Thanksgiving. If an alarmist said, “Big Oil wants bureaucrats to design cities to force people to buy more cars and gasoline” what would you say to that? I know politicians are going crazy over CO2. I know they are trying to ban all sorts of things that I think it’s idiotic to ban. But that has nothing to do with designing cities in a more efficient and rational way. Folks here tend to reject any idea that the other side likes. That’s as irrational as the stupid things alarmists do. Every idea has to be judged on its own merits. There are many positives in designing cities to allow pedestrians, bicyclists, ‘golf carts’ and other small vehicles to get them from point A to point B. Consumers do still like convenience. They do still prefer lower cost options. They still prefer solutions that give them more time at home.
“15min cities will *NOT* offer a lower cost option for anything due to the logistical costs associated with inventory maintenance.”
That is baloney. I’ll bet It costs you a dollar in gas alone just to drive to the grocery store. The car costs. Maintenance costs. Insurance costs. I walk to the grocery store for free and I’ll bet it takes me less time to do so too. You seem to want to add up all of the costs and ignore all of the savings. Amazon has proven they can cut costs by removing centralized stores from the equation. This is not me saying everything can be handled that way. But to claim this will create a logistics problem is simply false.
You apparently don’t even understand what this term means.
And what makes you think Amazon has removed centralized stores? All they have done is centralized inventory storage! The delivery traffic still contributes traffic congestion! And to CO2!
It is all very well imagining the “many positives in designing cities etc etc.”
Where is that proposed? By whom?
All that is proposed is to keep inhabitants in their allotted part of the cities. NOT to redesign cities with any of your bright ideas.
And another tiny detail. What about those who HAVE to drive high mileages to do their job? I went for a number of years driving around 35,000 miles per year. Certainly not my choice, but the company I worked for had sites all over North England, the Midlands, North Wales and Scotland. I was the only one with the experience and legally mandated qualifications, so little option.
If it was up to the bright sparks like you and the control freaks who dreamed this up today, no doubt I would have had to try to use an EV.
“All that is proposed is to keep inhabitants in their allotted part of the cities.”
That is spin and paranoia. I like being at home. My wife likes being here with me. That’s how we’ve lived our lives for our 47 years of marriage. We had a software business for 11 years. We ran the business out of our home. As a consultant. I’ve worked most of by life at home. When I’ve worked outside of home, I arranged it so I lived very near my workplace. My sons have the same sort of policy in their lives. I know we are not the only family who prefers these arrangements. You spin this personal preference into some implied governmental plot to “keep” us where we want to be. Why do you think you can get away with such nonsense?
I am not ‘kept’ in the least. I’m certainly no more ‘kept’ than a worker who feels he has to travel a hour to work just because the city or corporation likes to ‘control’ him that way.
If you have to drive an hour to your job, a “15 minute city” will not stop you from doing that. It merely gives people more options.
Where is your evidence that those proposing “15 minute cities” want to keep cities exactly as they are and restrict our movements by force? I suspect your evidence is the kind of evidence that leads some poor souls to believe they are Napoleon.
Likewise you are fantasizing about my supposed desire to control your movements. If you knew me in person you’d know how ludicrous that characterization is. I fall on the libertarian side of the political spectrum. I see this issue as an enhancement of choice.
Who else would want this, though? There are plenty of planned communities out there – designed for the people who want to buy into them. That’s just capitalism at work.
If you want to live 15 minutes from a select subset of what you find is “everything”, you can do that. If you find enough like-minded people who share your everything, you can have your city somewhere. The government need not be involved.
It’s no conspiracy to notice that Biden has signed an executive order that will deny communities tax money (that their citizens have paid, mind you) if they don’t dismantle zoning laws to create some bureaucrat’s notion of a 15-minute city. That order is your evidence that this is real.
The constant media obsession with any desire to lower crime or have a nice, quiet neighborhood being “white supremacy” or “Karen” is evidence that the politically correct have noticed and would like nothing more than to put us “turkeys” in our proper place.
“There are plenty of planned communities out there”
Says who? Who are you to claim there are enough ’15 minute cities’ out there? It seems to me that you want to be in the business of control as much as any leftist. You want to decide what I want. I’d also like to know where you find this abundance of such cities. Any morning traffic report seems to contradict your optimism.
What executive order are you talking about? Are you in favor of zoning laws now? — that is, are you now in favor of bureaucratic control of what a property owner can do with his property? As a capitalist? What sort of free-market capitalist are you? Are you one at all?
“The constant media obsession with any desire to lower crime or have a nice, quiet neighborhood being “white supremacy” or “Karen” is evidence that the politically correct have noticed and would like nothing more than to put us “turkeys” in our proper place.”
That is a non sequitur. The ‘white supremacist’ delusions of the left have nothing to do with planning 15 minute cities.
You know, that so called conspiracy rtheories usually become true over time.
On the other hand, do declare a theory as a conspiracy one is all, but not an argument, it’s BS.
You really have no problem with the local government using ANPR and facial recognition to track all its citizens every time they leave the house, and fine them when they move around too much?
“You really have no problem with the local government using ANPR and facial recognition to track all its citizens every time they leave the house, and fine them when they move around too much?”
Why are you putting words in my mouth? I said nothing about surveillance. A 15 minute city has no requirement for surveillance.
“How then do you limit outside traffic from clogging up the streets of the 15 minute city?”
No need to build another highway, right? Afer all, no highway will totally eliminate traffic jams.
Traffic will always be a problem. No city, no matter how well planed, will eliminate it. But some designs can surely lessen it. The goal is to reduce the need to travel outside one’s sphere of living. Reduce does not mean eliminate. I don’t know where you live, but here those electric scooters are very popular. I see kids using them every day. We should be open to new ways of getting to places. Why is that so threatening?
“Sorry, a 15 minute city absolutely requires surveillance and repression.”
Sorry, but you are paranoid. There is no rational reason to believe your assertion. You certainly will not be able to prove your assertion or even offer a credible case for it.
The problem with communists is that they only talk about what people ‘need’ and you never hear them talk about what people might ‘want.’ I would hate to imagine what life would be like if some government entity decided that I could only live with that which the government declares to be a ‘need’.
Hoyt,
you are free to live where you want. The idea is that people who want to be able to walk to work or to school or to the shops should be able to do so. It is about redesigning cities so that people don’t have to spend hours a day stuck in a traffic jam just to get to work. And I can not see why this should be seen as a bad thing.
Izaak, I don’t know where you live that people can’t choose to walk to work/school/shops if they want to. You seem to be talking about placing further limits on driving in big cities, or sufficiently densifying rural areas. Neither of which may be economically feasible or personally desirable. This all sounds like a “wouldn’t it be great if you could have your cake and eat it too?” type argument.
The idea is that people who want to walk to work can limit their jobs and abodes to no more than 15 minutes apart, and those who want more flexibility in changing jobs or abodes can limit them to farther distances.
You want to force everyone into your 15 minute realm. I want everyone to make their own choices.
Individualism can simulate socialism with binding contracts. Socialism cannot tolerate individualism in any form, let alone simulate it.
You are a Marxist control freak. You cannot tolerate anyone doing or thinking anything different.
Let me repeat nobody is forcing anybody to live or work anywhere. You can live miles from work and spend hours every day in a traffic jam if you like. But the idea of the 15 minute city is that it should be possible to live otherwise. It is about enable choice and letting you spend more time doing what you like.
LOL, How do you know that ? Besides, I don’t think you have any experience in urban planning and development or you’d understand how ridiculous this all is.
You have absolutely no idea of what you are speaking of. It’s a logistical impossibility to live as you describe. I’ve been in a lot of places in the US. I’ve never been in one where everything you need is a 15 minute walk (or bike ride) away.
“I’ve been in a lot of places in the US. I’ve never been in one where everything you need is a 15 minute walk (or bike ride) away.”
I’ve been living my life that way since i moved to Hollywood 13 years ago. Last September I went to visit my parents in Texas. That was the first time I had driven in 3 years.
Really? You have a lumber yard 15 minutes away, e.g. you need to install a new shelf in a pantry? You have a hardware store 15 minutes away, e.g. you have a leaking faucet needing a new washer. You have a shoe store 15 minutes away? You have a clinic 15 minutes away? You have a full-service grocery store 15 minutes away? You have a full service clothing store (e.g. a Kohl’s or Target) 15 minutes away?
My youngest son lives in Somerville, MA just outside Boston. Many of these are an hour walk or more away or just don’t exist unless you have a vehicle. This winter when he needed new boots for the snow he used an uber to get to a shoe store carrying what he needed.
How many poor in high-density 15 minute cities can afford an uber to go to a shoe store?
Actually I do — two of them. One is less than a quarter mile away on Santa Monica Blvd, the other is about a half mile away on Highland. There is a Home Depot about two miles away. I’ve walked there frequently for small home repair items and tools.
Shoe store — yes, several.
Clinic — I think so but I don’t go to doctors.
Full service grocery store — yes, several. My wife and I walk to get all of our groceries except brands they don’t carry. We get these shipped to us by Amazon.
Clothing stores — very many. Since you mentioned Target, there are two within walking distance, one near that lumber yard on Highland.
The problems your son has in MA are exactly the problems a 15 minute city is meant to address.
Let me repeat that you do indeed want to force everybody to live within 15 minutes of work, or work within 15 minutes of home. You can call it the “idea” but everyone knows you intend to implement it at gunpoint.
“Let me repeat that you do indeed want to force everybody to live within 15 minutes of work, or work within 15 minutes of home. ”
That is ideologically-driven tunnel vision. There is no more force in a well-planned city than there is in a poorly designed city where practically nothing can be done without a car.
