7 ms·

No, 15-Minute Cities Aren’t a Threat to Civil Liberties

helsinkiandrew 4y ago
https://archive.ph/EehVC https://archive.ph/EehVC
elguyosupremo 4y ago
The thing I don't get about this concept is what about heavy industries, how do all the employees of a shipyard live within 15 minutes of it while still allowing room for all the people that support the shipwrights? It doesn't sound like a threat to civil liberties, it sounds like an agrarian, luddite pipe dream.
- xputer 4y ago
  Not everyone has to live within 15 min of their job, just most people or at least significantly more people than now. There will always be exceptions. The exception proves the rule as they say.
- thiht 4y ago
  "15 minutes" is about urban planning, not about control of the population. It doesn't mean you'll have an obligation to live within 15 minutes enclosure around your house. It means you'll be able to walk or bike to any necessity in 15 minutes, so it'll make your life easier. You can still go to your favorite convenience store half an hour away if you want, but you CAN instead go to a corner shop. Honestly as a European I fail to understand what's even controversial about that.
pangolinja 4y ago
Whenever some mainstream american outlet like Bloomberg says something is a conspiracy theory, I immediately err on the side of caution and assume that it actually IS a criminal conspiracy, and that there will be plenty of evidence within two years that turns this headline into another cautionary tale. 15 minute cities are a great idea if you are building a new city, not partitioning an existing urban landscape into monitored zones.
- sys42590 4y ago
  Promoting 15 minutes cities is a great way to reduce carbon emissions of the general population. If you want to look at it from a conspiracy perspective it allows humanity to slow down global warming slightly while corporations and wealthy people can still pump out as much carbon as they can afford and require. But from experience, living in a 15 minute city IS nice IF the infrastructure is good and crime is low. Still a good part of the workforce will need to commute outside of this 15 minute area, which needs further investment into rails and roads to bring blue collar workers quickly to factories and warehouses.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    Nobody is objecting to the idea of a walkable city. People object to the part where they won't be allowed to travel without a permit. I quoted this in another comment but I think it's worth repeating: "When [the traffic filters] are operating, private cars will not be allowed through the filters without a permit."[1] "Residents [of the area affected by the traffic filters] will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the traffic filters for up to 100 days per year"[1] 1: https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/roads-and-transport-connecting-oxfordshire/Strategic_Assessment_traffic_filter.pdf https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/road...
    - morelisp 4y ago
      > People object to the part where they won't be allowed to travel without a permit. If you stop and reflect for a few seconds you likely are already aware of this, but you already cannot drive a car anywhere in the city without a permit.
      - leereeves 4y ago
        Accepting that restriction doesn't mean we have to accept any and all restrictions. That said, I'm not familiar with UK driver's licenses - do they normally restrict where and when you can travel?
aww_dang 4y ago
As I recall the concern was related to limiting the number of automobile trips residents could take outside of their designated zones. The article did not attempt to address these concerns. Instead they heaped derision on "conspiracy theorists". I did a quick google search for supporting articles. Unsurprisingly, I was bombarded with "debunk" articles similar in tone. The top result was the WEF. Here's a citation from an aligned write-up: >They’re right that the traffic cameras will restrict their freedom to drive around town. https://slate.com/business/2023/02/15-minute-city-oxford-conspiracy-theory-cars-lockdown-explained.html#:~:text=They%E2%80%99re%20right%20that%20the%20traffic%20cameras%20will%20restrict%20their%20freedom%20to%20drive%20around%20town https://slate.com/business/2023/02/15-minute-city-oxford-con.... If people wish to live in dense urban communities, they can do so voluntarily. There's nothing wrong with individuals making these value judgments and finding the communities on a voluntary basis. The concerns are related to the use of coercion. The article talks past these concerns. Finally, the narrative of "climate lockdowns" has been advanced by the same voices. As have personal carbon credits connected to a social credit score and a central bank digital currency. Perhaps partisans paint these concerns as unhinged extremism because they have no way to legitimately address these concerns. Say what you will of the so called "extremist conspiracy theorists" here, but I wouldn't paint them as the authoritarians in this context. The dangers of these authoritarian policies should be plain to see. Attempting to talk past the concerns and malign them as nuttery feels dishonest. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajps.12501 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajps.12501 >Does more media censorship imply more regime stability? We argue that censorship may cause mass disapproval for censoring regimes. In particular, we expect that censorship backfires when citizens can falsify media content through alternative sources of information. We empirically test our theoretical argument in an autocratic regime—the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
