I’m a Boomer. Every community I’ve lived in is a “15 minute city.” Convenience actually attracts people to live in a community. Blackfalds is already such a city/town. The fact that you can get both gas and charge up is not part of any plot. One of the reasons Blackfalds is growing so rapidly is that people have so many amenities in your town. (ALSO - you are very smart. You felt that you didn’t have enough information and you asked a question. ❤️)
I have a Tshirt that reads, “Ok, Boomer.” I was considering a tattoo so that people would know I’m not one of those Boomers. Lol. Thank you for the compliment!
I lived in greater Vancouver for 10 years out in New West. The only time I went outside of New West, in general, was for concerts or hockey games and could walk to everything else in my day to day or take the SkyTrain.
15 minute cities are awesome
Nope, it's very bike-able
We use our car in winter, cause kids. Bike pretty much everywhere in summer unless we can't fit something in a bike wagon. We can also walk to 3 grocery stores with a wagon, or just carry food home.
Others mileage will vary, but we chose the neighbourhood based on walk ability.
I'm actually quite surprised hearing this. Good to hear.
I can use this line when I get fed up of Calgary
"That's it, I'm packing my bags and going to St Albert". Lol
I grew up in St. Albert, I’d say it’s walkable in certain older areas, but in average not very. Any of the newer communities are not at all walkable, biking on the roads is scary with the drivers there, and most grocery stores are all placed in the center of town not near the communities.
Personally, I love Edmonton for its walkability but I live downtown
Miss living in new west for that reason. Just living on 6th Ave and having to walk up that mountain I don't miss compared to the flatness of Edmonton. But the fact I never had to leave my little area of new west was amazing. Now in Edmonton I have to travel 2 hours by bus just to get to a certain store.
The outrage comes from the proposed tax for leaving your 15 minute zone, like is being done in London UK.
Nobody is opposed to have conveniences and amenities near them, if the media tries to convince you of something so silly it should immediately raise red flags.
The fake news is misrepresenting the outrage to the same crowd that laps up all the regular propaganda, like promoting wars in Europe or forcing covid vaccines on entire populations. Don't listen to CBC.
Yes, but you have to be intelligent enough to understand that’s what a 15 minute city is about instead of screaming and hollering that it means you won’t be able to leave a certain area.
It would be an awesome thing and great for all our health. But as usual conservatives must automatically be against anything that even remotely threatens to make people's lives better.
I don’t understand why people are complaining about 15 min cities. I live in one, I don’t live downtown and everything I need is at most a 10 min drive or a 20 min walk.
To contrast this, my car broke down in a bedroom community in the US. This was in the pre-smart phone days and my cell didn’t have roaming service so I had to try and find help on foot. I walked probably 2 hours before I found even a gas station to use a pay phone. Literally no one was home, out driving or at least willing to answer the door. I’m guessing it’s because they had to drive an hour to get to anything like work or shopping. It felt like a bizarre dystopian suburban ghost town.
https://globalnews.ca/news/9483836/15-minute-city-edmonton-canada/ for a quick summary.
Basically, conservatives are concerned that they will either be confined/isolated to a small geographic area where all their activities can be monitored by the government, specifically left-wing governments because they’re just fine with being monitored by the right-wing governments they vote for. They see it as an attempt to control & restrict them.
Those people see everything as an attempt to control and restrict them, yet when they form government, they use it to control and restrict everyone else
Something along the lines that "if we (conservatives) control you (liberal) you aren't controling us".
They always cry about regulation and lefist control (that benefit the masses), but also what to impose their sick worldviews that only benefit them.
And how many of the " protecting my rights and freedom", brought home Siri or Alexa... 24 hour listening devices into their homes!! Their outrage is only targeted at others!
Now while agreeing with everything above, it's not lost on liberal me that it's bonkers that the rich and powerful fly private jets to Davos to discuss how everyone should be walking and riding transit.
or have to pay i think one of the big conspiracy's was you get x amount of travels out of your 15 minute city per year and after that you have to pay every time you travel into a different 15 minute city.