Before I retired I worked at a water plant. Our particular plant supplied water for roughly 750,000 people not including industries such as one of the Anheuser-Busch breweries.
Few if any of the people lived within a 15 minute walk from our plant. I know I didn’t.
Water plants, wastewater plants, hospitals, police stations, fire stations, supermarkets, etc. would all need to be within a15 minute walk for those who work there?
You’re dreaming.
They won’t “force” anyone into them, it will just be that circumstances (no ICE vehicles, EV only but power limited because no fossil fuel power plants) will make the 15-minute cities the only decent alternative.
“Let me repeat nobody is forcing anybody to live or work anywhere. You can live miles from work and spend hours every day in a traffic jam if you like. But the idea of the 15 minute city is that it should be possible to live otherwise. It is about enable choice and letting you spend more time doing what you like.”
Except that the Oxfordshire bureaucrats ARE forcing the 15-minute city on an ALREADY-EXISTING city.
“You are a Marxist control freak. You cannot tolerate anyone doing or thinking anything different.”
Your response to Izaak Walton’s rather benign comment borders on hysteria. It looks to me like you are the Marxist control freak who cannot tolerate people who want to live differently than you. Individualism and self-reliance seem to offend you.
So then, what is the point of these “15 minute cities” … you can do as you please in that space already or you can travel greater distances if you please, so what is so innovative about this ? Some tool has given it a trendy name ? Is that it ? Of course there’ more to it and readers here can see that without difficulty.
Seems exactly the same as the high-density living planning policies foisted on us by the academic “expert” town planners … except that they forgot about recreation spaces other than the corner pub.
You must be too young to remember the days when you could work your entire life at the same factory, and your children and even grandchildren could work at the same place. You could walk cycle or get a bus to work, you usually had to because most people couldn’t afford a car. You all took holidays at the same time to the same places “Fair Fortnight”. You had cheddar cheese sandwiches for your lunch. These are the halcyon days you long for.
Unfortunately those days are long gone even if you choose to live in walking/cycling distance of your place of work it’s almost certain to make you redundant before you reach retirement age which is getting further away.
Once your job has gone East you then end up with the choice of moving house to be 15 minutes away from your new job, should you be lucky enough to get one, or stay where you are because your family are close to school and/or work.
Having worked in manufacturing facilities that are now gone and are housing estates or just derelict resulting in forced job changes three times neither is a great option. But if you worked for the biggest employer in a smaller town then commuting to the next town is the only option and 15 minutes is out the window.
Homeworking is only an option for government employees.
I drove one half hour to work every workday for 27 years.
I didn’t want to live in the town where I worked. Nor did my wife want to live in the town where she worked, which was a high crime rate city So we both drove 30 minutes to our jobs. Longer in the snow. Maybe that’s one reason we both retired at age 51 — too much driving to jobs we did not love.
Living in the suburbs, which we enjoy, there are NO JOBS or SHOPPING within walking distance from our home, We do not want to live in a city.
I grew up in a small New York village. Even then there were few jobs or shopping within walking distance from our home. And a lot of competition for those close to home jobs.
The unmistakeable trope of a control freak – “The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live” – who determines what people “need” and “want”? If that is the choice of a so called free people who are “you” to determine how to restrict that freedom to exercise the expression of “want/need”? Do you advocate rationing?
I am all for joined up thinking to infect/inform planning decisions; please explain how planning decisions which inflict thousands of new homes on green fields, eg, formerly used for agriculture, miles away from facilities that might fulfill “want and need”, is desirable from ANY standpoint?
I could not agree more with the traffic jam work commute point you make – perhaps roads in tunnels as in “I, Robot” is the way forward?
“you are free to live where you want” – yeah, right.
Have you looked at CHD.tv? It is full of nonsense like 5G causing cancer. This is just another conspiracy theory that they are pushing. There is no basis to any of the claims that the young lady makes. Who are the mysterious “they” she is talking about and how does she know that they are planning on putting up thousands of cameras everywhere?
The cameras are already there. The “they” are all the institutions in the press these last three years, and it’s very real, which you’d realize if you read more widely and not MSM rubbish.
The BBC made a mistake recently, did you know that a fairly small town called Swindon, UK, already has 20,000 council run cameras? Somehow they mentioned it because the Council has run out of money! Now you know what control and monitoring really mean, you are always under surveillance! Has it stopped crime, murders etc? NO. Idiots and their money are soon parted, get rid of the lot of them.
“It is about designing cities for people not cars.”
That’s really great, Izaak. But what about all the cities and towns already built that didn’t incorporate the “15-minute city” in their original plans, especially those that didn’t start out with a comprehensive city plan at all?
Jim, he’s clueless, just arguing from an ideological point of view … same as those people who argue how great socialism is and that it should be forced on everybody else … when the only thing that socialism has brought is misery.
Having to read the utter drivel from the pen of the Compleat Bungler is the price we have to pay for an uncensored WUWT. Besides, it gives us a valuable insight into the mind of a Progressive Socialist.
Redge,
you will be extremely fortunate if your place of work remains the same until you retire. The days of lifetime employment are long gone for the vast majority. For many people that means the new job will be beyond walking and cycling distance meaning a house move or a car commute.
But I suppose the Compleat Angler will say you do whatever job is close to home and the benign government will choose it for you. I think there’s a name for that.
You are a dingbat, Izzy Smallton !
I’ve been in Oxford.
The 15 minutes may not sound like much of a restriction now, but it will be followed by a 10 minute limit, and then a 5 minute limit, you dolt. Freedom is stolen gradually. Th first restriction is designed so it does not inconvenience too many people. Then there is a precedent. You are a useful idiot for totalitarianism. Pardon my French. But I have been a libertarian since 1973. I prefer minimum government and maximum freedom. Useful idiots like you let that freedom slip away, rule by rule. Every loss of personal freedom is “no big deal” to you.
The problem with your approach, and you can see it in Oxford, is that all those individual choices in the circumstances lead to something which is clearly rather bad.
The problem with Oxford is that there is one road running through the center. So everyone drives through it, which leads to jams, congestion, pollution. And which also makes it a quite unpleasant place to walk, and a dangerous place to cycle.
There is a perfectly reasonable case for reducing traffic in Oxford city center and making the road environment more pleasant and usable for people getting around by some other means than cars.
Their interests are legitimate, and there is no reason why we should conflate the legal right to drive wherever one pleases, despite the inconvenience this may cause to others, with personal freedom.
The ’15 minute city’ concept is a bad one, it gives lunatics the opportunity to claim that reducing car traffic in cities is a first step to confining everyone to within 15 minutes of where they live. No-one is advocating that. Its also silly in that local government can control how the streets are used, but it has little control over who builds what stores and facilities anywhere.
So they may piously hope that facilities will spring up so people can get what they need conveniently close to hand, but they can’t do much about making that happen.
What they can do however, and arguably should do, is end the assumption that all streets should be run as if their only purpose was to carry cars. If you look at the consequences of this in some London streets and roads you can see that this is a policy that is not delivering for most people who live, play, work and shop near them. They have legitimate interests too, in safe, quiet and pleasant streets, and there is no reason why councils should not recognize and promote their interests.
Drive down the A12 as it enters London. Would you want to live beside it? Walk down Oxford Street in the rush hour. Do you really like all those cars? Or Euston Rd?
We shall see, in any case. If current plans are implemented we will probably see dramatic falls in London traffic, and in other places too, including Oxford, by 2035. 2040 at the latest. Hold tight, its going to be a rough ride though!
If this happens London, and Oxford will become economic deserts, which parts of London already are. The result? The London Mayor has bankrupted the City, and particularly the Public transport network. He wants huge UK Government grants to keep going. Typical lefty Socialist! Other peoples money tree!
Oxford has had a one way system in the centre of town now for many years. Miss your turning, and it’s at least 5 miles to get back to it.
Oxford Street has been buses and taxis only for a long time. Traffic is reduced to one lane in each direction, though at least they do provide bus stops with bays.
I was on that main road in Oxford driving a rented VW Golf, driving while sitting on the “wrong” side of the seat, driving on the “wrong” side of the road, and it was not a big deal for me. Hardly a New York City traffic jam there.
The purpose of streets IS to carry cars and trucks. Horses before that. Sometimes trucks can be diverted to alternate routes to reduce congestion. Or parking can be limited. The purpose of sidewalks is for people to walk on. If we have to argue what purpose for streets and sidewalks, this debate can’t continue.
People choose to live in congested cities. I don’t. I was never thrilled by living in Brooklyn, NY and commuting to Manhattan by subway to college. Not fun on a crowded subway car and not safe these days.
Every Friday afternoon I left the NYC for the country and came back Sunday afternoon. I would never tell anyone not to live there — that’s their choice if they want to tolerate the noise, pollution and congestion of cities. I believe in free choice of where to live and work.
This is scary if people share your sentiment. I don’t hear anyone talking about building 15-minute cities. They want to impose them, regardless if everything you need is within 15 minutes.
Not only is it an abomination to restrict our freedoms, but they are essentially imoosibg a regressive tax. The rich will ignore the rules because the fine is pocket change. For everyone else, it is life altering.
Where is my supermarket, DIY wharehouse, Clothes shop, or anything much useful within 15 minutes? Entertainment within 15 minutes, well there is a Pub (probably soon to close), but nothing else. There is a bank left, but not for long. There are endless charity shops in all the shop premises that cannot survive the high rents and taxes. The council are about to charge for the local car park, which will shut the rest of the shops left, the big Mall out of town is free and much more choice of course. The pavements are lethal because of electric scooters, both running and dumped. Have you any other “good” ideas?
