By P Gosselin
The real target isn’t your convenience or climate protection. Instead it will be the ability for them lock people down whenever they want.
There’s a lot of talk about 15-minute cities. Everything you need will be located within a 15-minute walk from where you live. Who would not want that kind of convenience!
Often shown are promotion images of 15-minute city dwellers, happily pedaling the bikes under blue skies, carrying out their daily lives with ease and comfort.
However, EU Parliamentarian Christine Anderson warns what 15-minute cities are really about: the total control of people via QR codes.
Target: lockdowns anytime they want
“Make no mistake. It’s not about convenience,” says German EU Parliamentarian Christine Anderson. The 15-minute cities are what will be needed, however, before they can implement the real target: locking people down anytime they want.
In Great Britain: “They will be able to impose a climate lockdown. That’s the next step; that’s what we’re talking about. ”
Anderson predicts: “It will be a complete impoverishment and enslavement of all the people.”
The biggest lie about 15-minute cities is the promise you’ll have access to “everything you need” will be practically right next door. The truth will be, however, “everything you need” will be defined as inly the bare essentials needed to stay alive: water, 1200 calories a day and a controlled temperature. Anything else will not necessarily be a short distance away, and could involve substantial obstacles to procure – possibly even involving government-issued permits to purchase.
A giant concentration camp
If you consider the Saudi Arabian NEOM project, as Anderson explains, one can easily imagine what a hell and prison they could turn into.
Is it ever going to work?
It’s 99.9999% sure it’ll never work. Already cities and communities are beginning to roll out their 15-minoute concepts. Wait a year or two after their implementation, and it’ll quickly emerge what a naïve idea it all is. Everywhere else will quickly realize what a failure these cities are and will rise up and resist following along.
The 15-minute cities are just the latest wacky idea from far-out political loonies. In truth they will become fertile grounds for rebellion and revolution, and this time it’s not going to take 70 years for the people to wake up.
Dead right, because this time around, we have psychotropic drugs in the kiddies’ cool drink, we have over half the population hopped up on ‘pain medication’and half of them, as young as three months old, on ‘anti-depressants’ and the rest glued to little glass prostitutes willing to masturbate your eyeballs 24/7.
This time, they will just go back to sleep.
Our new messiah, lord Baal Gates says he’ll wake up 300 million of us to do the cooking and cleaning for him and his fiends. Although I’m not sure if his young, fresh lovers will be able to reach the top of the stove….
Great comment.
At the risk of appearing bot like a comment of mine from the Open Thread also concerns apparent brainwashing around climate change and resulting psychoses from this.
The linked article has an associated ~3 minute video in which at ~2:20 mark, Jane Fonda said she has been a climate scientist for decades.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jane-fonda-arrested-climate-change-strike-capitol/story?id=66209415
The video is entertaining. With wide open arms she says something like “there is one issue (you guessed it) this is not hyperbole…”
I can’t imagine a more dystopian future of 15 minute cities, most on psychotropic drugs and subjected to psychological operations.
3 month olds on anti-depressants? Is that what the voices in your head are telling you know?
Boychic, your lamentable ignorance and constant, puerile ad hominems, makes this the last stupid utterance of yours to appear in my inbox
In other words, you can’t provide any support for the nonsense you spew, so you’ll just resort to spewing random insults.
Perhaps you should replace the voices in your head with a new set, the current ones are letting you down.
It’s hilarious that your mickey take is indistinguishable from the far-right paranoia expressed above the line.
Of course, the next stage of the paranoia is to identify the elites who are imprisoning everyone with certain bankers and then to point out that their names end with -Berg and -Stein.
And then another Final Solution.
We’ve seen it all before.
This article is nuts. Dangerously silly. And you are right to mock them for it.
What’s silly, is that European socialists consider anyone who isn’t a socialist or a communist to be far-right.
Good sir, you are obviously a paid professional communicator, which eminently qualifies you to clear up a few points:
It has been said that there are not enough reports of anti-Semitism. So, on this particular page, with an article and many comments, you were the only one to detect the terrible anti-Semitic undertones, so please clear up for us:
Are you now reporting this web page as anti-Semitic, or the whole site (I dare you make that accusation to the site owners’ face), or do you now count every comment on this page, no matter how mundane, as having participated in this vicious attack on Mr. Bergstein?
The Bolshevik always accuses his victims of his own crimes, so tell us about this Final (15 minute) Solution of yours…and please don’t involve me with your bigotry and gas libel.
“You will own nothing, and you will be happy“, said Kurt Schwab of the WEF.
Are you looking forward to owning nothing?
far-right paranoia
And then another Final Solution.
It would appear you have not been paying attention lately.
Most members of the public are unaware of what is going on around them.. They have been brain-washed by a dumbed-down education system and are far too gullible. Fortunately there are some brave, well-informed folk still around (see the blade-runners for example).
I wonder how practically everything you need got to within 15 minutes walking distance? Locally-sourced refrigerators and iPhones lattes?
“Locally-sourced refrigerators and iPhone and lattes”.
Sure miss being able to edit. Fixing the “slow down, you’re posting too much” WordPress edit bug by disabling editing altogether wasn’t exactly a step in the right direction.
And here’s another edit because my secretary who proofreads my comments before I post them flawlessly is on hiatus.
“Locally-sourced refrigerators and iPhones (plural) and lattes”.
Can we please, please, please have edit back? Please?
NO, you will NOT have EDIT
You WILL post mystipes
You WILL post corrective retype posts
AND you WILL like it
OZ HAS SPOKEN
I’d this opportunity to do a bit of proof reading!
Get a grip. The concept is just that you have access to the day-to-day things within a roughly four mile radius, /not/ that everything is manufactured inside that radius. If you live in a city then draw a 4 mile circle around your house and see how often you go further than that for shopping in a typical week. If you live in a city then you probably already live in a 15 minute city, because pretty much all cities already are.
The refrigerator store doesn’t need to be inside the circle because you rarely buy them and most people have them delivered anyway.
Since, they’re desperately trying to remove the motorcar, a walking pace of 3mph, reduces the radius, to just under a mile.
It’s a walking radius of 15 minutes. And it’s not the production, it’s the availability of goods that they are referring to. And it will not be a bountiful and varied supply, but some sort of bare bones minimum. For what would be the fun of all this nonsense if it worked and we were happy and less stressed?
I totally disagree. I drive 630 miles to the Mayo Clinic for my cancer treatment because I’d be dead without it. I drive 1435 miles to Texas for the winter because Michigan is too cold in the winter. I drive 1435 miles to Michigan for the summer, because Texas is too hot in the summer. I drive 40 miles weekly to the grocery store for my specialized perishable food. I drive 2000 miles a year, just cruising around in my convertible with the top down and a smile on my face, just because. I do all this just because I worked my butt off my entire life, and I earned it. It’s called life in a free country. The Woke Left wants to destroy it.
Nothing in the 15minute concept prevents you from doing any of that. Some of it, depending on which routes you drive on, might in the Oxford UK model, attract charges. But no-one is trying to stop you driving for treatment or to Michigan or for your groceries.
The concept is that driving long distances for grocery shopping should not be compulsory. Not that it should be banned!
The concept is also not to ban travel and confine people to tiny areas. That is just ranting paranoia. No-one has proposed controlling bike, foot or public transport travel. This is all about cars, car traffic, car pollution and congestion in some city centers.