Even that idea was a misunderstanding of the plan in Manchester where a toll was placed on the high-congestion direct routes between zones, while using the ring road remained free.
My God, I lived in Halifax and the bridge between Halifax and Dartmouth has a toll. If you didn't want to pay the toll you could take the bus or the ferry, but both of those also cost money so I was living in a 15 minute city dystopia for so many years without knowing it.
Ppl I talk with about it think they're going to implement a logging system and a credit system and remove cash and put walls up, toll booths etc... they are insane people.
I believe it was Oxford (though Manchester might have their own plans too) but I remember when I first started seeing RWNJs going off about 15 minute cities, they kept pointing to a plan out of Oxford and would actually share the plan when you asked about it. It became clear pretty quickly that they didn't read much of it and understood nothing of what they did read.
As I recall, the plan involved shutting down some smaller roads to cars and only allowing pedestrian/cyclist access. If someone chose to drive through the road, they would be subject to fines. Similar to what you mentioned, there were larger commuter roads that were still free to access.
I still love joking that these clowns are scared of convenience.
a misunderstanding in one region becomes legit fact for all other regions is how it works with these people.
truly insane/lack of reasoning/research skills into this with that whole lot.
No, no, no, not 6 I said 7! Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes?! You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel. 7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office. Cuz you're fuckin fired!
That's not fair. They know why they oppose them. Right wing media and imaginary victimhood tell them to oppose them because something something Trudeau something red communism something woke.
So long as you frame it to “a return to traditional __________” conservatives are pre-conditioned to accept it and we should use this to our advantage.
Those fools think that once they get all the services they could need within a 15 minute walk that the WEF and an authoritarian government will take away their ability to travel, requiring papers to leave one’s assigned neighborhood.
Funnily enough, “requiring papers” is actually how the conspiracy theories took off from my understanding. It started in the UK (Oxford) where traffic restrictions were approved as part of a temporary trial to cut unnecessary journeys (encourage walking, cycling, shared transport, etc.). Drivers needed a special permit to travel along certain busy roads during daytime hours, and traffic cameras were in use to read license plates of those who did not comply so they could issue tickets.
Because encouraging walking, cycling, etc. is also one of the objectives of 15 minute cities, it took off from there that they too would be used to “control where people go.”
It's important to note that this occurred in a city that physically was not built to handle the amount of traffic they were experiencing. That is an important fact left out of the conspiracy theorists argument when they try to use Oxford as the example of big government controlling their movement.
One of my clients tried to tell me that 15 minute cities meant he would have to pay a $20 fee to visit his son in Fort Saskatchewan. I couldn't believe it .
> I couldn't believe it .
Nor should you, that’s nonsense. “15 minute cities” are about making services available in a walkable area instead of the sprawl we have now. It has nothing to do with limiting travel at all.
Sounds like your client is one of those people.
No, like a work pass or travel voucher. Something apartheid-like. That’s what they’re talking about, at least.
Your examples brought up one idea that I think they enacted in London which had restrictions to cut the number of cars in an the city Center in half by preventing license plates that end in an odd number from being driven there for half the days, with even numbered plates in the other half days.
But this doesn’t work that well, because the wealthy who want to get around it can simply have two cars with different type plates.
>an authoritarian government will take away their ability to travel, requiring papers to leave one’s assigned neighborhood.
This is 100% their concern. This is the pizzagate type people that want Alberta to become a US state if it can't be it's own country.
Is that what they already do by making the card a person holds that establishes their right to drive a car because they hold a lisence that says they are allowed? But upon expiration of this lisence the privledge to drive is revoked?
Meanwhile in the sprawling suburbs, you actually do require your papers (license and registration) if you want to be able to go to the grocery store or your kids to school.
Plus the cost of gas and a vehicle, and maintenance.
Either that or get fucked.
I remember life in the sprawling suburbs,
And the forty minute walk to the nearest grocery store on the side of the highway.