No one seems to have considered the logistical nightmare of keeping the multiplicity of retail shops supplied in such a situation. If hardware stores, grocery stores, clinics, clothes stores, shoe stores, etc all had to be within 30 minutes of each other in a large city the delivery vehicles would clog the roads so badly every day there wouldn’t be any other traffic on the roads.
Well, Tim, you won’t need hardware stores since you can’t build anything and City Maintenance will take care of any problems you have with things like electrical and plumbing (whenever they can get you scheduled)
ah yes its sounds good enough BUT the leave the area if you choose I gather comes with “demerits or fines” for being naughty and using the car etc more than “they” think you should…now tell me HOW we can get the small shops back with the competition they cop from the conglomerates who sent them broke to begin with??
Bad luck if you live in the Botley area and need to get to A&E at the John Radcliffe hospital. 90 mins walking. Half an hour by bike. Already 25 mins by car due to the one way system.
I remember Oxford in the days when the Cowley works were churning out early Minis as an upchange from Morris Minors, and MGs were built at Abingdon. Back then, many of the workforce did indeed cycle to and from work. But they were working to build their freedom to travel. Those who put in the shifts achieved that.
As always, the left has a good story. And, as always, the ‘tiny’ technical details, that they ignore, turn their utopian visions into dystopian realities.
One of the things that have made Americans freer and, I would argue, happier and richer, is the suburbs. Americans escaped from the 15 minute cities to the suburbs. Why would we want to go back?
Wow a logical response gets a -66 and a stupid one a *15.
Watched the video expecting not to learn anything from a 12 year old.
Thanks to Izaak I know.
Why do people expect privacy in public. I have the expectation that people will not look in my windows of my home from my property. Since I live in a motor home, I do not have an expectation of privacy in a Walmart parking lot.
I have a lot near the ocean where I camp in the summer. You would need a drone to look in my windows. A neighbor advised me that a camera had been put on my property because it had been used for criminal activity.
He also told me that he had a trail cam and we had a bear. Good to know.
Wow a logical response gets a -66 and a stupid one a *15.
I just stumbled over the concept of propositional tyranny. It goes a long way to explaining why analysis shouldn’t start with logic. Except for very simple cases, propositions are almost always incomplete or faulty in some way. That means the logic based on them leads to faulty conclusions. In computers, it’s called GIGO.
An example is that we could make a logical argument for Marxism that would be hard to refute logically. However, all the logic in the world doesn’t change the fact that Marxism has degenerated into a dystopian bloodbath every time it’s been tried. Damn the logic and full speed ahead! Farragut
Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way
I don’t get that impression but if it remains that way, fine. You go live in your 15-minute city and I’ll stay here in my rural farm home. As long as it’s voluntary, live how you want.
“The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars.”
Designing cities for cars IS designing cities for people.
“Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way or to restrict anyone’s travel but just to give people the option of doing so if they wish.”
Really? Then what do you call banning real cars and forcing EVs on everyone?
“The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars.”
Exactly. I live in Hollywood. I almost never have to drive a car. I’m certainly not being “controlled” when I choose to walk when I do business and pleasure. I can’t imagine how anyone could think he’s “free” when he sits in traffic for an hour every day conforming to location and routine set for the boss’s convenience rather than his own, and doing so in a money pit of a vehicle.
So it would be ok for you if they put a toxic chemical plant in Hollywood a block from where you live? My guess is you would be out picketing for NIMBY!
“So it would be ok for you if they put a toxic chemical plant in Hollywood a block from where you live?”
Nobody is saying everything required for the totality of life on Earth must be or can be within 15 minutes. People like you seem to love straw man arguments. Charging me with hypocrisy before you even know my position is pretty lame. Please tell me why I am not living as I have stated. What do you know about me that I do not?
You said you have everything within 15 minutes in Hollywood. Are you now backtracking?
Perhaps everything isn’t as easy as you would like to imply that it is?
Where do the workers in that toxic chemical plant live? 15 minutes away from where they work? Ask those now in East Palestine, OH how it is living next to a toxic site.
“You said you have everything within 15 minutes in Hollywood. Are you now backtracking?”
No, I did not. Why do people like you think you can lie about what other people say?
I made no claim that every person on the planet will be able to be 15 minutes from everything that has to be done. Of course I can’t live in Hollywood and go fishing for tomorrow’s meal. And I doubt anyone suggests anything like that. You are not even trying to be rational. You must think lies carry weight.
So 15 min cities aren’t as realistic as you said, eh?
You’ve already admitted you wouldn’t want industrial complexes near you, even though that might be where you work. You’ve now admitted that not everything you need would be within 15 min travel.
It would seem that all you really want is to concentrate poor people in high-density living conditions with poor access to most everything. We already have that in most big cities – it’s called public housing. And it’s mostly a dismal failure!
“So 15 min cities aren’t as realistic as you said, eh?”
I don’t know what words you’re referring to. Your thinking seems to be mired in a binary world where every issue is 100% one way or another. I do not live in that world and you don’t either. It is definitely realistic to design a city that puts goods and services closer than they currently are in most areas. You also have a dogmatic idea that a “15 minute city” equates to slums and public housing. These are two totally separate ideas. Public housing has nothing to do with putting goods and services closer to people. A wealthy community is just as conducive to being a “15 minute city” as a slum — probably more so since retailers are more likely to move closer to customers who can spend big money. (I agree public housing was a failure, btw.)
It really is amusing how Izaak actually thinks he can cover up the words of those he supports.
They have been quite vocal that their plans for us are not optional.
“This just conspiracy theory nonsense. Clearly she has no idea of what is mean by a fifteen minute city…The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars. Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way or to restrict anyone’s travel but just to give people the option of doing so if they wish.”
That’s not what the Oxfordshire plan says. There is no option. Instead, there is most definitely restriction of travel, and force is applied to the pocketbook – at least for now.
“The traffic filters are not physical barriers of any kind and will not be physical road closures. They are simply traffic cameras that can read number plates. If a vehicle passes through the filter at certain times of the day, the camera will read the number plate and (if you do not have an exemption or a residents’ permit) you will receive a fine in the post.”
“Oxford residents (and residents of some surrounding villages) will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filters on up to 100 days a year. Residents living in the rest of Oxfordshire will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filter on up to 25 days a year. …Residents will still be able to drive to every part of the city at any time – but in the future, during certain times of the day, you may need to take a different route (e.g. using the ring road) if you want to travel by car.”
So there won’t be physical barriers, but they will fine the heck out of you if you are caught “breaching” the photo barrier more often then the Council has deemed you are allowed to.
Izaak, and everyone else, is missing one of Izaaks main points.
Everyone that wants to live in a 15 minute time of travel to everywhere they want to go should have the right to such a lifestyle.
Well Izaak, I need to be able to get to the Hospital in a reasonable time. I also need to go fishing every afternoon after work. I also need to fly my drone & I want a large park where my dogs can run free. I also have three cars … I need reasonable parking space. This last one is not a deal killer, but I also want to be within easy walking distance of the stadium, so I can watch the game (in person) on weekends.
Set me up Izaak. Fulfill my needs. I should have a right.
(After a while my lifestyle may change, so my needs will change, so remember to leave a lot of flexibility in the whole development scheme.)
I suggest most seriously that you move to NEOM in Saudi Arabia, the shiny new paradise 170 km long and 200 m wide where everyone walks to work, no cars allowed and powered 100% by Ruinable Energy.
They must have had people like you in mind when designing it. It would be curmudgeonly of you not to give it your enthusiastic participation.
Send a card to let us know how you enjoy it. (Not sure they will want you using the internet.)
Alternatively, instead of annoying people here, why not get Oxford Council to stop messing about with tokenism and half measures, flatten Oxford City and build a British Neom. Do like has been done with ruinable energy; be sure to flatten the old City before building the new.
Redge
February 19, 2023 11:46 pm
Whilst applauding the sentiment, her mother appeared to be by her side and probably wrote the script.
Are these people using children the same way Greta was used?
It is a good speech, and was read well for a 12-year-old.
But a 12-year-old reading a speech seems like child abuse to me, for political gains, just like Greta reciting nonsense climate talking points.
Much better than watching POTATUS Jumpin’ Joe Bidet in transition (to a vegetable) struggling to read a teleprompter. I suppose. But speeches that impress me are never read. They have to be from the heart, That’s probably why I rarely listen to speeches. I prefer to read a short article filled with facts, data and logic, while speeches tend to be emotional.
I think most treaders of my blog would love this speech, so it is first link on my list of up to 24 recommended articles on my climate science and energy blog today: Honest Climate Science and Energy
Have to give Charles Rotter credit for finding this video.
We have loads of politicians in the UK who read speeches and seem like 12 year olds so she’s doing pretty well…and you can see in her reactions that she understands what she is reading and the real compassion she had for Thunderbird.
Peta of Newark
February 20, 2023 1:53 am
This one is lovely – It’s got everything:
Entitlement, stupidity, greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, nimbyism and Just Simply Everything laid on in spades
‘a councillor’ = a member of the muppet tribe organising these zones (not this one) is launching a ‘blast’ because he got a parking ticket in his supermarket carpark.
Said blast came because his crappy little car, at the crappy charger, was still less than half full even after overstaying his free parking time by 30 minutes.
And he only went to the supermarket charger because there wasn’t a charger on his street at home..