And, at least in the UK, you don’t like it, you have a remedy. Vote the bums out! Every few years you have a chance to do that. I think its every four years. Strativarius will know definitely.
Sure we ‘vote the bums out’ in the UK. And the next lot that come in do exactly the same with a different colour. So we vote them out and get a third lot in who do exactly the same or worse. We’re still trying to break the woke zealot stranglehold.
What did Aus do during the China Virus.
They were ARRESTING and DETAINING people who went more than 5 clicks from their homes.
Just practicing. It worked!
Apparently, you currently live in a one, two, or three day country. You don’t want to give that up?
One can drive all the way to Argentina from the US. Much more than 3 days I would guess, not having driven there myself. Anything stop you from doing that?
To drive across the US at over 2500 miles COULD be done in 3 days if you don’t need sleep. I personally DO need sleep, having driven almost all the way across the country, (from Vegas, not the Pacific coast, to Cape Cod) and back, 4 times in the last 5 years.
The fastest I have done, without the trailer, was 4 days of driving to Montreal. The quick trip was due to needing to get from Vegas (last day of work/retirement party) to Cleveland for a Red Sox game. Did more than 12 hours a day.
We plan to cross the country again next spring, this time pulling the 5th wheel for the 4th time.
I once did Tampa to Las Vegas in about a day and a half. Sleep is so over rated.
They should make it a 10 minute city, and it should include a scrap yard for recycling EV charging cables.
So, like a ghetto you mean?
If you walk to the grocery in 15 minutes, because the government doesn’t permit you to own a car, how do you get your groceries home?
Just as important… if the walk to the grocery is less than 15 minutes, can the all-providing government guarantee that the bread lines are less than 15 minutes long?
The bread lines will be much shorter than 15 minute, because there will be no bread when you get there.
The pictures of our 15 minute cities always show happy, smiling people strolling along under warm, sunny skies, not shoppers on foot dragging heavy items home under freezing rain or snow.
The Villages in Florida
The Villages: Florida’s CRAZIEST Conservative Retirement Community
I like this guy’s (Nick Johnson) channel. He travels all over America and shows places most people will never see- or want to in person. The Villages is a self contained bubble for everything you need! I would find it boring- though I wish I could afford it, then get a nice mountain top log cabin.
In the Villages, not much bike riding- everyone has a gold cart.
I can see why it’s unaffordable if everyone has a “gold cart.”
Obviously it’ll only be a gold plated cart, not solid – that’d be silly.
Freudian slip. Of course I mean golf cart. 🙂
🙂
I thought you were going for gold cards.
Just wondering, do residents prefer electric golf carts or gasoline powered golf carts? I’m thinking electric would be a fit in such a community.
quieter and probably don’t take much time charge- a good use for electric motors- it doesn’t look like all or most of those homes have solar- and in Florida!
I spy what could be 2 homes in the picture that might have 9 panel backyard patio covers
That guy’s channel is very entertaining as he travels back roads all over America and often chatting with the locals.
Lead acid batteries need to be replaced every 3 to 4 years, mine golf cart needs a new set now, the present set was installed in 19. If I do it myself that will be about $700.00 to have someone else, do it, it will be around $1000. Golf carts are not inexpensive to run, per mile my guess it is one of the most expensive I ever owned.
Nice info, thanks.
The Villages, as everyone in the area knows, is nothing more than an old age orgy. It has the highest VD rate for people over 60 in the U.S.
The author did claim that the true goal will be for the government to decide what it is you “need”.
The local proletariat will just decide that you don’t need refrigerators, iPhones and lattes.
Welcome to your ghetto…
Maybe there’ll be an Italian Restaurant serving Spaghetto in the 15M neighborhood
One spaghetto?
Must be the war on obesity!!
Ghetto Spaghetto?
Considering that most people walk at a pace of about 3mph 5kph or less, A 15 minute walk will take you around 3500′ or between 5-6 city blocks. So can you fit a sufficient population in that space to support the stores necessary to accommodate a 15 minute city? That is basically a small shopping mall every 12 blocks with…
Food
Clothing
Shoes
Entertainment
Health care
Maintenance
Utilities
Sufficient Jobs
Etc
Etc
Etc…
The 15 minute city concept is to be able to walk, ride a bicycle, or take public transit. The bicycle is generally the fastest of the three. In 15 minutes at a leisurely pace you can ride about 4 miles. Can you find an example of a city where there are neighborhoods that don’t have the things you mentioned within 4 miles?
4 miles in 15 minutes, is not a leisurely pace, that is a speed of around 16mph. Whilst the young, may be able to keep up the pace, the older members of society most certainly will not. And of course, not all neighbourhoods are on flat ground, such as where I live, which is significantly hilly.
If you’re on an expensive road bike on flat, paved ground and don’t have to stop at intersections that might be leisurely. On any other kind of bike with any grade or on unpaved trails that’s busting your butt.
My experience is most bike rides blow through stops signs and intersections. I always stop and put on foot on the ground in my adult life when I was on a bike.
With all the walkers and cyclists in a 15 minute city you wouldn’t be able to just blow through stops signs.
Lance Armstrong disagrees.
Before or after doping?
Before. After doping he believes he’s a centipede.
Average speed of the Tour de France was under 26 mph this year. Average speed on the climbs was 12.8 mph. So 15 or 16 mph is pretty fast for an average person on a bike that doesn’t cost $15,000 (hidden electric motor is extra).
4 miles at 20 below or at 110 is not pleasant, walking riding a bike(had a bike in my youth slip out from under me on ice that was defiantly not pleasant) waiting for a bus in that weather not pleasant.
And getting on the bus even less pleasant.
Then you’re still limited by what you can carry in a basket or on the bus. It’s not that much without a hassle.
I gave up crawling when I learned to walk. I gave up walking when I learned to cycle. I gave up cycling when I used public transport. I gave up public transport when I learned ride a motorbike. I gave up biking when I learned to drive a car.
All that in the first 17 years of my life.
Why would I regress in my choice of transport because I’m ordered to by a government that should represent my wishes and the wishes of tens of millions of others like me?
Nor do we all live in cities so, yes, I can name innumerable towns around the UK that don’t have anything worthwhile within a 15 minute walk.
Halifax for one 😀
Yep, loads of places in Britain. You probably live in the centre (center!) of LA.
One thing I’ve noticed is that most socialists live in cities, usually big ones. Another thing that I’ve noticed is that most socialists spend most of their time imaging ways to force everyone else to live as they do.
That’s why they are called 15-minute cities, not 15-minute towns or villages.
It’s about public transport and not destroying communities for out of town shopping centres.
It’s not about banning anything.
In who world do you live in? Certainly the one I am in.
FUnny how the guy who wants to ban out of town shopping centers declares it is not about banning things.
Funny how socialists don’t consider it coercion, when it is what they would do if they were in power.
The article specifically said as fast as can be walked in 15 minutes
I’m currently a 20minute walk from my work (actually 20 steps…I work at home) and a 20 minute walk to the grocery store. But I am a 40 minute walk to the nearest bus stop
Considering the fact I can no longer ride a bicycle it a problem. Public transportation is a waste of time and money, it always need to needs to be subsidized. Most of the stores I shop are 4 miles from where I live, good restaurants not so much, Medical care hardly. Places of worship limited.