- leereeves 4y ago
  Thank you for posting that Slate article. In it, I found a link to a government report about the plan in Oxfordshire[1], which says: "When [the traffic filters] are operating, private cars will not be allowed through the filters without a permit."[1] "Residents ... will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the traffic filters for up to 100 days per year"[1] So this "conspiracy theory" is in fact literally true, the planners admit it, and these articles are lying. https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/roads-and-transport-connecting-oxfordshire/Strategic_Assessment_traffic_filter.pdf https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/road...
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]
wolpoli 4y ago
As the saying goes, the devils are in the details. It's natural for people latch onto these speculative videos because it's unclear what policies will be justified within this 15-minute city movement. I agree with the article: The movement needs to be crystal clear on what's within scope and what's out of scope to alleviate fear and misinformation.
egberts1 4y ago
Restricting my automobile of my old area into some artificial 14-minute construct just to reduce my liberty is no conspiracy theory.
- thiht 4y ago
  That's not at all what this is about.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    Yes, it is. It is about the civic liberty far exceeding personal liberty.
egberts1 4y ago
It may not be a threat to civil liberty but it is most definitely a threat to PERSONAL liberty. This kind of stuff won't fly in United States, thankfully.
akomtu 4y ago
Concrete hellscapes is certainly a treat to freedom. They are designed to extract value from humans efficiently, while the end beneficiaries of this madness wisely choose to live on private islands, around the nature.
thecopy 4y ago
Reducing car-dependency is great. The car-dependent lifestyle and urban planning is the Cigarrettes of the 21st century. When/if we manage to move our socity away from that, we will look back and ask: What were we thinking?
ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
Wait, I thought the 15 minute city idea was about reasonable mixed-purpose zoning and public transit, and now it is about limiting car access to cities?
- morelisp 4y ago
  Some classes of people view anything that improves pedestrian and cyclist life and public transit to be fundamentally limiting access to cars.
pja 4y ago
“City blocks road to through traffic, drivers have to take ring road instead” is not usually headline news around the world, but here we are. I’m not sure why this story has resonated so strongly with the conspiracy theorists out there, but I guess it’s some wild cross-pollination between the idea that the world government is out to control everyone & hearing the phrase “15 minute neighbourhood” and jumping straight to the most insane conclusion possible.
- jfengel 4y ago
  The only place I've encountered this particular conspiracy theory is via articles debunking the conspiracy theory. I don't doubt that deep in the bowels of conspiracy theory web sites, they've found something to occupy their next fifteen minutes of mutual outrage. But has this actually appeared anywhere else, or is this just news outlets looking for some outrage to report on? I haven't seen it as a live usage. Not that my anecdote means anything; I try to live in a bubble that filters out the stupidest people. So I'm unclear if this is actually going to result in real pushback on urban planning, or just noise.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    I realize you might not have seen it if you filter out the stupidest people, but the stupidest people still have some of the loudest megaphones. https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1609255646993457153 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/16092556469934571...
    - jfengel 4y ago
      Oh. That one. Yeah, that's certainly it.
steponlego 4y ago
Yes they are. We already figured this scam out. It's a part of what used to be called Agenda 2020, now Agenda 2030 - corral everybody into cities. It's been openly discussed and apparently this program is being implemented in various ways, largely funded by Soros and WEF people who like to meddle in local politics. It's important to make people aware of what bureaucrats have decided is to be the future so people are at least informed. All this stuff's been on the UN and WEF's web sites for years, so I won't hear any talk about it being a conspiracy theory.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  You've already gone from globalist agencies to putting a person's name in there, do you want to go just that one step further and suggest anything "those people" have in common? You can willfully misread and misinterpret public documents all you want, but at least be honest about why you keep referring to "Soros and WEF people" like they're a shadowy cabal.
  - steponlego 4y ago
    Sure, I could easily detail the principal players and then break that down by, say, religion if you wish. Or how many citizenships they have. You might not like the hard data though. In fact I’m sure you wouldn’t.
    - aww_dang 4y ago
      I'm not sure why ID politics is frequently injected on this topic. Seems like a red herring designed to sidestep critics and derail the discussion.
      - pwinnski 4y ago
        The parent's conspiracy relies heavily on an ethno-religious component, which he dances around because it would give the game away.