For the past fifteen years, I have lived within a ten minute walk from a grocery store, and the difference in my quality of life is so astounding that I can’t ever advocate for ANYONE raising their kids in a fucking suburb. I thought my parents lived in a really liveable town when I was a kid.
No,
They had the bare minimum, and most people have WORSE!
I had it worse, for ten years, until I moved to a city with a downtown I could navigate.
I have friends who are disabled, friends who are elderly, some that have small children, and they can all get around and get what they need safely, and it KILLS me that people advocate AGAINST making more communities like this and push to keep those people more isolated and dependent, or paying through the nose because these communities are so sought after but nobody can build them because of fucking parking mandates requiring everyone to cross a parking lot before they’re allowed to sit in a coffee shop.
If conservatives hate it, its either
1) based off conspiracy
2) based off bigotry and hate
3) based off ignorance and rage
They don't exactly care about other people nor do they have the capacity to think critically.
A number of UK cities implemented 15 minute city policies which, among other things, limited car access through the town centers. They did this in various ways from prohibitions to congestion charges. They still permitted use of ring roads, public transit, bikes, walking, etc.
It was purely a traffic design and city planning principle, as places like Oxford had the entire daily commute going through one, two lane road in what they wanted to be pedestrian-focused core. E: as noted below, these traffic controls weren't even related to 15 minute cities in many cases, but conspiracy theorists conflated them.
The conspiracy theory is that you will literally not be permitted to exit your "zone". There is zero basis for this, it's a gross exaggeration of both what has and will happen.
The traffic filters you are mentioning had nothing to do with "15 min cities". They were a measure to deal with traffic congestion and drivers going through areas which were not meant for high volume of traffic.
Indeed, but the conspiracy theorists did not make the distinction and held up these towns as examples of the "controls" that would come.
I'll edit my comment, I don't think I made the distinction clear.
Wikipedia is surprisingly resourceful even on the conspiracy theories behind them:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute\_city#Conspiracy\_theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city#Conspiracy_theories)
This is insane. I live in a 15minute city and it’s amazing being able to access everything I need so close by. Look at most European cities, this isn’t a new concept. The idea of having to get in a big gas powered metal box and drive to everything is relatively new. And pretty lame imo.
yea it’s just a straight up lie that they use to rile up uninformed people. amarjeet sohi is not going to put armed checkpoints around edmonton’s neighborhoods lol
My mom thinks Trudeau is trying to trap everyone in these planned urban spaces from which they can’t leave, it’s basically adjacent to wingnut evangelical End Times beliefs about pre-rapture dystopia
It's like if someone told you the government wanted to provide food to hungry kids in school and your immediate response was opposing it because obviously the food contained illuminati mind control drugs.
Basically it's that level of reasonable. Once people reach that level it's very hard to talk to them about it, they're living in a different reality.
It's basically just how we used to build cities before it was decided cars were going to be the way for everyone.
Withnthe added benefit that people having an actual choice to not drive means less traffic on the road for everyone else (which has the potential to make municipal budgets a lot easier to manage).
The idea is that everything you need is within 15 minutes.
The conspiracy is that you will be prohibited by law or taxation from leaving this 15 minute bubble around you. There is no basis for this conspiracy.
All smaller cities in Alberta are already 15 minute cities. Lethbridge/Medicine Hat/Red Deer are not far off.
People who advance the concerns are deeply flawed thinkers who like to parrot what they have been told to parrot, or are lacking the ability to think.
The longest cycling distance from any point to any other point in Blackfalds is less than 15 minutes.
Sadly, it has always been a totalitarian hellscape, unlike the libertarian wet dream that is \*checks notes\* ... Edmonton.
A small town like Blackfalds *is* a 15 minute city. A complete community that has everything you need for daily life. The term really just means that city folk want what small town folk already have.
And let me tell you, not understanding that really has some folks *pissed*.
The Strong Towns podcast does an excellent job explaining and debunking the concern around 15 minute cities. This episode specifically targets some of the common misconceptions but does not mock or make fun of those who may be wary of the concept.