Wow you are for governmental control over your life which according to history has ALWAYS been disastrous you naivete are astonishing!
Downtown Minneapolis, where they burned down all the stores.
Welcome to 1950 Britain, we didn’t own a car, all the shops were on the corner and across the street and if you wanted to visit grandma, you walked.
Sounds like 1850, 1950 & 2050 will be very similar.
Seems more like Regression rather than Progression
And for some reason, people abandoned this idyllic lifestyle as soon as they could afford to buy a car.
Another aspect of the problem: how many people today can say that their friends, or their family, all live within 15 minutes’ walk?
Or even in the same country…
The (US) Census Bureau has a nifty tool called On The Map that shows where people work in relationship to their homes. So you can draw a random shape on the map and it will show you where all the people who live in the shape travel to work, or it can show you where all the people who work in the shape live.
By studying a lot of areas, I’ve concluded that people live where they want to live, and they work where they find jobs. At one point in time I was driving 50 miles a day to work. Since my wife and I worked in different cities, there was no way to reduce the aggregate miles we were driving aside from one or both of us getting different jobs.
The high quality jobs that matter and propel the economy forward aren’t a dime a dozen. If both husband and wife have such jobs, the great probability is that they are not working within 15 minutes of each other.
The other thing is kids. Demographic collapse is happening now in many places because people have urbanized. The problem isn’t as bad in the USofA because of the suburbs.
The real problem isn’t over population, it is the looming population collapse. link
Technology isn’t easy. In spite of massive efforts, neither China nor Russia can produce high performance computer chips. For instance, all the electronics in Russia’s military (except for the ancient stuff) equipment rely on components manufactured elsewhere. Similarly, the equipment China uses to build low and mid level chips comes from Germany.
The people needed to develop, or even just to maintain, technology aren’t a dime a dozen. You need a certain population size just to ensure that you have enough sufficiently talented people to at least maintain the level of technology necessary for modern civilization.
Fifteen minute cities will lead to faster population collapse. As far as I can tell, that will lead to the collapse of civilization. Anyone who thinks that’s OK doesn’t know their history.
There was one you socialist that I talked with during college, he was convinced that agriculture was the biggest mistake mankind ever made. He believed that all of man kind should be forced to return to a hunter gatherer lifestyle.
Right – him first then.
Read Mark Sisson. His perspective is that from the advent of agriculture, MAN has been devolving due to the ability of LESS ABLE people to live (survive) and reproduce.
Looking at “the homeless”, “teachers”, liberals and politicians, I must agree with him.
And anyone who doesn’t know their history is doomed to repeat it
Unless they can find someone else who had a more unpleasant history, in which case they will attempt to repeat that.
For most of my life, I have found a job, then moved to where the job is.
That’s part of the gain for them: our isolation from the people in our lives.
This is really nonsense. No-one is advocating locking people in to 15 minute walkable zones. What they are suggesting is that urban environments where you can reach most of what you need on a daily basis by foot (or bike) are nicer to live in, and reduce through car traffic, thus lowering pollution of all sorts. But the idea is not to ban people from leaving such areas, its to make policy changes so that such areas come about. The argument is that people actually prefer such neighborhoods.
If you look at London, as a for instance, you can see this is correct. Would you rather live on the A12 coming in to London, or the Commercial Road, or would you prefer Hampstead, Belsize Park or Primrose Hill or St Johns Wood, all of which will qualify as 15 minute neighborhoods, and which have evolved and remained that way without any compulsion.
The advocates (as in Oxford, UK) do want to see a financial levy on city center through traffic. This is entirely reasonable. Through traffic imposes costs without benefits on those who live and work in the trafficked neighborhoods. Its entirely reasonable to structure policy to give people incentives not to drive through the Oxford High Street on the way from one side of the city to the other.
As for Ms Anderson herself, she is a member of the AfD and Pegida. Both have elements in them which are the reasonable expression of German public anxieties. But both have more considerable components which will send shivers down the spines of anyone with any acquaintance with 20C German history.
Unhinged rants like the one Ms Anderson is reported as indulging in on the subject of 15 minute cities are very much the second.
Some people desperately need to someone else to control every aspect of their lives.
Very sad state of being… not human, though.
…therefore, there is no justification for compulsion, which is the crux of my (and presumably most people’s) objections to this idea.
Yes, and just look at the ‘through traffic they have’
Just the number of red buses enetering leaving those places ecvery day will be in the 100’s of thousands
You are objecting to something which is not happening. There is no compulsion. At most there is charging which creates incentives. No different from charging for parking. Or a congestion charge. No-one has ever proposed locking people in their immediate neigborhoods.
We have accepted for many decades now that we cannot all just drive and park unrestrictedly. Now people are saying something more positive, that car restrictions need to be accompanied by planning to make the areas people live in better oriented to serving needs which, before the restrictions, people might have had to travel for.
I haven’t accepted that I am not free to do anything legal. You are saying we all should be restricted by who? People like Khan? Do you think he has your interests at heart? I think he is about to find out what his dictatorial attitude leads to, it could even be death. He is pressing the limit now. London could well end up like Gaza soon, it has already gone far too far.
Of course you are free to do anything legal.
What is being proposed does not prevent that. It is a change in the law. Its no different from parking meters, no-parking stretches of streets, speed limits, congestion charging, MOT inspections in the UK, toll roads, insurance requirements, drink and drive laws…etc, etc.
There is nothing to say that there should be no restrictions imposed on car use by the elected authorities. There are already a great many. The Oxford pattern of charging for car traffic across defined zones is just another of these. There is no reason why traffic legislation has to be frozen at a given point in time, any more than (for instance) regulations about sales of financial services should be.
You are free to do anything legal. Said every totalitarian who was ever born.
I love how you socialists go on and on about how free it is to obey all the laws that you have imposed on people.
In your mind, if there are some restrictions, therefor nobody should object to more restrictions. In your minds there are two alternatives. Complete government control of everything, or anarchy.
I am not a socialist. No, I do not think the presence of some restrictions justifies any restrictions. No, I do not think there are two alternatives, government control or anarchy.
I think that charging for some trips, which is what the 15 minute neighborhood is, is just another traffic regulation, no different from others such as parking and speed limits, and as reasonable as them. It is ridiculous to think this is enslavement or any great restriction on freedom. You might as well demand an end to speed limits on the grounds they are enslavement.
Like it or not we live in a society under laws. The question is whether any of them proposed are great restrictions on our freedoms. This is not.
Funny, I’m thinking you might have managed to delude yourself into thinking that you don’t want government to control everything. Unfortunately, the things you claim that you want government to do, bely this claims.
“is just another traffic regulation,”
If one regulation exists, more must be better. Said every totalitarian ever born.
I just love it how you socialists spend all your time thinking of restrictions to place on other people, and then declaring that everyone should love you because these “restrictions” are for their good.
First you claim that there is no compulsion, then you go on and on about all these driving restrictions that are going to be necessary.
Can you guarantee that there will be no compulsion? No? Once they are in place the temptation to use compulsion will be there at every opportunity. So don’t put them in place – if there is a need for shops to be within a short walk then shops will be built to service that need, this is the way of things – don’t start creating ghetto’s just because you can.
They are not creating ghettos. They are simply imposing charges on some kinds of trips. There is compulsion, of course there is, but its a minor addition to all the other compulsions that are used to regulate car use.