Errrr excuse me, who if not The Council, disallowed the placement of a charger on his street or in his house? What was his big rush, why would a normal charger running off a 13Amp socket (at home) not have done for him?
So he got slapped an extra £45 for his juice while he, in council meetings and everywhere else apart from supermarket parks, will endlessly repeat the ‘Wind is free and plentiful’ claptrap.
everything is wrong – and only the autistics can really see it AND say something. as here.
oddly enough we used to have 15 min suburbs in Aus . we could walk to a corner store there were usually at least one per 10 blocks or less, stupormarkets didnt exist until the 70s really for most of us outside the city. the bread milk n meat were home delivered zero cameras the odd street stalker all us kids knew about n avoided and life was damned good. weve got this crappy half hr or more drive to major stores madness small shops lost their income n closed and were worse off and that? was due to the SAME idiots running nations telling us how good the new plans would be for us
zzebowa
February 20, 2023 3:16 am
With kids this switched on the future is in safe hands!
Paul Hurley
February 20, 2023 5:21 am
I like the way she started laughing at Greta’s “how dare you” catchphrase.
gezza1298
February 20, 2023 6:39 am
On a similar subject, London Mayor Genghis Khan’s planned ULEZ extension is being taken to judicial review by a number of councils. However, the best response seems to be being promoted by Piers Corbyn and that is for everyone to completely ignore it. The enforcement system would be overwhelmed if this happened and apparently in a similar scheme in Birmingham they have had to give up on chasing up unpaid tickets.
UK-Weather Lass
February 20, 2023 7:56 am
Most places we now know as cities began rather humbly and the planned spill over new towns built in a more aware post war society are much different to how they began life in England. Fifteen minutes in a well established place like London is very different to fifteen minutes elsewhere especially if you are walking at an average pace (which is most people) and not trying to negotiate around nausea inducing traffic schemes in a vehicle.
I doubt there are able planners anywhere to be found in contemporary UK if they have all attended and been produced by woke universities …
Curious George
February 20, 2023 7:59 am
Never heard of 15 minute cities. Is it a recipe for creating really small bubbles to live in?
KevinM
February 20, 2023 8:01 am
Pre- listen: When an under 16 year-old talks, even if they think they’re sharing their own opinion, they’re sharing their parent/teacher/coach/mentor’s opinion.
donjindra
February 20, 2023 8:45 am
Well, in my day we rode our bicycles across town when we wanted to see friends. I don’t remember my parents taking me or my brothers to a friend’s house even once.
Of course I had friends and plenty of them. We played baseball and football, swam, hit junk yards, raced slot cars, climbed trees, went sledding, captured bees and grasshopper, fished crawdads, went hiking and camped out. Why would you ask something so stupid?
But she will not get UN sponsorship rights and international travel at that rate, like Greta and Angry Birds. The cameras may actually target her after this independence outburst. Better consider booking exit passage on a small wooden boat just in case.
jani129
February 20, 2023 2:35 pm
I live in a big city. (Budapest) 1 hour to go anywhere. There is this tendency to ban cars everywhere and it seems to me this idea is supported by people. Leftists you may say but they seem to be the majority in the city where I live. Boggles my mind too but it seems real. People I personally know and respect vouching for what seems completely unacceptable to me. Car owners are labeled rich or wasteful or frivolous or all of these. Even if you take out the co2 melodrama.
Another thought, leftists used to be liberals meaning more freedom and less restrictions. It’s upside down now. Lefties want all the restrictions and conservatives are for personal freedom.
Thanks for asking, Hungary as a country mostly votes conservative. Budapest, the capital city mostly votes lefties. It’s important to note that most conservative voters think co2 can cause CAGW. Even our previous president(which is a formal position, no real power) talked a lot about alarmist concepts. We have one conservative politician who clearly stands out, Orbán Viktor, he is the prime minister, is the central figure off government who mostly avoids the subject of CAGW but on those very few occasions that he does speak about it, he is sadly an alarmist, too. I live in Budapest. Many of my personal acquintances are lefties. I need to avoid many topics when talking. As for CAGW, I can barely find anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the church o lobal warming. It almost doesn’t exist. I am considered a lunatic.(i think global warming is a religion masquerading as science) Even most conservative acquaintances.
15 minute cities are a great example of the neo-feudalism. They are trying to tie their proles to the place of birth and nothing else. Every single totalitarian Regime does this: simply control the movement of the entire population by making sure that the population cannot move and cannot leave their place of birth(unless of course you decide to move it to another place). That is a prime directive of a totalitarian Regime. And we are the peasants to be controlled
Well she is certainly awake, that’s for sure.
Yes, awake, not woke. Good for her.
And she can laugh. A sign of a normal kid.
The cameras at best might help find her murderous abductors after they’ve killed her. If they were from a protected class, they might not even do time.
It sounded as if she said “Mom” rather than “Mum”, so clearly she’s a tool of Big Oil!
Not if they have a burka… (as a rapist used to leave England)
She should run for parliament!!
And at only 12 years old, seems to be much more intelligent than those already there.
I am open to a very limited trial of this concept.
A select group… let us say… Extinction Rebellion, shall be placed on a 15 minute city restriction for 12 months so we can observe the implications.
During that time period they will be forced to only ‘protest’ within 15 minutes of their registered residence.
If the trial is successful we could slowly increase the sample size by say including Antifa protestors as well.
See how it plays out. If there are ANY complaints we can scrap the entire thing.
The FBI would be useless if the agents can’t leave their block.
(But the FBI isn’t officially “antifa”. Yet.)
Hey, it’s only a prototype, an enticement for those without foresight, and a nightmare for those who think ahead. Think, really think, how bad, really bad, the endgame might be. You will be “The Prisoner.” Her speech makes it clear these cities will be for people who believe in climate change sacrifices and carbon footprint bills. She knows her safety is not a concern of the “Sustainable” Solution and that trading freedom for safety doesn’t work. Especially when we lose our freedom first, and then our safety! And we won’t find it in cameras. We shouldn’t be discussing the problems with 15 minute cities; we should be discussing how to stop them. Or at the very least, how to avoid them. Because if we don’t avoid them, we won’t every be able to escape them.
For those of us who live in rural areas, that gives us ~900 square miles to roam around, more if you drive faster🤔
Not that I agree with the concept. They want to ban private fossil-fuel car ownership to keep you locked down. With EVs, they will/are able to shut you down at any time.
This just conspiracy theory nonsense. Clearly she has no idea of what is mean by a fifteen minute city which is fairly ironic given that she appears to live in Oxford which is probably the closest thing to a 15 minute city that there is in the UK (almost everywhere within the ring road is less than a 15 minute bike ride to the city centre).
The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars. Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way or to restrict anyone’s travel but just to give people the option of doing so if they wish.
Ben Franklin got a lot of things right. One of the greatest figures in American history. But he got one thing very wrong. He wanted to make the turkey the symbol of America.
Not the eagle, the turkey. He had some good reasoning for this, but ultimately, the turkey isn’t what we’re about. We soar, we want to explore, to constantly learn more about the world (as long as we can stay clear of those nasty turbine blades).
This isn’t about designing cities for people. It’s about designing cities for bureaucrats to use to control people like they would a flock of turkeys being raised to serve up at Thanksgiving.
So Joe, just far do you have to drive to work in the morning before it stops being a plan by bureaucrats to control you? I would have thought a mile long traffic jam on the motorway is a much better way to control people than letting them walk to work.
I read many many years ago that city sizes through the millennia have been remarkably consistent at how far people can travel in one hour, more or less.
Your 15 minute cities are unnatural, inhuman, barbaric.
Well, Izaak, I drove 49 miles each way, on the bloody 405. If you don’t know what that is, then you have little idea of traffic.
It was by choice. I didn’t want to live in any neighborhood anywhere near my place of employment.
It’s a choice, like any other life choice. If I commuted to a centrally-located job, I might take that into account when purchasing a home. I might be willing to give up seeing trees outside my window. I might be willing to listen to the steady thump-thump-thump of someone else’s stereo. I might put up with the occasional robbery at gunpoint (15 minutes is also about as long as the police can detain a criminal in our new zero-bail world). Then again, I might not.
Generally, your concept means stuffing people into dangerous apartments or paying enormous premiums for the privilege of having any semblance of safety or personal space. Your plan works if people are kept addicted to Soma, uninterested in travel or even a change of scenery. Dependent on the state for everything, cradle to grave, childhood extended so long that even modern voters think you’re too old to run for president.
As the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote:
“L’Enfer, c’est les autres ..” (Hell is the others).
That’s what one gets the most in a dense urban setting, be it 15 min or something else … No thanks !
Do *YOU* want industrial plants making toxic things or using toxic things in the midst of your residential neighborhood? Just so you can walk 15 minutes to your job there? Just how much do you value your family that you would put them in such a situation?
How do you support yourself? Do you *ever* get out of your basement? Can you even imagine the logistics costs for putting *everything* you need within 15 minutes of everyone? You’ll have delivery trucks clogging all the roads carrying goods to dispersed stores everywhere. A multiplicity of clothes stores, hardware stores, drug stores, grocery stores, lumberyards, etc all having their inventory replenished every single day. All so everything you need will be within a 15 minute walk from where you live.
It would be a nightmare of monumental proportion.
And that doesn’t even start to address the “Big Brother” aspects!
There are no :Big Brother” aspects. That’s your paranoia. There is no logistical cost of getting goods close to housing. That fear shows your lack of imagination.
“Logistics” is defined as “the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from point of origin to point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements.”