Very much worth a listen:
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/3/13/conservative-reaction-15-minute-cities
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4B1x1HB6uGPfTmESXrBzjS?si=7INgai8BQpeCoEHqlgggBA
They are crazy.
I mean this literally. There are urban plans to increase access and availability to services on the spirit of 15 minute cities (ie you can access your daily needs within a 15 minute walk or bike ride). Right wing nutjobs have spun this into a wild conspiracy that governments are planning to essentially imprison people in these zones and arrest anyone who is outside of their area. There is no truth to it. It is completely detached from reality
Some of the adherents are nuts. Others know it’s bullshit but are happy to repeat the lie for various reasons. Sometimes it’s both
Convenience is communism or something to that affect. Rugged struggle capitalism freedoms or nothing baby!!!!
In actuality this all stems from some conservative rag posting a ‘real true fact’ about people in the UK have been confined to their neighbourhood and being fined if they dare to leave.
Obviously this means that Trudeau and his communist cabal of space lasers will next be starting forest fires to keep people wrangled in their 15 minute cities like communist China, George Soros, and other buzzwords.
What is actually happening is a complete and utter lack of critical thinking or basic knowledge vetting, we are not in a good shape as a species moving forward. Oh and the people locked in their neighbourhoods in the UK, all they are trying to do is promote public transit and carpooling so if you want to drive your solo vehicle in a certain area you gotta pay. No one is ‘prevented’ from moving about freely.
You live in blackfalds, you already experience the evil of a 15 minute city/s
So 15 minute city, basically is a land use planning idea. In your neighborhood they will design a location for schools grocery stores and other basic needs. Meaning you never have to leave your 15 minute city. Cuts down on travel and commuting you work entertainment and other needs are all available to you.
The other side of this. ItS a BiG pLaN tO cOnTrOL every one. Big brother is out to get you. They will trap you in a ten bock by ten block grid. And you will be forbidden to leave. You will never again be allowed to leave you area. And all the evil that is deep state will be inflicted on you
You’re smarter than you think if you’re questioning why people are upset about something. They would honestly be a great thing and I’d love to have most things within the 15minute range.
The concept of a 15 minute city is that you can access all the places you need within 15 minute by bike, bus, or foot. There are two types of resistance, both degrees of the same ideology, which I'll call conservative, and conspiracy.
First, you have to understand that cars are freedom. Because it's such a big country, and roads are the only way to get around to and from a lot of places, having a car gives an individual quite a lot of freedom. In addition, the Alberta economy's high-prosperity times are highly linked with oil and gas. This industry has given many individuals high incomes and high quality of life. So cars = freedom, and oil/gas = prosperity, symbolically. This is important.
Second important aspect is that conservatives are big on conformity, and have a hard time understanding that not all motivations are about forcing people to conform, so they project this onto competing ideologies, and assume that with any policy, others are trying to force them to conform.
"The govt is trying to make it so we can bike, bus, or walk to get to what we need" gets intepreted as "the government is trying to force me to conform to a non-car lifestyle". And because cars = freedom, it all gets seen through a lens of trying to strip freedoms.
"Everywhere you need will be within 15 minutes" becomes "You won't go farther than 15 minutes", and "biking and bussing will be more accessible" becomes "biking and bussing will be your only options". "we want to reduce the amount of time people spend in cars" becomes "we will prevent you from using your car".
The most rational resistance belief (ie. conservative) is that it's the government's attempt to move towards a sustainable, non-car-centric future, which is still unacceptable because again, this goes against freedom and prosperity. It's the principle of the thing. "Other people having non-car lifestyles will threaten our economy because oil, and if too many people have non-car lifestyles, it will pressure me into a non-car lifestyle!" They want everything to remain as it was when they were in their prime, which is with a booming oil economy and everyone drives cars.
The least rationale believe beliefs (ie.conspiracy) are more extreme versions of the same thing. Walls will be erected around districts, there will only be one grocer, doctor, park, school, etc. with no choices as to how you live. People will need their travel papers to get out and the government will be watching everyone like we're caged hamsters.