I don’t understand why everyone gets so excited about this, when the London Congestion Charge passes without a murmur. When parking meters and double yellow lines are fine all over the country. When toll roads are common in lots of countries and no-one objects to them.
You all have this crazed fantasy that this is about confining people to some little areas around where they live. Of course it is not! It is just charging for some kinds of trips. Take a train, bus, bike, taxi wherever you want.
Its not even charging you for going from A to B by car. Its only charging you for going from A to B by a particular kind of route. The objections and mischaracterizations of it are truly hysterical.
“ confining people to some little areas around where they live.”
Which is why these are cropping up all over Oxford.
Nah.. no compulsion at all !!
Your naivete reaching the galaxy class as you ignore how easily government will grow in power over you once their government plan is in place.
You are no friend of liberty.
I just love how he justifies these new regulations by declaring that
1) We already have regulations, so who can complain if we add a bunch more.
2) They sound reasonable to him.
No, Michel. The objections are not hysterical.
On ULEZ for example, if the place you are starting from (usually your home) is inside the charging zone, then it doesn’t matter where your destination is, you will still get charged, even if the journey is only a short one. That is the difference between the recently expanded ULEZ and the congestion charge. Few people live in central London, and because the public transport there is relatively good, many of them don’t need cars.
Out in the sticks of somewhere like Bexley, though, there are often no practical alternatives to the car. But people already strapped for money can’t afford to pay these charges. So, they are already, to all intents and purposes, trapped inside a small radius of their homes. Those are the people who are, quite rightly, up in arms about all this. (And those of us who would be next on the list if this goes any further).
IF 15 minute cities, neighborhood and anything else made sense they would be everywhere. The reason they do not is because they are not sustainable, unless by fiat and subsidies.
In your second sentence you left out a crucial term, yet. Charging for access to things is compulsion you just don’t realize it, yet.
“Get off my lawn” syndrome.
“”This is entirely reasonable. “”
Nonsense
see my reply with the map of Oxford attached – is Michel lying because of ignorance or some other reason…..
It’s ideological
Not lying. Just have opinions which differ from you. Strativarius, its some time since I was in Oxford, maybe things have changed. When I was last there through traffic congestion was a real and unpleasant reality.
What they are suggesting is anti-democratic.
It does not have public approval, ergo it’s authoritarian and imposed on people.
Oxford….
“A decision will be made on November 29, and is the date for the cabinet decision. following a consultation which closed earlier this month.
But Councillor Enright told the Sunday Times: “It’s going to happen definitely.”
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-will-divide-city-15-minute-neighbourhoods/
Nothing to add, michel???
Not a fan of democracy?
They are all elected councillors, so the decision is as democratic as any made in a representative democracy. That’s how councils and parliaments work. You could argue that on some matters there should be direct democracy, a referendum. Not sure how I feel about it. If a council were to go for a referendum I would not disagree with that.
But local councils in the UK very rarely put things to referendums. There is a provision for Parish Councils which lets people with a certain number of signatures to compel a vote on a proposition. Don’t know whether that applies to City Councils as well. Presumably not or the opponents would have triggered it.
Generally I feel that restricting car and truck traffic from city centers, especially when its through traffic, is quite reasonable.
If they were to start really restricting travel itself, that is, restricting public transport travel or bike or foot travel too, that would be a different matter. I would oppose that very strongly. But the 15 minute neighborhood is not doing that. Its just about, by a policy of incentives, making it easier not to have to travel to get things you routinely need, while leaving everyone free to travel as they wish, just not necessarily by car. Or, only by car if you are prepared to pay a charge. I can’t see the problem with that.
The public can always vote out the councillors if they wish. I think that did happen in Canterbury, if I recall correctly. That’s the usual remedy in a representative democracy.
And if the council voted to bring back slavery, I have no doubt michel would find a way to not only justify it, but celebrate the new freedom that all the slaves are enjoying.
They represent the power of an organization you MORON which can be used against YOU anytime they want to
Democracy is everyone working together to implement the socialist fantasies.
Once these restricted areas are established, I hope we can re-wild them by restoring the once-native population of wolves.
You don’t understand, michel has a vision of a perfect society. Since everyone wants to live in a perfect society, it is therefor democratic for michel to use government to force everyone to live in the perfect society he dreams of.
I don’t dream of any perfect society. I am just saying that the 15 minute city concept, as proposed in Oxford, is none of the things you are all alleging it is. And if its wrong, it will get reversed, and the councillors who passed it will be kicked out. Every four years (I think).
I seem to be the only one around here who thinks English local democracy actually works. In my experience, it does.
Of course not..
Just bow down to your masters, little low-end citizen.. plebs, I think they used to be called.
Serfs.
You can believe anything you want to. On this site we demand data.
Others have given you examples of the problems your socialist fantasies would cause.
Your only come back has been to first complain that more regulations can’t be bad because we already have regulations, and then to declare that since these proposals seem reasonable to you, nobody else has grounds to complain.
And of course, the only solution that things that are unpleasant is for government to completely control what other people are allowed to do.
There is traffic congestion because people want to drive at that time in that place. They think that is the best choice for them. They just want other people not to drive at that time and place.
In his mind, happiness is being told what to do.
This is utter nonsense. I think local democracy in England works fairly well. When a council goes off the rails it gets voted out in a few years, and people get things back again. That is real democracy.
Actual real “representative democracy” is where the representatives DO NOT DO what the “represented” do not want therefore it will not take a “few years” to undo what they did.
“”The advocates (as in Oxford, UK) do want to see a financial levy on city center through traffic. This is entirely reasonable.
Yes. your assertion is reasonable but has been entirely eliminated over the last 20 and 30 years by infrastructure improvements.
There is no ‘through traffic’ or any requirement for ‘through traffic’ because Oxford has a very capable ‘ring road’ and large bypasses in the shape of the A34, A40, M40and the A420
Nobody in their right minds would drive through or into the centre of Oxford unless they ‘had business there’
And that ‘business traffic’ is delivering the stuff and people which enables the whole idea of a 15 minute city to take shape,
forgot to add my picture…
That shopping centre is right in the top half of the large O on your map
Oxford also has a very large modern shopping centre right in the middle of the city, with large stores like John Lewis and others spread over 4 floors which presumably the City Council gave approval for. Seems like lack of joined up thinking going on somewhere.
More and more government is nothing more than the will of the bureaucracy. The voters have no say in the matter.
+100
How true that is becoming
At least the UK partially escaped from the Brussels unelected bureaucrat.
Many councils still feel the NEED to follow their dictates, though
‘Partially’ escaped? I’m not sure we ever left at all – ‘close alignment’ to keep the trade agreements in place seems like a very poor argument considering the many countries around the world that have trade agreements with the EU and no ‘close alignment’. The remainers in Parliament who appear to be completely dominant now are just keeping things ticking along until they can quietly rejoin and turn us into a Paris suburb! The world is nuts.
If that is such as pleasant way to live, how come most people choose not to live in areas that meet the 15 minute criteria? Sure, there are people who like to live in the middle of big cities, but most people live outside the crowded center city. Also you will see that real estate prices are very high in small parts of big cities and in certain suburban areas. The vast majority of people who live in big cities are not wealthy and do not live like the celebrities you see on TV.