I’d say that covers “getting goods close to housing.” And there are costs involved.
It really is amusing how the socialists amongst us really do believe that Big Brother loves them, and will do only what is in their best interest.
“It really is amusing how the socialists amongst us really do believe that Big Brother loves them, and will do only what is in their best interest.”
It really is amusing how some people can make assumptions about others without having any idea of what they are talking about. I’m a capitalist, through and through. I’ll remind you that cities have been planned for presumed social benefits for hundreds of years in the USA. Furthermore many so-called ‘conservatives’ seem to like HOAs which are basically Big Brother socialism in action.
You forgot the /sarc tag.
The difference is who gets to make the decisions about how a person lives their lives. Izaak, like most socialists wants government to be in charge.
Correction: Izaak, like most Socialists, wants Izaak to be in charge.After all, he’s so much more intelligent and beneficent than everyone else.
“This isn’t about designing cities for people. It’s about designing
cities for bureaucrats to use to control people like they would a flock
of turkeys being raised to serve up at Thanksgiving.”
That is a conspiracy theory. There is not a hint of evidence for it. It almost amazes me that so many people let ideology make them believe such stupid things.
What would you say the required evidence is? Could it be the flow of events? Ban ICE vehicles, require EV vehicles, get rid of natural gas for heating and cooking, require all-electric homes, close fossil fuel power plants, move to inconsistent windmills and solar power, control the grid because these will never generate enough power. That would tend to make living in close quarters the best situation, since all other options have been banned or controlled by the State.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s right out in the open.
None of your examples are evidence that bureaucrats want to design cities to control people like a flock of turkeys raised to serve up at Thanksgiving. If an alarmist said, “Big Oil wants bureaucrats to design cities to force people to buy more cars and gasoline” what would you say to that? I know politicians are going crazy over CO2. I know they are trying to ban all sorts of things that I think it’s idiotic to ban. But that has nothing to do with designing cities in a more efficient and rational way. Folks here tend to reject any idea that the other side likes. That’s as irrational as the stupid things alarmists do. Every idea has to be judged on its own merits. There are many positives in designing cities to allow pedestrians, bicyclists, ‘golf carts’ and other small vehicles to get them from point A to point B. Consumers do still like convenience. They do still prefer lower cost options. They still prefer solutions that give them more time at home.
15min cities will *NOT* offer a lower cost option for anything due to the logistical costs associated with inventory maintenance.
“15min cities will *NOT* offer a lower cost option for anything due to the logistical costs associated with inventory maintenance.”
That is baloney. I’ll bet It costs you a dollar in gas alone just to drive to the grocery store. The car costs. Maintenance costs. Insurance costs. I walk to the grocery store for free and I’ll bet it takes me less time to do so too. You seem to want to add up all of the costs and ignore all of the savings. Amazon has proven they can cut costs by removing centralized stores from the equation. This is not me saying everything can be handled that way. But to claim this will create a logistics problem is simply false.
“ inventory maintenance”
You apparently don’t even understand what this term means.
And what makes you think Amazon has removed centralized stores? All they have done is centralized inventory storage! The delivery traffic still contributes traffic congestion! And to CO2!
It is all very well imagining the “many positives in designing cities etc etc.”
Where is that proposed? By whom?
All that is proposed is to keep inhabitants in their allotted part of the cities. NOT to redesign cities with any of your bright ideas.
And another tiny detail. What about those who HAVE to drive high mileages to do their job? I went for a number of years driving around 35,000 miles per year. Certainly not my choice, but the company I worked for had sites all over North England, the Midlands, North Wales and Scotland. I was the only one with the experience and legally mandated qualifications, so little option.
If it was up to the bright sparks like you and the control freaks who dreamed this up today, no doubt I would have had to try to use an EV.
“All that is proposed is to keep inhabitants in their allotted part of the cities.”
That is spin and paranoia. I like being at home. My wife likes being here with me. That’s how we’ve lived our lives for our 47 years of marriage. We had a software business for 11 years. We ran the business out of our home. As a consultant. I’ve worked most of by life at home. When I’ve worked outside of home, I arranged it so I lived very near my workplace. My sons have the same sort of policy in their lives. I know we are not the only family who prefers these arrangements. You spin this personal preference into some implied governmental plot to “keep” us where we want to be. Why do you think you can get away with such nonsense?
I am not ‘kept’ in the least. I’m certainly no more ‘kept’ than a worker who feels he has to travel a hour to work just because the city or corporation likes to ‘control’ him that way.
If you have to drive an hour to your job, a “15 minute city” will not stop you from doing that. It merely gives people more options.
Where is your evidence that those proposing “15 minute cities” want to keep cities exactly as they are and restrict our movements by force? I suspect your evidence is the kind of evidence that leads some poor souls to believe they are Napoleon.
Likewise you are fantasizing about my supposed desire to control your movements. If you knew me in person you’d know how ludicrous that characterization is. I fall on the libertarian side of the political spectrum. I see this issue as an enhancement of choice.
Taking them at their word is not evidence.
It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a conspiracy.
What do you think high density public housing is for? It’s certainly not for providing an optimal environment for the poor.
Who else would want this, though? There are plenty of planned communities out there – designed for the people who want to buy into them. That’s just capitalism at work.
If you want to live 15 minutes from a select subset of what you find is “everything”, you can do that. If you find enough like-minded people who share your everything, you can have your city somewhere. The government need not be involved.
It’s no conspiracy to notice that Biden has signed an executive order that will deny communities tax money (that their citizens have paid, mind you) if they don’t dismantle zoning laws to create some bureaucrat’s notion of a 15-minute city. That order is your evidence that this is real.
The constant media obsession with any desire to lower crime or have a nice, quiet neighborhood being “white supremacy” or “Karen” is evidence that the politically correct have noticed and would like nothing more than to put us “turkeys” in our proper place.
+100!
“There are plenty of planned communities out there”
Says who? Who are you to claim there are enough ’15 minute cities’ out there? It seems to me that you want to be in the business of control as much as any leftist. You want to decide what I want. I’d also like to know where you find this abundance of such cities. Any morning traffic report seems to contradict your optimism.
What executive order are you talking about? Are you in favor of zoning laws now? — that is, are you now in favor of bureaucratic control of what a property owner can do with his property? As a capitalist? What sort of free-market capitalist are you? Are you one at all?
“The constant media obsession with any desire to lower crime or have a nice, quiet neighborhood being “white supremacy” or “Karen” is evidence that the politically correct have noticed and would like nothing more than to put us “turkeys” in our proper place.”
That is a non sequitur. The ‘white supremacist’ delusions of the left have nothing to do with planning 15 minute cities.
You know, that so called conspiracy rtheories usually become true over time.
On the other hand, do declare a theory as a conspiracy one is all, but not an argument, it’s BS.
No, conspiracy theories do not usually become true over time. They rarely become true.
‘One good thing about being a conspiracy theorist … I don’t have myocarditis
You really have no problem with the local government using ANPR and facial recognition to track all its citizens every time they leave the house, and fine them when they move around too much?
“You really have no problem with the local government using ANPR and facial recognition to track all its citizens every time they leave the house, and fine them when they move around too much?”
Why are you putting words in my mouth? I said nothing about surveillance. A 15 minute city has no requirement for surveillance.
How then do you limit outside traffic from clogging up the streets of the 15 minute city?
“How then do you limit outside traffic from clogging up the streets of the 15 minute city?”
No need to build another highway, right? Afer all, no highway will totally eliminate traffic jams.
Traffic will always be a problem. No city, no matter how well planed, will eliminate it. But some designs can surely lessen it. The goal is to reduce the need to travel outside one’s sphere of living. Reduce does not mean eliminate. I don’t know where you live, but here those electric scooters are very popular. I see kids using them every day. We should be open to new ways of getting to places. Why is that so threatening?
Sorry, a 15 minute city absolutely requires surveillance and repression. Otherwise, what is to stop the plebs moving around freely as they used to do?
“Sorry, a 15 minute city absolutely requires surveillance and repression.”
Sorry, but you are paranoid. There is no rational reason to believe your assertion. You certainly will not be able to prove your assertion or even offer a credible case for it.
Where were you during the so called “pandemic”?
I was at home or near home during the pandemic, just like I was before the pandemic. The lock downs didn’t change my life much at all.
The problem with communists is that they only talk about what people ‘need’ and you never hear them talk about what people might ‘want.’ I would hate to imagine what life would be like if some government entity decided that I could only live with that which the government declares to be a ‘need’.
Hoyt,
you are free to live where you want. The idea is that people who want to be able to walk to work or to school or to the shops should be able to do so. It is about redesigning cities so that people don’t have to spend hours a day stuck in a traffic jam just to get to work. And I can not see why this should be seen as a bad thing.
Izaak, I don’t know where you live that people can’t choose to walk to work/school/shops if they want to. You seem to be talking about placing further limits on driving in big cities, or sufficiently densifying rural areas. Neither of which may be economically feasible or personally desirable. This all sounds like a “wouldn’t it be great if you could have your cake and eat it too?” type argument.
The idea is that people who want to walk to work can limit their jobs and abodes to no more than 15 minutes apart, and those who want more flexibility in changing jobs or abodes can limit them to farther distances.
You want to force everyone into your 15 minute realm. I want everyone to make their own choices.
Individualism can simulate socialism with binding contracts. Socialism cannot tolerate individualism in any form, let alone simulate it.
You are a Marxist control freak. You cannot tolerate anyone doing or thinking anything different.