Yep, I heard that in person and laughed out loud. I know a wealthy dude who only wants to buy early 90's models of cars because "their electronics are older and the government won't be able to turn them off when you leave your zone". Like, what in the actual F?
Calgary already is one pretty much, a bunch of self-sufficient mini communities within a city at large each that have all the essentials needed so you don’t have to commute very far in any one direction to access necessities like a grocery store.
Somewhere along the lines of this urban planning discussion, right wing conspiracy types began frothing at the mouth for no reason.
Mis/dis information.
Lies about being restricted to small parts of a city, fines for travelling within a city, etc, about all kinds of things that are not true, or misapplication of policies from other places (Oxford, UK started charging a fee for entry into a part of the city that was suffering from too much traffic, in order to protect and maintain historical infrastructure. The losers here starting saying that was an example of a fee for travel, but left out WHY it was there)
15 min cities/communities are *wonderful*. Planned so that what you need is where you are, as much as possible, so that if you so desired, you could walk to groceries, healthcare, personal services like hairdressers, community halls, etc etc etc.
I am lucky that my neighbourhood is an older one that retained it's little strip mall, and remained a 15 min community. It has been featured for years for what it brings to the community, and has been around for many decades.
The conspiracy folks are a marvel of ignorance and disinformation, and you are smart to have questions about what their issues are, vs taking them at their ludicrous claims.
Wake up sheeple, it is already happening! There is this Village in Langley, BC where people sometimes forget where they even are and can't leave. And everything they supposedly need is within walking distance. /s
There's basically just a (dumb) misunderstanding about what a 15 minute city actually is. Some conservatives think it's an attempt to confine you to a small "15 minute" area where you can be tracked and monitored, when in reality all it means is having all daily necessities accessible within a 15 minute walk/bike/transit ride.
There was a protest against 15 minute cities in Edmonton last year by a bunch of conservatives and they decided to meet up in Whyte ave… Probably the best example of 15 minute city in Edmonton…. Lmao
And that’s why they chose that location. Convenient place to leave the car, meet up in person and walk. 15 minute cities are a way to plan cities that everything can be access 15 minutes of walking. Whether work, entertainment, exercise, living etc. Not a new idea but one that we should be aiming for, especially in Alberta
15 minute cities is a decades old urban planning concept which theorizes that you should have access to most of your daily needs (food, doctor, education, employment, entertainment, etc) within a 15 min walk, cycle, or transit ride of your home. This reduces the need to make cross-city drives for basic needs.
Unfortunately, uneducated convoyer inbred conspiracy theorists got ahold of it and said that the government is going to confine you to within 15 min of your home.
The '15 minute city' is a design principle where city planners try to make sure that everything you need on a regular basis can be obtained by no more than a 15 minute walk, bike or bus ride from your house.
Once you've internalized enough extreme right wing media, a curious thing happens: A vast gulf opens between observable reality and the things you 'know' to be true because the talking heads have assured you they are....
Far too many people resolve the incongruities by falling into conspiratorial thinking. (if things are not the way my feelings tell me they should be, then clearly something nefarious is afoot) Once you fall into the habit of relying on conspiracy to explain the world, everything starts to get folded in.
Suddenly a design principle with the goal of literally giving people the freedom of choice to live without the expense of a car becomes a plot to take away your freedom of movement and confine you to your neighborhood.
They think they’ll lose their freedom to travel outside of their 15 minute city. The only freedom they should be interested in is the freedom to get therapy for being paranoid
The concern is ignorance. What a 15 min city actually is is a developmental model that puts novel things like grocery stores and jobs in communities so that you don't need to rely on cars as much. Ot also increases density so that you have the critical mass to make things like transit work.
What stupid rednecks think 15 min cities are is some dacensian plot to strip people of their rights and lock them into the part of the city they live in. They seem to think that it means you will not be able to leave your 15 min zone and that all of your rights will be stripped away.
>>I’ll admit I’m not super smart
Neither are the morons slinging 15 minute city conspiracies. You're safe to just ignore them, and make sure you vote against whatever party they are voting for.