What they are choosing is space and lack of traffic. Its just that the lack of traffic and the way the suburbs are organized you have to drive everywhere, and mostly where you have to drive the route is through some other neighborhood. People can still have space and lack of traffic even if the role of the car changes, and changes in the role of the car would improve life for all of us.
Making it less necessary to use cars to get everywhere and do anything is not dictatorial, compulsory, authoritarian or any of those things. Any more than parking meters are.
I see Michael. Look at the centre of Bristol as an example. All the big shops are closing, very few people want to shop there because one cannot park, and even if you choose the car parks they are eye wateringly expensive. All the road are laned for cycles and buses (of which there are very few), poorer people have to pay a CLZ charge of £9, there are penalty cameras everywhere, no proper route signage, endless blocked off streets, diversions of major routes that are miles long, and the city virtually cannot be crossed N-S without the clz charge. Anyone who is visiting has no chance to avoid anything, and usually get fined for something. Is that what you want? There are of course changes to speed limits every few hundred meters, and severe inforcement. Basically driving there is hell!
I don’t know Bristol. Maybe they have done a terrible job of planning transport in that city. Its not a reason for getting all paranoid about the concept of the 15 minute neighborhood, pretending its all kinds of things it is not. The idea that there is some deep plot behind it to do with locking everyone down in tiny areas with no transport out of any kind is just idiotic. No-one is trying to do that.
It sounds from your description of Bristol as if access by car and parking is not going to be practical whatever they do, there not being enough capacity, but that they have not addressed the issue of how to provide cheap and comfortable access to the stores.
Nothing to do with the 15 minute concept, which has more to do with what is available in neighborhoods, and which starts with the recognition that just restricting car travel without doing other things is not the answer.
You live in a world with your eyes closed, and obviously have a great NEED to FEEL you are being controlled.
Forcing people to live in the ideal societies that the socialists have designed, is not dictatorial, compulsory or authoritarian.
Of course it is dictatorial, compulsory or authoritarian. Or all three. Was in the Soviet Union, China, lots of other places. Was often genocidal.
But that is not the UK situation at all. In the UK it is and has been for centuries elected councillors serving at the will of the people, passing ordinances which can be reversed, and often are as the result of elections.
Why are you all getting so excited about what is just another road use regulation and charging regime? What is so special about pay to drive directly from A to B, or drive there for free using the Ring Road?
Like most socialists, michel believes that as long as government is doing something he agrees with, it can’t possibly be doing something wrong.
Tell that to former residents of East Germany.
I worked in a building that took almost 15 minutes to walk from end to end. There was no way the 12,000 employees could all walk less than 15 minutes to work. Because if they could there would be no room for the stores and restaurants. You will never listen to reason so it’s not worth arguing with you.
You all need to get it into your heads what the 15 minute concept is. As in Oxford. Its a couple of things.
One, its charging for travelling from A to B on some particular routes. While it being free on other routes. For instance, A to B through the city by car is charged, but go by the ring road by car and its free.
Second, its trying by policy to favor the siting of things we use all the time, stores, post offices etc, within 15 minutes walk of residents.
Its not about banning you from using things which are further away. Or about driving to them when they are further away. Its not necessarily charging to get to them when they are further away, only charging if you go by some routes. Its not about stopping you from travelling to anywhere. It does not ban the use of any routes, it just charges for them, and only then if made by car.
You want to bike or walk across Oxford, do it free. You want to take a bus, do so. You want to drive, do it by all means, but there is a charge.
You are all getting hysterical about fantasies about what the concept is. Look at the facts, its not what you think it is.
Someone above gives a photo of a bollard and says this is compulsion. Yes, some streets are getting closed to cars. Some streets are one way – you could have posted a no entry sign and complained this is compulsion.
What do you all want? What traffic regulation do you think is legitimate? Are you all anarchists and want to allow driving and parking with no regulation at all?
If you’re talking about a small area here and there in large cities, then people can set that up if they want. I’ve got to believe that if people wanted 15 minute cities they would be available right now for people like you. Since they do not really exist I’m pretty sure that there is not a large enough demand to make it happen. The only way it will happen is if the people let authoritarian governments force it to happen.
You don’t understand, those who choose not to live in such areas have been brainwashed by the capitalists. They no longer know what is in their best interests. That’s why government is justified into forcing these people to live as the socialists want them to live. They will thank the socialists later.
OK, you think it is good. You want to buy a spare part for something in your home, today, as you cannot manage without. Is it within 15 minutes? Usually the other side of London on an industrial estate, miles from houses. Remember in such a city, no buses or tubes. A long, long walk then!
You don’t make transport policy for a city the size of London by catering to hypothetical cases occuring once every decade.
If you want to have a city that caters to real people, then you do need to support once a decade events, because such events happen to real people, every day, by the millions.
And that is why socialism always fails, because the so called best and brightest can’t be bothered to design a city that meets the needs of actual people.
You don’t design transport policy for a city to cover the claimed inconvenience of a hypothetical someone who may sometime in the future want to drive from one part of London to another without using the ring road. When that may never happen, and when if it does, he can just do it and pay the charge.
You want to redesign a transport policy for London so that some hypothetical guy can avoid having to spend 10-20.00 to drive through it to get to the other side, when he could perfectly well drive around it for free?
This is nuts.
I live some distance from my nearest major town. When I go there I always consider what is the best route to reach my destination (in almost all cases there are more than 2 choices that can make sense) which varies according to purpose and to the current state of traffic. If I am headed for somewhere beyond the town I do not attempt to drive through the middle of it. Only very rarely do I have to pay for parking. I don’t need any incentive beyond a more pleasant, faster journey to avoid adding to congestion in the centre of town any more than is strictly necessary to get where I need to be.
All I need is to be able to view the state of traffic. If it’s really dire (probably caused by some emergency or bad roadworks), I may not make the trip at all or at least I will delay it significantly until traffic abates, unless it is e.g. for a dental appointment that I would be foolish to miss, as getting another is almost impossible without a major delay.
Modern technology allows me to do this. I don’t need 15 minute cities.
If it’s entirely voluntary as you believe, then there is no need for government to force it on anyone. So why all the mandates?
Its not ‘all the mandates’. In Oxford, the only thing is a charge to drive directly across areas to get to other areas, when its free to make the same trip by the ring road.
The reason for the charges is, of course, to funnel traffic through the ring road. The reason for the 15 minute neighborhood concept is to make the traffic funnelling regulations less inconvenient.
What mandates exactly are you talking about? Stop making stuff up!
So if I start on the Botley Road and need to get to the John Radcliffe hospital I am supposed to drive 8.5 miles via the A34 and A40 round the North of town, instead of 3.4 miles on the direct route. Adding to fuel consumption, and traffic on the main roads which will become heavily congested by carrying all the traffic trying to get from one part of town to another, in addition to the bypassing traffic not visiting Oxford. The closer to the centre you start from the further you need to drive to get to somewhere not in your zone because you have to get to the edge first – and return from there afterwards.
Hmm, I can’t see the sense in that.
You can still drive direct. Pay the fee and do it. Just like you can still park in the city center. Find a meter.
I don’t know whether they have got the layout of the zones right. I am not defending that, but am defending the concept of charging for car travel on some routes but not others in order to reduce congestion on the charged routes.
You are not being stopped from driving your preferred way. Just charged for it. As in London, Congestion Charge. Its not stopping cars, its charging for them.