https://archive.ph/EehVC https://archive.ph/EehVC

The thing I don't get about this concept is what about heavy industries, how do all the employees of a shipyard live within 15 minutes of it while still allowing room for all the people that support the shipwrights? It doesn't sound like a threat to civil liberties, it sounds like an agrarian, luddite pipe dream.

xputer 4y ago
Not everyone has to live within 15 min of their job, just most people or at least significantly more people than now. There will always be exceptions. The exception proves the rule as they say.
thiht 4y ago
"15 minutes" is about urban planning, not about control of the population. It doesn't mean you'll have an obligation to live within 15 minutes enclosure around your house. It means you'll be able to walk or bike to any necessity in 15 minutes, so it'll make your life easier. You can still go to your favorite convenience store half an hour away if you want, but you CAN instead go to a corner shop. Honestly as a European I fail to understand what's even controversial about that.

pangolinja 4y ago

Whenever some mainstream american outlet like Bloomberg says something is a conspiracy theory, I immediately err on the side of caution and assume that it actually IS a criminal conspiracy, and that there will be plenty of evidence within two years that turns this headline into another cautionary tale. 15 minute cities are a great idea if you are building a new city, not partitioning an existing urban landscape into monitored zones.

sys42590 4y ago
Promoting 15 minutes cities is a great way to reduce carbon emissions of the general population. If you want to look at it from a conspiracy perspective it allows humanity to slow down global warming slightly while corporations and wealthy people can still pump out as much carbon as they can afford and require. But from experience, living in a 15 minute city IS nice IF the infrastructure is good and crime is low. Still a good part of the workforce will need to commute outside of this 15 minute area, which needs further investment into rails and roads to bring blue collar workers quickly to factories and warehouses.
- leereeves 4y ago
  Nobody is objecting to the idea of a walkable city. People object to the part where they won't be allowed to travel without a permit. I quoted this in another comment but I think it's worth repeating: "When [the traffic filters] are operating, private cars will not be allowed through the filters without a permit."[1] "Residents [of the area affected by the traffic filters] will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the traffic filters for up to 100 days per year"[1] 1: https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/roads-and-transport-connecting-oxfordshire/Strategic_Assessment_traffic_filter.pdf https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/road...
  - morelisp 4y ago
    > People object to the part where they won't be allowed to travel without a permit. If you stop and reflect for a few seconds you likely are already aware of this, but you already cannot drive a car anywhere in the city without a permit.
    - leereeves 4y ago
      Accepting that restriction doesn't mean we have to accept any and all restrictions. That said, I'm not familiar with UK driver's licenses - do they normally restrict where and when you can travel?

aww_dang 4y ago

As I recall the concern was related to limiting the number of automobile trips residents could take outside of their designated zones. The article did not attempt to address these concerns. Instead they heaped derision on "conspiracy theorists". I did a quick google search for supporting articles. Unsurprisingly, I was bombarded with "debunk" articles similar in tone. The top result was the WEF. Here's a citation from an aligned write-up: >They’re right that the traffic cameras will restrict their freedom to drive around town. https://slate.com/business/2023/02/15-minute-city-oxford-conspiracy-theory-cars-lockdown-explained.html#:~:text=They%E2%80%99re%20right%20that%20the%20traffic%20cameras%20will%20restrict%20their%20freedom%20to%20drive%20around%20town https://slate.com/business/2023/02/15-minute-city-oxford-con.... If people wish to live in dense urban communities, they can do so voluntarily. There's nothing wrong with individuals making these value judgments and finding the communities on a voluntary basis. The concerns are related to the use of coercion. The article talks past these concerns. Finally, the narrative of "climate lockdowns" has been advanced by the same voices. As have personal carbon credits connected to a social credit score and a central bank digital currency. Perhaps partisans paint these concerns as unhinged extremism because they have no way to legitimately address these concerns. Say what you will of the so called "extremist conspiracy theorists" here, but I wouldn't paint them as the authoritarians in this context. The dangers of these authoritarian policies should be plain to see. Attempting to talk past the concerns and malign them as nuttery feels dishonest. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajps.12501 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajps.12501 >Does more media censorship imply more regime stability? We argue that censorship may cause mass disapproval for censoring regimes. In particular, we expect that censorship backfires when citizens can falsify media content through alternative sources of information. We empirically test our theoretical argument in an autocratic regime—the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

leereeves 4y ago
Thank you for posting that Slate article. In it, I found a link to a government report about the plan in Oxfordshire[1], which says: "When [the traffic filters] are operating, private cars will not be allowed through the filters without a permit."[1] "Residents ... will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the traffic filters for up to 100 days per year"[1] So this "conspiracy theory" is in fact literally true, the planners admit it, and these articles are lying. https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/roads-and-transport-connecting-oxfordshire/Strategic_Assessment_traffic_filter.pdf https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/road...