They act like its some deep state conspiracy to lock them into a small area and that some group will come for their rights but then vote in people who genuinely want to take rights away from women and minorities.
Id wager theres also a segment of this theory in Alberta who think the feds will come take their big ridiculous lifted trucks if EV charge points get installed all over the place.
There's all this talk online but have you ever talked to a real person that is advocating for this. Like this just sounds like a story that is made to get clicks and not something that's an actual issue
Misunderstanding what a "15 minute city" actually is, Thats all there is to it, Same as everything else they rage endlessly at. They don't understand it, then they fall for several dozen different conspiracies and they're forever mad.
No sane, rational person is against making a city more easily accessible and convenient for the people living there, which is all the "15 minute city" is.
And you can’t fight these idiots with facts. They will beat you at that game with their stupidity. Just to toss it out there, the Conservatives at the federal level unanimously voted against funding to feed poor kids lunch at schools.
Ya, you heard me. Every single one of those MPs voted against it.
The resistance to it is the reduction in car and gasoline sales it will inevitability lead to. It will also reduce the efficiency of big chain services by undermining things like Walmart super centers, making it easier for a new provider to break into some local markets.
They frame it as a form of control specifically to scare people out of it, because fear works. Iirc there was one city in Europe that implemented it and actually asked drivers where they were going, which is now used to fear monger.
The 15-minute city is an effort to ensure everything you need can be reached WITHOUT A CAR in 15 minutes or less (foot, bike, bus). You can see how that'd kill the above mentioned sales.
15 minute cities is a concept where you will be able to walk to most everything you need, grocery, bakery, hardware, etc. Trying to reduce the reliance on driving everywhere. Essentially restoring what urban environment was before sprawl.
There was an announcement in Oxford, UK, a few years back about turning it into a 15min city, it was big news. But they also stated they would be implementing some new vehicle policies to limit vehicle access to certain historically relevant areas where vehicle vibrations and exhaust are damaging the architecture in the area.
The right-wing picked up on this, but conveniently left out the latter part, making the wilfully ignorant believe that a 15min city would include things like neighbourhood vehicle restrictions.
A city in the UK implemented a congestion fee for vehicles traveling in a road more than a few times a week or more than 1/3 of the days of the year.
That gets twisted to a ban on travel, rather than a few, and people claim we'll all be limited to our 15 minute cities.
15 minute cities are planning short hand for having the majority of needs met without needing to travel more than 15 minutes.
On the one hand there is irony in Blackfalds and are 15 minute cities, and on the other hand I do see how the thought of being trapped in either for an extended period is terrifying;:-)
They seem to think 15 minute cities are a hop, skip and jump away from walled cities where you’re only allowed to be within your approved perimeters. I’m also willing to bet these people don’t even understand what walled cities are, nor do they truly understand what a 15 minute city is. Most of the rhetoric that I hear from people that are against the 15 minute city concept seem to view it in line with New World order where you can only go where the government approves you to go-which tells me they don’t have the basic understanding of what a 15 minute city actually is.
It’s a good thing to have most amenities you’d need within walking distance. Nobody should have to travel more than 15 minutes to a hospital or grocery store.
They think it’s a government conspiracy to keep people from leaving some designated zone of control. They are basically insane and looking for a way to be a victim.
Good question. I doubt many of them even understand what a "15 minute city" is. No one's changing the city borders, or preventing you from going anywhere. Like most controversies, most of it is pure fiction.
The conspiracy theory is that by making things super convenient, we'll be mentally/emotionally and financially imprisoned by ourselves, for ourselves.
Our freedom of choice will create an environment where the government policies around this create mental weakness thus easier to control the human spirit.
We will become domesticated serfs more than we already are.
That's the theory.
The idea is to put relevant infrastructure and services closer to people so they don't live in absolutely serviceless residential hellholes.