Would you abolish the Congestion Charge? What about parking, would you abolish meters? What about the toll bridge to Wales, is that either free or you are being enslaved?
It adds to road miles, and therefore to pollution and congestion. It merely stops congestion from occurring at crossover points between zones, but instead concentrates it onto arteries to the permitted periphery and around the periphery. What is the logic of that?
The same logic as astronomically increasing costs so that industry moves to other countries that still use coal to power their manufacturing.
So long as they are not disturbed in their country dachas, the “progressives” don’t care what happens to the deplorables like us.
“This is really nonsense. No-one is advocating locking people in to 15 minute walkable zones.” You really don’t know history do you? Your reading comprehension is also lacking.
Your ignorance of past history of governments over the people indicates that you are almost begging to be abused by them.
Of course, if you are a (multi) millionaire you can afford to live in Hampstead, Belsize Park or St John’s Wood in a family home with a garden.
That is definitely not me!
Any major network reporting this? No I didn’t think so! Europeans probably don’t dial into catch such speeches. They’ve seen too much utter nonsense out of the EU Chief Gynecologist Van Der Leyden and other exciting personages
They are reporting the news, not fantasies of the rabid right.
The reason no-one is upset about busses, local shops and ring-roads is that it’s not a great conspiracy to imprison people in concentration camps.
If people really hated the odea of charging lorries for driving through congested residential areas they wouldn’t vote for it.
Funny you never mention the rabid left or for that matter the loony left? My view that are far more rabid then anyone on the right.
Yes, 4 years of Russia “collusion” with TRUMP! was NEVER NEWS, since it was always Democrat and FBI disinformation.
That’s because, like most socialists, his ideal world involves much more government control.
He views those who disagree with more government as a threat to his more perfect world.
Gee, I used to enjoy the feisty sceptical resistance your father contributed to this site, and your own writings, too, some time ago. Since the real purpose for the climate meme has revealed itself as a false front for a much more dire plan in the works for ‘managing’ the billions of us, by a small coterie of billionaires and elite friends, I would have thought you ‘d be even more girded for for the good fight.
This new structure of governance differs greatly from what it once was. It’s not the Right against the Left anymore. Indeed, most particularly in UK, there has been a homogenization of ideology. Right and Left push the exact same ruinous plan. Covid lockdowns taught them all that more coercive central planning is doable quickly. The miracle of electronics is harnessable to control electricity consumption and everything else in a plebe’s life.
Because its virtually there now, are you comfortable relying on the goodwill and capabilities of your governors? Do you not recognize that the party you vote for is now Labour in name only. A friend of mine in college who got a summer job in an abattoir told me that sheep were the hardest to get into the corral at the plant – they seemed to sense something terrible going on inside. Cattle not so much.
This argument is so absurd. It’s really obvious that no one on either side has ridden a bicycle in their adult life. A basic 10 or 12 speed bike will easily go 15 miles per hour. For the sake of discussion let’s consider a leisurely pace of 12 mph. That’s 4 miles (6.5 km) in 15 minutes.
Most cities are already 15-minute cities. Manhattan Island is only two miles across. It’s only five miles from Central Park to the Battery.
Now if they didn’t include the bicycle and said you had to be able to walk everywhere in 15 minutes then there would be something to talk about.
The fact is most people don’t want to walk (let alone ride a bicycle). I live about 1/4 mile from an elementary school. There are five parents nearby who take their kids to school. One walks and the others drive. And the one who walks doesn’t walk if it might rain.
Yes, agreed. Manhattan is already a 15 minute city, always has been. The suburbs are what is not, where a car is a real necessity.
15 mph is not a leisurely pace on a bicycle, other than a road bike. Yes, you can go 15 mph under good conditions, but I’m sure you will not be the only person on the road and there will be intersections with traffic lights of some sort.
Again only if you are young and fit. The real plan is to kill everyone over 40 or so. Great, murder by dictat!
I thought 21 was the cut off age. Logan, where did you get to. Stop running.
If you really feel this, you need to get help. Nothing like this is going on at all. You sound both depressed and deluded in this post.
Google Maps appears not to assume more than about 10mph even for a dedicated cycleway with no other traffic.
Yes, I should think an average speed of 10mph is way too high for most people on most routes. 15mph is a young man on a lightweight machine and a clear road, its not an older woman on a heavy Dutch ‘two person fiets’ with a couple of paniers.
So I must ride a bike with a false leg, serious arthritis and vertigo? You must be a moron!
No, you probably get a disabled permit. Presumably you already have one for parking?
HA HA HA, again that means people will have to ask the GOVERNMENT for paper excuse which rational people would just figure out on their own.
You are someone who wants to suck at the tits of the government all day.
There are already in almost all UK cities disabled parking permits, which exempt you from parking meter charges.
Do you want to abolish them on the grounds that you have to apply to local government for one?
Or do you want to abolish the meters?
What exactly are you objecting to?
Where I live getting a disabled parking permit is a joke. Most difficult part is actually waiting on your appointment to get into see the doctors who hand them out like candy. Word is out on the street who to go see for your “chronic pain” so they’ll say you need one. Most people use back pain because it’s easy to fake and hard to disprove. Case in point I have a couple bulging disc and fight sciatic nerve pain. An MRI will show the bulging disc but my sciatic nerve pain? They have to take my word on that It’s bad enough some days I don’t want to get out of my chair but other days it’s just a low grade nagging pain that doesn’t impact my day much. No, I haven’t gotten a disabled parking permit but I can see the day in my future when I will need one.
My point? People take advantage of the system, put in a bunch of pay meters that can be avoided with a simple disabled sticker and everyone will have a disabled sticker. Our meters don’t differentiate between able and disabled, you pay regardless. People here are cheating for the up front parking at all the local businesses.
You must not have heard of this new thing called a bus.
Was you answer in jest or do you think he can walk the 3/4 mile or a kilometer to the bus?
Exceptions will be made for those with infirmities. Which form of euthanasia would you prefer?
Which form of euthenasia? Oh, how about massive explosion whilst enjoying PMQ’s in Parliament? Yes, I’d like to choose the Guy Fawkes option please!
I see that in your ideal world, nobody has to stop for traffic, or pedestrians.
Or the hundreds of cyclists who are now clogging up the streets.
I really don’t recall having seen many cyclists in Manhattan. There’s no provision for parking them, and in many parts they would simply get nicked. It’s no Den Haag, which was reconstructed with cycling in mind – I used to have a pleasant 6km commute (unless the weather was foul) across parkland near the Huis ten Bosch for a good part of the way, and a virtually door to door bus and tram alternative, so taking the car was only if a trip out of the office was scheduled or the weather was so bad that any wait at a stop was to be avoided.
You missed the main event.
When I was in my 40’s I occasionally biked to work in good weather, 9 miles took me almost an hour using bike lanes when I could drive it in 15 minutes. Something about obeying the rules of the road slows bikes down. You know things like stopping at a stop sign, checking traffic then getting back up to speed again when it was safe to go just to stop at the red light and wait for it to turn green again. Sure I could of knocked off some time by acting like most cyclist and breaking all the rules but I like living without getting hit by a car more than I wanted to make time.
I wasn’t in great shape when doing this but I was riding 3-4 times a week after work for exercise so I kept a decent pace. Actually gave it up because we had no shower at work and I couldn’t stand the smell of myself all day so decided to stick with after work rides where I could shower when done.