Let me repeat nobody is forcing anybody to live or work anywhere. You can live miles from work and spend hours every day in a traffic jam if you like. But the idea of the 15 minute city is that it should be possible to live otherwise. It is about enable choice and letting you spend more time doing what you like.
It is not about enabling choice when the city fathers (e.g., Oxford) force the 15-minute city on everyone.
LOL, How do you know that ? Besides, I don’t think you have any experience in urban planning and development or you’d understand how ridiculous this all is.
We ought to put a leash on you, Smallton, that does not reach the WUWT website !
What makes you think every drive to work is a traffic jam? That is nonsense.
You have absolutely no idea of what you are speaking of. It’s a logistical impossibility to live as you describe. I’ve been in a lot of places in the US. I’ve never been in one where everything you need is a 15 minute walk (or bike ride) away.
“From each, according to his ability,
To each, according to his need.”
But who gets to determine the ability and the need are the ones in power. Therefore, whatever they put within a 15-minute walk is what you “need.”
“I’ve been in a lot of places in the US. I’ve never been in one where everything you need is a 15 minute walk (or bike ride) away.”
I’ve been living my life that way since i moved to Hollywood 13 years ago. Last September I went to visit my parents in Texas. That was the first time I had driven in 3 years.
Really? You have a lumber yard 15 minutes away, e.g. you need to install a new shelf in a pantry? You have a hardware store 15 minutes away, e.g. you have a leaking faucet needing a new washer. You have a shoe store 15 minutes away? You have a clinic 15 minutes away? You have a full-service grocery store 15 minutes away? You have a full service clothing store (e.g. a Kohl’s or Target) 15 minutes away?
My youngest son lives in Somerville, MA just outside Boston. Many of these are an hour walk or more away or just don’t exist unless you have a vehicle. This winter when he needed new boots for the snow he used an uber to get to a shoe store carrying what he needed.
How many poor in high-density 15 minute cities can afford an uber to go to a shoe store?
“Really? You have a lumber yard 15 minutes away”
Actually I do — two of them. One is less than a quarter mile away on Santa Monica Blvd, the other is about a half mile away on Highland. There is a Home Depot about two miles away. I’ve walked there frequently for small home repair items and tools.
Shoe store — yes, several.
Clinic — I think so but I don’t go to doctors.
Full service grocery store — yes, several. My wife and I walk to get all of our groceries except brands they don’t carry. We get these shipped to us by Amazon.
Clothing stores — very many. Since you mentioned Target, there are two within walking distance, one near that lumber yard on Highland.
The problems your son has in MA are exactly the problems a 15 minute city is meant to address.
Let me repeat that you do indeed want to force everybody to live within 15 minutes of work, or work within 15 minutes of home. You can call it the “idea” but everyone knows you intend to implement it at gunpoint.
“Let me repeat that you do indeed want to force everybody to live within 15 minutes of work, or work within 15 minutes of home. ”
That is ideologically-driven tunnel vision. There is no more force in a well-planned city than there is in a poorly designed city where practically nothing can be done without a car.
Before I retired I worked at a water plant. Our particular plant supplied water for roughly 750,000 people not including industries such as one of the Anheuser-Busch breweries.
Few if any of the people lived within a 15 minute walk from our plant. I know I didn’t.
Water plants, wastewater plants, hospitals, police stations, fire stations, supermarkets, etc. would all need to be within a15 minute walk for those who work there?
You’re dreaming.
They won’t “force” anyone into them, it will just be that circumstances (no ICE vehicles, EV only but power limited because no fossil fuel power plants) will make the 15-minute cities the only decent alternative.
“Let me repeat nobody is forcing anybody to live or work anywhere. You can live miles from work and spend hours every day in a traffic jam if you like. But the idea of the 15 minute city is that it should be possible to live otherwise. It is about enable choice and letting you spend more time doing what you like.”
Except that the Oxfordshire bureaucrats ARE forcing the 15-minute city on an ALREADY-EXISTING city.
“You are a Marxist control freak. You cannot tolerate anyone doing or thinking anything different.”
Your response to Izaak Walton’s rather benign comment borders on hysteria. It looks to me like you are the Marxist control freak who cannot tolerate people who want to live differently than you. Individualism and self-reliance seem to offend you.
Fine, let them do so. Don’t force me to do so. That is called freedom. It is all about the individual choices that America used to glory in.
So then, what is the point of these “15 minute cities” … you can do as you please in that space already or you can travel greater distances if you please, so what is so innovative about this ? Some tool has given it a trendy name ? Is that it ? Of course there’ more to it and readers here can see that without difficulty.
Seems exactly the same as the high-density living planning policies foisted on us by the academic “expert” town planners … except that they forgot about recreation spaces other than the corner pub.
You must be too young to remember the days when you could work your entire life at the same factory, and your children and even grandchildren could work at the same place. You could walk cycle or get a bus to work, you usually had to because most people couldn’t afford a car. You all took holidays at the same time to the same places “Fair Fortnight”. You had cheddar cheese sandwiches for your lunch. These are the halcyon days you long for.
Unfortunately those days are long gone even if you choose to live in walking/cycling distance of your place of work it’s almost certain to make you redundant before you reach retirement age which is getting further away.
Once your job has gone East you then end up with the choice of moving house to be 15 minutes away from your new job, should you be lucky enough to get one, or stay where you are because your family are close to school and/or work.
Having worked in manufacturing facilities that are now gone and are housing estates or just derelict resulting in forced job changes three times neither is a great option. But if you worked for the biggest employer in a smaller town then commuting to the next town is the only option and 15 minutes is out the window.
Homeworking is only an option for government employees.
I drove one half hour to work every workday for 27 years.
I didn’t want to live in the town where I worked. Nor did my wife want to live in the town where she worked, which was a high crime rate city So we both drove 30 minutes to our jobs. Longer in the snow. Maybe that’s one reason we both retired at age 51 — too much driving to jobs we did not love.
Living in the suburbs, which we enjoy, there are NO JOBS or SHOPPING within walking distance from our home, We do not want to live in a city.
I grew up in a small New York village. Even then there were few jobs or shopping within walking distance from our home. And a lot of competition for those close to home jobs.
This isn’t what they are talking about. If it was, they wouldn’t need to impose it.
The unmistakeable trope of a control freak – “The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live” – who determines what people “need” and “want”? If that is the choice of a so called free people who are “you” to determine how to restrict that freedom to exercise the expression of “want/need”? Do you advocate rationing?
I am all for joined up thinking to infect/inform planning decisions; please explain how planning decisions which inflict thousands of new homes on green fields, eg, formerly used for agriculture, miles away from facilities that might fulfill “want and need”, is desirable from ANY standpoint?
I could not agree more with the traffic jam work commute point you make – perhaps roads in tunnels as in “I, Robot” is the way forward?
“you are free to live where you want” – yeah, right.
The problem is your belief that you know how best to design cities for everyone.
Such arrogance.
You would simply love living in Mainland China.
“This just conspiracy theory nonsense.”
Standard reply when you have no argument.
1000’s have protested against these typical left wing authoritarian control freaks.
Have you looked at CHD.tv? It is full of nonsense like 5G causing cancer. This is just another conspiracy theory that they are pushing. There is no basis to any of the claims that the young lady makes. Who are the mysterious “they” she is talking about and how does she know that they are planning on putting up thousands of cameras everywhere?
“They” are C40, the primary culprits for this lunacy, followed by your local left wing council apparatchik zealot.
“They” are bringing back serfdom.
It stands to reason that to enforce their rules it will be necessary to install automated number plate recognition cameras (ANPR) everywhere.
The cameras are already there. The “they” are all the institutions in the press these last three years, and it’s very real, which you’d realize if you read more widely and not MSM rubbish.
The BBC made a mistake recently, did you know that a fairly small town called Swindon, UK, already has 20,000 council run cameras? Somehow they mentioned it because the Council has run out of money! Now you know what control and monitoring really mean, you are always under surveillance! Has it stopped crime, murders etc? NO. Idiots and their money are soon parted, get rid of the lot of them.
“It is about designing cities for people not cars.”
That’s really great, Izaak. But what about all the cities and towns already built that didn’t incorporate the “15-minute city” in their original plans, especially those that didn’t start out with a comprehensive city plan at all?
Jim, he’s clueless, just arguing from an ideological point of view … same as those people who argue how great socialism is and that it should be forced on everybody else … when the only thing that socialism has brought is misery.
I think you have taken first prize, that is the most naïve drivel I have read at anytime in my long life. Congratulations!
Having to read the utter drivel from the pen of the Compleat Bungler is the price we have to pay for an uncensored WUWT. Besides, it gives us a valuable insight into the mind of a Progressive Socialist.
I walk 1.5 miles to work and back every working day.
It’s my choice, not forced upon me and I only use my small car at weekends.
But I’ll be damned if I’ll let the “powers that be” force a lifestyle on me that I do not choose.
Tell me, Izaak, do you walk to work every day? What car do you drive? What is your carbon footprint?
Over to you.
Redge,
you will be extremely fortunate if your place of work remains the same until you retire. The days of lifetime employment are long gone for the vast majority. For many people that means the new job will be beyond walking and cycling distance meaning a house move or a car commute.
But I suppose the Compleat Angler will say you do whatever job is close to home and the benign government will choose it for you. I think there’s a name for that.
You are a dingbat, Izzy Smallton !
I’ve been in Oxford.