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]

wolpoli 4y ago

As the saying goes, the devils are in the details. It's natural for people latch onto these speculative videos because it's unclear what policies will be justified within this 15-minute city movement. I agree with the article: The movement needs to be crystal clear on what's within scope and what's out of scope to alleviate fear and misinformation.

egberts1 4y ago

Restricting my automobile of my old area into some artificial 14-minute construct just to reduce my liberty is no conspiracy theory.

thiht 4y ago
That's not at all what this is about.
- egberts1 4y ago
  Yes, it is. It is about the civic liberty far exceeding personal liberty.

egberts1 4y ago

It may not be a threat to civil liberty but it is most definitely a threat to PERSONAL liberty. This kind of stuff won't fly in United States, thankfully.

akomtu 4y ago

Concrete hellscapes is certainly a treat to freedom. They are designed to extract value from humans efficiently, while the end beneficiaries of this madness wisely choose to live on private islands, around the nature.

thecopy 4y ago

Reducing car-dependency is great. The car-dependent lifestyle and urban planning is the Cigarrettes of the 21st century. When/if we manage to move our socity away from that, we will look back and ask: What were we thinking?

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago

Wait, I thought the 15 minute city idea was about reasonable mixed-purpose zoning and public transit, and now it is about limiting car access to cities?

morelisp 4y ago
Some classes of people view anything that improves pedestrian and cyclist life and public transit to be fundamentally limiting access to cars.

pja 4y ago

“City blocks road to through traffic, drivers have to take ring road instead” is not usually headline news around the world, but here we are. I’m not sure why this story has resonated so strongly with the conspiracy theorists out there, but I guess it’s some wild cross-pollination between the idea that the world government is out to control everyone & hearing the phrase “15 minute neighbourhood” and jumping straight to the most insane conclusion possible.

jfengel 4y ago
The only place I've encountered this particular conspiracy theory is via articles debunking the conspiracy theory. I don't doubt that deep in the bowels of conspiracy theory web sites, they've found something to occupy their next fifteen minutes of mutual outrage. But has this actually appeared anywhere else, or is this just news outlets looking for some outrage to report on? I haven't seen it as a live usage. Not that my anecdote means anything; I try to live in a bubble that filters out the stupidest people. So I'm unclear if this is actually going to result in real pushback on urban planning, or just noise.
- morelisp 4y ago
  I realize you might not have seen it if you filter out the stupidest people, but the stupidest people still have some of the loudest megaphones. https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1609255646993457153 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/16092556469934571...
  - jfengel 4y ago
    Oh. That one. Yeah, that's certainly it.

steponlego 4y ago

Yes they are. We already figured this scam out. It's a part of what used to be called Agenda 2020, now Agenda 2030 - corral everybody into cities. It's been openly discussed and apparently this program is being implemented in various ways, largely funded by Soros and WEF people who like to meddle in local politics. It's important to make people aware of what bureaucrats have decided is to be the future so people are at least informed. All this stuff's been on the UN and WEF's web sites for years, so I won't hear any talk about it being a conspiracy theory.

pwinnski 4y ago
You've already gone from globalist agencies to putting a person's name in there, do you want to go just that one step further and suggest anything "those people" have in common? You can willfully misread and misinterpret public documents all you want, but at least be honest about why you keep referring to "Soros and WEF people" like they're a shadowy cabal.
- steponlego 4y ago
  Sure, I could easily detail the principal players and then break that down by, say, religion if you wish. Or how many citizenships they have. You might not like the hard data though. In fact I’m sure you wouldn’t.
  - aww_dang 4y ago
    I'm not sure why ID politics is frequently injected on this topic. Seems like a red herring designed to sidestep critics and derail the discussion.
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      The parent's conspiracy relies heavily on an ethno-religious component, which he dances around because it would give the game away.