So Gaza is a 15 minute city, no? (was)
Absolutely. So is South Central Los Angeles. I haven’t been able to identify any city that is not already a 15-minute city.
What is the percentage of Los Angeles that is a 15 minute city? I’ve stayed in plenty of cities in my life, and you can’t get everything in a 15 minute radius. And unless you want to eat at the same few restaurants for the rest of your life, you will be walking more than 15 minutes. And don’t say public transit and bicycles make the radius bigger. Those are only faster for trips of an hour or more. You can walk to a 15 minute destination by the time your bus picks you up or you get your bicycle unlocked and onto the street through the crowd.
Yet a group of people were unhappy with that awesome 15 minute city set up……
That was too easy.
“I haven’t been able to identify any city that is not already a 15-minute city.”
Ok, so there is absolutely NO NEED to introduce any legislation to control people in those cities.
Everybody no wants to stick to their 15 minute zone/ghetto, right !
No need for any new rules or regulations.
No need for charges for leaving your area.
No need for road barricades to stop traffic.
and until recently, it had a nice walking subway system- making it easy to get to hospitals and schools
Most subways system have devolved in to risk form of travel because the left think enforcing the laws on the books is raciest.
And pick up a nice, slightly used AK-47 on the way.
Here in Portugal it’s been years since we have “Citizen’s Card” (euphemisms are dreadful) with some sort of chip on it. One day they’ll be replaced by RFID chips, maybe.
climate alarmism is like water torture
Unfortunately, the people who picture themselves as elite are thinking of this as a religion and the only way to stop them might turn out to be a violent revolution. I don’t want to name names, but there are some evil people (pychopath pedophile billionaires) who believe it is their right to enslave the rest of us
The trap for the climate skeptic is to lapse into reflex opposition to all change. The idea that the 15 minute city will have any effect on the world’s climate is absurd.
All the same, the idea that neighborhoods where people live work and play would be improved by less car and truck traffic, and particularly less through traffic, is quite sensible. Given a choice, other things being equal, people avoid heavy traffic neighborhoods, and if you stand by a heavy traffic through route in any city you can immediately see why.
Climate alarmism is absurd. But that does not mean that unrestricted use of cars on all streets is a sensible policy. The problem with it is that lots of individual choices, to drive, end up with us all living in a situation we would not have chosen had it been put to a vote.
The cost of unrestricted freedom for cars is huge. There are about 1.3 million traffic deaths a year, globally, and several times that in serious injuries. In the UK its about 1,700.
If we were proposing this as a transport policy, starting from scratch, there is no way it would get approved today. If we had a couple hundred bus or train deaths there would be an outcry.
We should be open to changing the role of the car. Not because climate, though.
I other words you think your own freedom is worthless? Deluded doesn’t come anywhere near utter stupidity! If you are not free you will die quite quickly. Look at the lockdown damage from a few weeks, just imagine a few years. Everyone would be totally off their heads, with no possibility of recovery. They may feed you mind altering drugs but these are all fatal, one way or another. Are you more than 10 years old, I rather doubt it?
This is nuts. I value my own freedom. I just don’t define it as being able to drive and park anywhere with no restrictions and no charges. I don’t understand why you think the 15 minute city concept is about lockdowns. It is not. You are free to drive, with a charge, or presumably with a disabled permit. You are also free to take a bus or train wherever you want, or to bike or walk wherever you want.
You say cycling is difficult for you. Well, get a disabled permit for driving, or maybe get an electric trike if you would prefer to cycle. The areas where you can drive in the Oxford plan, without incurring charges, are rather large, and in that plan you can drive anywhere at no charge by using the ring road.
It is hysterical to talk about this as making people die quite quickly, or as in the original piece, enslavement. Why is it enslavement that if you want to go from A to B you either use the ring road or pay a fee? It obviously isn’t. Any more that its enslavement for there to be an ordinance that you can only park at the meters in Broad St.
You poor deluded little twit. Come to the Midwest US and try cycling to get your groceries when there is a foot of snow on the ground and it’s -14F. Just because you can live in a small area and don’t care about getting around it does not mean that the rest of us want to live like hamsters. And freedom does mean that if I want to build a large store with a huge parking lot I can. And if people want to come shop at my store they can. That is freedom, not you disallowing vehicles because you want to walk around a city with no traffic.
Try 72 hours of nothin warmer that -22 F or going out for you supplies at -50, I use to live in such a places. Now I live where average midday temperature is 107 F. No one with a halve a brain goes biking in midday. When I could bike I would do it in early morning without much direct sun and even then Temps were in the high 90s and low 100s. It a three quarter mile walk to the nearest bus stop, my wife can no longer walk over 100 yards and if her balance problem are bad I push the wheel chair. Again we all live in supposedly free societies and it 15 minute cities made sense we would have them.
”You are free to drive, with a charge…”
LOL, you just don’t see it, do you.
The problem is that there are a lot of people who do define freedom as the ability to get where they want, when they want. You are quite willing to force everyone else to give up their freedom, so that you can have the socialist fantasy of your dreams.
It’s not his freedom he wants to get rid of, it’s yours. Your freedom to live in any way other than what the socialists want for you.
The trap for the socialist is to believe that whatever nonsense they have dreamed up for the rest of us are actually desirable, much less good.
If such place made sense and were wanted they would exist Are you that daft.
They do make sense in some circumstances, and already exist – there.
They don’t make sense in other circumstances, so – don’t.
Different countries have different circumstances, as do regions within those countries.
Those with reasonable means and adequate space and who prefer to keep themselves to themselves are quite happy to drive to the shops once a week for groceries. A week’s worth of groceries for a family is not something a woman with a growing young family is going to easily carry home in a 15 minute town|city. A fit and healthy man is going to have trouble carrying enough to keep a teenage boy fed for more than 38 seconds 🙁
Others may prefer to shop daily, eat out nightly, attend the theatre, or similar. Are a cinema, live theatre a recital hall and opera house included in the 15 minute city?
Having watched way too many British TV shows, the roots of the 15 minute city seem apparent.
In the Morse-verse of Oxford, there are sufficient establishments within 15 minutes bicycling distance of the colleges to keep one amused outside lectures and tutorials, along with adequate parks and a jolly nice river for some splendid rowing.
Miss Marple’s village has a butcher, a baker and candlestick maker, while Aidensfield has a friendly pub replacing the candlestick maker. And with an added loveable rogue.
In more genteel families, pater is either a man of independent means, or works in The City. One of the maids pops down to the shops to acquire cook’s ingredients for the family’s meals, and the butler ensures that the standards of the cellar are maintained.
There are, of course, those less well off, where Dad is a jolly chap who works at t’mill or down pit 27 hours a day, eight days a week for thruppence. and Mum looks after the 8 bairns The village’s high street still has 8 pubs, butcher, baker, grocer and post office.
Stereotypes aside, that apparently self-contained series of villages and market towns does appear to have been the norm for quite some time.
The equivalent US stereotypes are probably the “cow towns”, “gold towns”, large ranches like The Ponderosa and many little houses on the prairie.
Those towns all seemed to have a general store, 7 saloons and 2 undertakers.
They also seemed to be a half day trip from the ranch by buckboard, so much less of a 15 minute tradition.