The 15 minutes may not sound like much of a restriction now, but it will be followed by a 10 minute limit, and then a 5 minute limit, you dolt. Freedom is stolen gradually. Th first restriction is designed so it does not inconvenience too many people. Then there is a precedent. You are a useful idiot for totalitarianism. Pardon my French. But I have been a libertarian since 1973. I prefer minimum government and maximum freedom. Useful idiots like you let that freedom slip away, rule by rule. Every loss of personal freedom is “no big deal” to you.
The problem with your approach, and you can see it in Oxford, is that all those individual choices in the circumstances lead to something which is clearly rather bad.
The problem with Oxford is that there is one road running through the center. So everyone drives through it, which leads to jams, congestion, pollution. And which also makes it a quite unpleasant place to walk, and a dangerous place to cycle.
There is a perfectly reasonable case for reducing traffic in Oxford city center and making the road environment more pleasant and usable for people getting around by some other means than cars.
Their interests are legitimate, and there is no reason why we should conflate the legal right to drive wherever one pleases, despite the inconvenience this may cause to others, with personal freedom.
The ’15 minute city’ concept is a bad one, it gives lunatics the opportunity to claim that reducing car traffic in cities is a first step to confining everyone to within 15 minutes of where they live. No-one is advocating that. Its also silly in that local government can control how the streets are used, but it has little control over who builds what stores and facilities anywhere.
So they may piously hope that facilities will spring up so people can get what they need conveniently close to hand, but they can’t do much about making that happen.
What they can do however, and arguably should do, is end the assumption that all streets should be run as if their only purpose was to carry cars. If you look at the consequences of this in some London streets and roads you can see that this is a policy that is not delivering for most people who live, play, work and shop near them. They have legitimate interests too, in safe, quiet and pleasant streets, and there is no reason why councils should not recognize and promote their interests.
Drive down the A12 as it enters London. Would you want to live beside it? Walk down Oxford Street in the rush hour. Do you really like all those cars? Or Euston Rd?
We shall see, in any case. If current plans are implemented we will probably see dramatic falls in London traffic, and in other places too, including Oxford, by 2035. 2040 at the latest. Hold tight, its going to be a rough ride though!
If this happens London, and Oxford will become economic deserts, which parts of London already are. The result? The London Mayor has bankrupted the City, and particularly the Public transport network. He wants huge UK Government grants to keep going. Typical lefty Socialist! Other peoples money tree!
Oxford has had a one way system in the centre of town now for many years. Miss your turning, and it’s at least 5 miles to get back to it.
Oxford Street has been buses and taxis only for a long time. Traffic is reduced to one lane in each direction, though at least they do provide bus stops with bays.
I was on that main road in Oxford driving a rented VW Golf, driving while sitting on the “wrong” side of the seat, driving on the “wrong” side of the road, and it was not a big deal for me. Hardly a New York City traffic jam there.
The purpose of streets IS to carry cars and trucks. Horses before that. Sometimes trucks can be diverted to alternate routes to reduce congestion. Or parking can be limited. The purpose of sidewalks is for people to walk on. If we have to argue what purpose for streets and sidewalks, this debate can’t continue.
People choose to live in congested cities. I don’t. I was never thrilled by living in Brooklyn, NY and commuting to Manhattan by subway to college. Not fun on a crowded subway car and not safe these days.
Every Friday afternoon I left the NYC for the country and came back Sunday afternoon. I would never tell anyone not to live there — that’s their choice if they want to tolerate the noise, pollution and congestion of cities. I believe in free choice of where to live and work.
This is scary if people share your sentiment. I don’t hear anyone talking about building 15-minute cities. They want to impose them, regardless if everything you need is within 15 minutes.
Not only is it an abomination to restrict our freedoms, but they are essentially imoosibg a regressive tax. The rich will ignore the rules because the fine is pocket change. For everyone else, it is life altering.
Where is my supermarket, DIY wharehouse, Clothes shop, or anything much useful within 15 minutes? Entertainment within 15 minutes, well there is a Pub (probably soon to close), but nothing else. There is a bank left, but not for long. There are endless charity shops in all the shop premises that cannot survive the high rents and taxes. The council are about to charge for the local car park, which will shut the rest of the shops left, the big Mall out of town is free and much more choice of course. The pavements are lethal because of electric scooters, both running and dumped. Have you any other “good” ideas?
No one seems to have considered the logistical nightmare of keeping the multiplicity of retail shops supplied in such a situation. If hardware stores, grocery stores, clinics, clothes stores, shoe stores, etc all had to be within 30 minutes of each other in a large city the delivery vehicles would clog the roads so badly every day there wouldn’t be any other traffic on the roads.
Well, Tim, you won’t need hardware stores since you can’t build anything and City Maintenance will take care of any problems you have with things like electrical and plumbing (whenever they can get you scheduled)
ah yes its sounds good enough BUT the leave the area if you choose I gather comes with “demerits or fines” for being naughty and using the car etc more than “they” think you should…now tell me HOW we can get the small shops back with the competition they cop from the conglomerates who sent them broke to begin with??
Bad luck if you live in the Botley area and need to get to A&E at the John Radcliffe hospital. 90 mins walking. Half an hour by bike. Already 25 mins by car due to the one way system.
They want you dead.
I remember Oxford in the days when the Cowley works were churning out early Minis as an upchange from Morris Minors, and MGs were built at Abingdon. Back then, many of the workforce did indeed cycle to and from work. But they were working to build their freedom to travel. Those who put in the shifts achieved that.
Izaak walton regularly travelled mor ethan 15 minutes to go fishing. you are clueless.
As always, the left has a good story. And, as always, the ‘tiny’ technical details, that they ignore, turn their utopian visions into dystopian realities.
One of the things that have made Americans freer and, I would argue, happier and richer, is the suburbs. Americans escaped from the 15 minute cities to the suburbs. Why would we want to go back?
Wow a logical response gets a -66 and a stupid one a *15.
Watched the video expecting not to learn anything from a 12 year old.
Thanks to Izaak I know.
Why do people expect privacy in public. I have the expectation that people will not look in my windows of my home from my property. Since I live in a motor home, I do not have an expectation of privacy in a Walmart parking lot.
I have a lot near the ocean where I camp in the summer. You would need a drone to look in my windows. A neighbor advised me that a camera had been put on my property because it had been used for criminal activity.
He also told me that he had a trail cam and we had a bear. Good to know.
I just stumbled over the concept of propositional tyranny. It goes a long way to explaining why analysis shouldn’t start with logic. Except for very simple cases, propositions are almost always incomplete or faulty in some way. That means the logic based on them leads to faulty conclusions. In computers, it’s called GIGO.
An example is that we could make a logical argument for Marxism that would be hard to refute logically. However, all the logic in the world doesn’t change the fact that Marxism has degenerated into a dystopian bloodbath every time it’s been tried. Damn the logic and full speed ahead! Farragut
Why so many downvotes? I feel like I missed the joke.
Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way
I don’t get that impression but if it remains that way, fine. You go live in your 15-minute city and I’ll stay here in my rural farm home. As long as it’s voluntary, live how you want.
“The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars.”
Designing cities for cars IS designing cities for people.
“Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way or to restrict anyone’s travel but just to give people the option of doing so if they wish.”
Really? Then what do you call banning real cars and forcing EVs on everyone?
“The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars.”
Exactly. I live in Hollywood. I almost never have to drive a car. I’m certainly not being “controlled” when I choose to walk when I do business and pleasure. I can’t imagine how anyone could think he’s “free” when he sits in traffic for an hour every day conforming to location and routine set for the boss’s convenience rather than his own, and doing so in a money pit of a vehicle.
So it would be ok for you if they put a toxic chemical plant in Hollywood a block from where you live? My guess is you would be out picketing for NIMBY!
You are a monumental hypocrite.
“So it would be ok for you if they put a toxic chemical plant in Hollywood a block from where you live?”
Nobody is saying everything required for the totality of life on Earth must be or can be within 15 minutes. People like you seem to love straw man arguments. Charging me with hypocrisy before you even know my position is pretty lame. Please tell me why I am not living as I have stated. What do you know about me that I do not?
You said you have everything within 15 minutes in Hollywood. Are you now backtracking?
Perhaps everything isn’t as easy as you would like to imply that it is?
Where do the workers in that toxic chemical plant live? 15 minutes away from where they work? Ask those now in East Palestine, OH how it is living next to a toxic site.
“You said you have everything within 15 minutes in Hollywood. Are you now backtracking?”
No, I did not. Why do people like you think you can lie about what other people say?
I made no claim that every person on the planet will be able to be 15 minutes from everything that has to be done. Of course I can’t live in Hollywood and go fishing for tomorrow’s meal. And I doubt anyone suggests anything like that. You are not even trying to be rational. You must think lies carry weight.
So 15 min cities aren’t as realistic as you said, eh?
You’ve already admitted you wouldn’t want industrial complexes near you, even though that might be where you work. You’ve now admitted that not everything you need would be within 15 min travel.
It would seem that all you really want is to concentrate poor people in high-density living conditions with poor access to most everything. We already have that in most big cities – it’s called public housing. And it’s mostly a dismal failure!
“So 15 min cities aren’t as realistic as you said, eh?”
I don’t know what words you’re referring to. Your thinking seems to be mired in a binary world where every issue is 100% one way or another. I do not live in that world and you don’t either. It is definitely realistic to design a city that puts goods and services closer than they currently are in most areas. You also have a dogmatic idea that a “15 minute city” equates to slums and public housing. These are two totally separate ideas. Public housing has nothing to do with putting goods and services closer to people. A wealthy community is just as conducive to being a “15 minute city” as a slum — probably more so since retailers are more likely to move closer to customers who can spend big money. (I agree public housing was a failure, btw.)
You were advocating for 15min cities without, apparently, considering the downsides.
“You also have a dogmatic idea that a “15 minute city” equates to slums and public housing”
That *is* what happens to the poor. The rich get to live in gated communities, the poor get shoved into public housing.
“Public housing has nothing to do with putting goods and services closer to people.”
I see. So public housing doesn’t deserve having goods and services closer to them?
“A wealthy community”
That seems to be your only experience with high density living. It’s understandable why you were advocating for 15min cities.
It really is amusing how Izaak actually thinks he can cover up the words of those he supports.
They have been quite vocal that their plans for us are not optional.
“This just conspiracy theory nonsense. Clearly she has no idea of what is mean by a fifteen minute city…The idea of a 15 minute city is that people should be able to access what they need within a short distance of where they live. It is about designing cities for people not cars. Nobody is trying to force anybody to live that way or to restrict anyone’s travel but just to give people the option of doing so if they wish.”
That’s not what the Oxfordshire plan says. There is no option. Instead, there is most definitely restriction of travel, and force is applied to the pocketbook – at least for now.
“The traffic filters are not physical barriers of any kind and will not be physical road closures. They are simply traffic cameras that can read number plates. If a vehicle passes through the filter at certain times of the day, the camera will read the number plate and (if you do not have an exemption or a residents’ permit) you will receive a fine in the post.”
“Oxford residents (and residents of some surrounding villages) will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filters on up to 100 days a year. Residents living in the rest of Oxfordshire will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filter on up to 25 days a year. …Residents will still be able to drive to every part of the city at any time – but in the future, during certain times of the day, you may need to take a different route (e.g. using the ring road) if you want to travel by car.”
So there won’t be physical barriers, but they will fine the heck out of you if you are caught “breaching” the photo barrier more often then the Council has deemed you are allowed to.
Izaak, and everyone else, is missing one of Izaaks main points.
Everyone that wants to live in a 15 minute time of travel to everywhere they want to go should have the right to such a lifestyle.
Well Izaak, I need to be able to get to the Hospital in a reasonable time. I also need to go fishing every afternoon after work. I also need to fly my drone & I want a large park where my dogs can run free. I also have three cars … I need reasonable parking space. This last one is not a deal killer, but I also want to be within easy walking distance of the stadium, so I can watch the game (in person) on weekends.
Set me up Izaak. Fulfill my needs. I should have a right.
(After a while my lifestyle may change, so my needs will change, so remember to leave a lot of flexibility in the whole development scheme.)
I suggest most seriously that you move to NEOM in Saudi Arabia, the shiny new paradise 170 km long and 200 m wide where everyone walks to work, no cars allowed and powered 100% by Ruinable Energy.
They must have had people like you in mind when designing it. It would be curmudgeonly of you not to give it your enthusiastic participation.
Send a card to let us know how you enjoy it. (Not sure they will want you using the internet.)
Alternatively, instead of annoying people here, why not get Oxford Council to stop messing about with tokenism and half measures, flatten Oxford City and build a British Neom. Do like has been done with ruinable energy; be sure to flatten the old City before building the new.
Whilst applauding the sentiment, her mother appeared to be by her side and probably wrote the script.
Are these people using children the same way Greta was used?
I was just about to ask that exact same question.
As much as Greta irks me I know she has been used, and used precisely because she was a child. It doesn’t matter that she was willing.
Grown-ups should not use children when they can’t make their own voice heard.
Greta is no longer a child. Today she is advocating law-breaking as a means to get the population to pay attention to the climate change “crisis”.
Most of us call this indoctrination Child Abuse. Parents in jail sounds good.
I notice there has been at least two down-votes on this comment. Evidently we are divided on the ethics of using children.
It is a good speech, and was read well for a 12-year-old.
But a 12-year-old reading a speech seems like child abuse to me, for political gains, just like Greta reciting nonsense climate talking points.
Much better than watching POTATUS Jumpin’ Joe Bidet in transition (to a vegetable) struggling to read a teleprompter. I suppose. But speeches that impress me are never read. They have to be from the heart, That’s probably why I rarely listen to speeches. I prefer to read a short article filled with facts, data and logic, while speeches tend to be emotional.
I think most treaders of my blog would love this speech, so it is first link on my list of up to 24 recommended articles on my climate science and energy blog today: Honest Climate Science and Energy
Have to give Charles Rotter credit for finding this video.
“Jumpin’ Joe Bidet”
that tickled me
Yes, it was well read. I too, doubt that she wrote it all by herself. But maybe some of it.
We have loads of politicians in the UK who read speeches and seem like 12 year olds so she’s doing pretty well…and you can see in her reactions that she understands what she is reading and the real compassion she had for Thunderbird.
This one is lovely – It’s got everything:
Entitlement, stupidity, greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, nimbyism and Just Simply Everything laid on in spades
‘a councillor’ = a member of the muppet tribe organising these zones (not this one) is launching a ‘blast’ because he got a parking ticket in his supermarket carpark.
Said blast came because his crappy little car, at the crappy charger, was still less than half full even after overstaying his free parking time by 30 minutes.
And he only went to the supermarket charger because there wasn’t a charger on his street at home..
Errrr excuse me, who if not The Council, disallowed the placement of a charger on his street or in his house? What was his big rush, why would a normal charger running off a 13Amp socket (at home) not have done for him?
So he got slapped an extra £45 for his juice while he, in council meetings and everywhere else apart from supermarket parks, will endlessly repeat the ‘Wind is free and plentiful’ claptrap.
everything is wrong – and only the autistics can really see it AND say something. as here.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11769261/Councillor-blasts-Lidl-slapped-illogical-90-fine.html
oddly enough we used to have 15 min suburbs in Aus . we could walk to a corner store there were usually at least one per 10 blocks or less, stupormarkets didnt exist until the 70s really for most of us outside the city. the bread milk n meat were home delivered zero cameras the odd street stalker all us kids knew about n avoided and life was damned good. weve got this crappy half hr or more drive to major stores madness small shops lost their income n closed and were worse off and that? was due to the SAME idiots running nations telling us how good the new plans would be for us
With kids this switched on the future is in safe hands!
I like the way she started laughing at Greta’s “how dare you” catchphrase.
On a similar subject, London Mayor Genghis Khan’s planned ULEZ extension is being taken to judicial review by a number of councils. However, the best response seems to be being promoted by Piers Corbyn and that is for everyone to completely ignore it. The enforcement system would be overwhelmed if this happened and apparently in a similar scheme in Birmingham they have had to give up on chasing up unpaid tickets.
Most places we now know as cities began rather humbly and the planned spill over new towns built in a more aware post war society are much different to how they began life in England. Fifteen minutes in a well established place like London is very different to fifteen minutes elsewhere especially if you are walking at an average pace (which is most people) and not trying to negotiate around nausea inducing traffic schemes in a vehicle.
I doubt there are able planners anywhere to be found in contemporary UK if they have all attended and been produced by woke universities …
Never heard of 15 minute cities. Is it a recipe for creating really small bubbles to live in?
Pre- listen: When an under 16 year-old talks, even if they think they’re sharing their own opinion, they’re sharing their parent/teacher/coach/mentor’s opinion.
Well, in my day we rode our bicycles across town when we wanted to see friends. I don’t remember my parents taking me or my brothers to a friend’s house even once.
you had friends?
Of course I had friends and plenty of them. We played baseball and football, swam, hit junk yards, raced slot cars, climbed trees, went sledding, captured bees and grasshopper, fished crawdads, went hiking and camped out. Why would you ask something so stupid?
what happened to them?
But she will not get UN sponsorship rights and international travel at that rate, like Greta and Angry Birds. The cameras may actually target her after this independence outburst. Better consider booking exit passage on a small wooden boat just in case.
I live in a big city. (Budapest) 1 hour to go anywhere. There is this tendency to ban cars everywhere and it seems to me this idea is supported by people. Leftists you may say but they seem to be the majority in the city where I live. Boggles my mind too but it seems real. People I personally know and respect vouching for what seems completely unacceptable to me. Car owners are labeled rich or wasteful or frivolous or all of these. Even if you take out the co2 melodrama.
Another thought, leftists used to be liberals meaning more freedom and less restrictions. It’s upside down now. Lefties want all the restrictions and conservatives are for personal freedom.
“Lefties want all the restrictions and conservatives are for personal freedom.”
sure seems that way.
(I thought Hungary was, on average, not nuts…. Am I wrong?)
Thanks for asking, Hungary as a country mostly votes conservative. Budapest, the capital city mostly votes lefties. It’s important to note that most conservative voters think co2 can cause CAGW. Even our previous president(which is a formal position, no real power) talked a lot about alarmist concepts. We have one conservative politician who clearly stands out, Orbán Viktor, he is the prime minister, is the central figure off government who mostly avoids the subject of CAGW but on those very few occasions that he does speak about it, he is sadly an alarmist, too. I live in Budapest. Many of my personal acquintances are lefties. I need to avoid many topics when talking. As for CAGW, I can barely find anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the church o lobal warming. It almost doesn’t exist. I am considered a lunatic.(i think global warming is a religion masquerading as science) Even most conservative acquaintances.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1393323081494994/?s=ifu
15 minute cities are a great example of the neo-feudalism. They are trying to tie their proles to the place of birth and nothing else. Every single totalitarian Regime does this: simply control the movement of the entire population by making sure that the population cannot move and cannot leave their place of birth(unless of course you decide to move it to another place). That is a prime directive of a totalitarian Regime. And we are the peasants to be controlled