You’re talking about the old ‘market town’ in the UK where there was a central town, with various shops, and a large catchment area of small farms and hamlets for 10 or 20 odd miles around it? Population increase and ribbon development ended that particular bucolic idyll. If city-dwelling woke activists are trying to rebuild some similar idyllic vision by government coercion then I don’t think it’ll end well.
Viewed from quite some way off in terms of physical distance, time, and (probably) reality, that does seem to be part of the sense of “Britishness”, and probably applies to much of central and western Europe as well. At least that’s what comes across from much British TV.
On a whistle-stop visit pre-covid, we were struck by how claustrophobic the English, French and Italian countryside are.
Australia is much drier and the early pastoralists had very large holdings acquired by “enterprising” means, so settlements are far less close. The small hamlets tended to be spaced about 10 miles apart, which is the stage distance for a Cobb and Co. (and other similar coach companies) horse team change.
We tend more to a 30 minute countryside – if you can reach another house in 30 minutes, it’s too close.
The past is a different country. We can mourn for it or view it through rose tinted glasses, but it’s gone.
On a vaguely philosophical note, why are downvotes used?
Upvotes are sort of “Yeah, that makes sense, but I can’t really add anything”, but why downvotes?
Are they like panto “Oh, NO it’s not”?
Monty Python’s contradiction?
“You have bad breath and your fashion sense is terrible”?
Surely, if one disagrees, it is better to say so, and state why. Otherwise, we are left wondering (a little) what somebody thought was wrong.
The impact, such as it was, of my musing about downvotes may have been muted by the actions of those kind souls who subsequently upvoted the parent comment from its former dizzying depth of -3.
The panto villain aspects of large negative numbers has some appeal, but the dribs and drabs are quite a mystery.
Come to think of it, the network of intersecting hub and spoke settlements still applies, but involves the longer distances enabled by cars, vans and lorries replacing walking, horses and cattle.
Agricultural mechanisation and consolidation has eliminated most of the old manual farm labour which used to provide the bulk of jobs.
There aren’t that many local jobs at t’mill nor down pit these days, either.
As somebody pointed out earlier, the single income family is also a thing of the past. What are the chances of a professional couple, and later their early working life children being able to find rewarding positions with suitable career progression within 15 minutes walk?
To quote Darryl Kerrigan – “tell ‘im ‘e’s dreamin’, son”
The better approach is a combination of building an appropriate road system which keeps high volume traffic out of residential and shopping areas, and sufficient off-street parking. Circumstances may not allow for this in many locations, though.
Sydney traffic is, by and large, rather horrid, but most country towns now have highways which bypass the main shopping area and residential areas. Sydney suburbs tend to be rather quiet for much of the day, apart from the inevitable periods when people are commuting to and from work, and the school drop-off and pick-up.
As an aside, few people have much of an understanding of the volume of deliveries required by the coffee shops and restaurants in a densely populated urban area.
It won’t happen luv, we won’t let it – there is only so far the blob can push
Please don’t fall for this.
https://www.ed.ac.uk/impact/research/futureproofing-societies-planet/15-min-cities-separating-reality-from-conspiracy
LOL see you just pointed out in a free society if people want them they can have them. What the article failed to point out most people don’t want them.
One other question I have it your in a neighborhood that goes this way and you property values drops because of said insanity and you situation does not allow you to walk, bike or have the ability to get to public transportation, will you get fair compensation? I highly doubt it.
roflmao.
They are talking about cycling .. yet in the example picture they post, of Downtown Lewes, there is one cyclist, at least ten cars.. people have parked having driven there.
You are not helping to support this scam, you do know that, don’t you !.
If places are already “15 minute cities” then NO EXTRA LEGISLATION is required, is it. !
If they wanted to have everywhere I want to go and buy things within such a city, it would need to be flattened and start again and be so expensive that a few £trillion would be chicken feed. What they mean is that you will have nothing, and be very sad indeed, preferably dead. There you really have the plan!
That 15-minute idea will become necessary because there won’t be enough storage space in that 400 square foot house or apartment we will be living in. Fresh air and exercise are good for you.
And how is this different than a prison with lipstick on it?
In a prison you cannot leave. This is about local hopping and pedestrianised areas.#
The better question would be how is this different to a very hungry caterpillar with lipstick on it?
The answer is the same – they are completely different – but the very hungry caterpillar is more sophisticated literature than this article.
“This is about local shopping and pedestrianised areas.”
Miss the edit function.
Normally don’t bother correcting my typos but anyone who believes this paranoid conspiracy will probably also believe that them Reds Under The Bed will force everyone to hop everywhere instead of using two feet.
No I thought you were referring to ‘Watership Down’ but I see you just buggered things up again. Oh well no harm done then.
“This is about local hopping and pedestrianised areas” That’s the lipstick.
” ….anyone who believes this paranoid conspiracy…” 15 minute cities is straight out of Agenda 21. This is another ‘conspiracy theory’ written and promulgated by the UN with backing by the Marxist cabal that is already happening in cities around the world at the beginning level.
Even prisons have exercise yards.
Oregon, (heavily in the Portland region) has been implementing this New Urbanism, Live/Work/Play, high density infill, walkable urban village nonsense for decades. Essentially always with hefty tax subsidies using deceitful municipal schemes like Tax Increment Financing.
With each and every failure it has continued unabated.
Every element of the scheme fails to come to fruition and yet there is no acknowledgement that the vision is reached.
Had to get an oil change when visiting a friend in Vancouver Washington. A Chevy dealer in Portland could get to it that day. I drove into Portland and noticed that every dealership or repair garage had 6 to 8 foot metal fencing with ELECTRIC fencing above, signs noting 1500 volts (I think). The 15 minute walkable crime ridden city allows for that level of fencing for business owners to protect their properties.
Lucky for me there was a nice restaurant next door where I had lunch while waiting for the car. The area was INFESTED with vermin, to use TRUMP’S term. Male, 6 ft, 185, reasonably fit, broad daylight, but what a sh!th@le of a “walkable” city, I didn’t want to walk around. Doors for the restrooms in the NICE restaurant had number code locks on them to help keep the vermin out.
Yep, that’s Portland.
I’m in China right now traveling and they already have 15 minute cities as a template. There are a multitude of high rise apartments combined with incredibly efficient public transportation systems. The convenience and speed in which you can get around the city and the country via high speed rail, subways, and taxis is the best I have experienced anywhere.
The cities are much cleaner, appear to have less crime, and far less vagrancy and open air drug abuse than in most of the US cities. Just sayin! The economy appears quit vibrant with more electric cars on the road than anywhere I’ve seen in the US. The US and Europe appear to be committing green energy suicide compared to China and India. China has wind farms but they appear like window dressing. Most of the hundreds of windmills I observed on flights were not producing much. The trade off is poor air pollution in China and India with the use of coal energy production.
And such a delightful justice system, too. None of this mucking about, wasting time and money on defense lawyers.
A 15 minute city means that when they come for you, you’ll have 15 minutes to “put your affairs in order” before the Zyklon-B finishes you off.
I’m with Christine.
Congratulations, I’m sure you’ll both be very happy!
I think I know where they got the idea for the 15 minute city: The old TV show, “The Prisoner” about a former secret agent that resigned, was kidnapped, gassed and wakes up in “The Village” where just about everything was within 15 minutes or so. Everything except freedom.
We already have a working prototype of a 15-minute city south of Florence, Colorado. Its best known as “Super-Max.”