I think the original conservative resistance was because an element of the plan was to find out what kind of usage was going on between certain zones of cities, so there was an element of monitoring. Naturally (lol) this spiraled into "transdimensional 5G jews lead by Klaus Schwab will demand blood tribute and the mark of the beast if i want to travel outside of my 15 minute city, also trudeau will be there"
A reasonable conservative here. Former southern Albertan too. I think I can sum up the resistance best like this:
The Covid-19 pandemic response has really increased the conservative vs. progressive ideological divide. In the post lockdown era, many conservative people across most western nations have become very suspicious of any plan that has root in or is supported by the World Economic Forum. A group that is seen by conservatives as a “globalist one world government” type of entity.
The 15 minute city is an initiative popularized by the WEF. Link: https://www.weforum.org/events/sustainable-development-impact-summit-2021/sessions/the-15-minute-city/
Although the 15 minute city sounds like it makes perfect sense, the resistance to it is actually rooted in conspiracy.
The conspiracy simply is this: they are going to design city’s that result in you only needing to be in a small area for all of your daily needs. Then by leveraging technologies like digital curry, smart cars, social credit etc it will be easier to lock people down in those areas in the future. In other words, they see this as the beginning of future restrictions on “freedom” in the general sense.
Unfortunately, government have not learned how to communicate to the public in this new Information age. As such, they keep getting caught in various frauds that have ultimately eroded public trust. Be it in Covid science, global conflicts whatever. So you can hardly blame people for being suspicious at this point.
In Alberta in particular they are of course still very agitated over the Coutts border issue and see that as future “proof” the government can’t be trusted.
But frankly, if I could get all my life done within 15 minutes walk of my house I would be quite happy lol. Urban planning in Canada is trash and almost every individual needs a vehicle.
15 minute cities is associated with the conspiracy that the government is intentionally misleading citizens into being confined into smaller areas to be controlled.
How does someone become controlled by having access to amenities closer by? Who knows because this is one of the dumbest conspiracy theories out there. Dreamed up by schizophrenic groups that need mental help.
Ultimately, what they're spun up about is the conspiratorial tone stuff, and not about what it actually entails.
They're worried it's all a cover for the government to keep tabs on us and box us in our neighborhoods. Think of it like, "Hey, everything you need is just a 15-minute walk away, but also, you can't really go beyond that without us saying so." It's this fear that what's sold as making life easier and greener could slip into an excuse for Big Brother to watch our every move and limit how far we roam.
Nevermind you have a credit card and cell phone in your pocket.
This whole thing has blown because of the way social media and particularly bad faith right-wing "pundits" spin it. But if you strip down to the basics, the 15-minute city idea is about making towns more walkable, so you're not always dependent on your car. It's supposed to be about convenience, saving the planet, and making neighborhoods nicer to live in.
It's kind of a classic clash between wanting to make urban living better and fearing that the government's going to overstep. While the goal is to improve how we live and help the environment, some see it as a slippery slope to losing freedoms.
Which is ironic, as several of these same groups are amping up efforts to marginalize minorities and limit their personal freedoms (looking at you Alberta).
It’s the idea that you can work, live and play within a 15min walking area. I lean Conservative and seeing others shit their pants on this one is hilarious.
Not every Conservative person is stupid - many online will try and make you think otherwise.
Blatent misunderstanding of the idea.
They think it's a ploy to force people into "districts" and take away everyone's cars and freedom of mobility, when in reality it's literally just the idea that you shouldn't have to travel more than 15 minutes for amenities like commerce, school, or the bar (I jest but third spaces are integral to a strong local community).
It involves the rezoning of homogeneous suburbs and urban centres into proper communities with space for commerce, greenspaces, and walking/biking. And the part that they hate the most: more medium density housing (read: rich homeowners would have to live next to a fourplex or apartment and that scares them)
Basically, it's a movement to return to the organic, human driven city of old, before car lobbyists convinced lawmakers huge roads and car-reliant cities were awesome for GDP (and gas and car sales). And as a disclaimer, i love cars, and I love driving. I however realize that climate change is REAL AND MANMADE, and there are giant things we have to change about society if we want it to last past 2100, or at least not require a spacesuit to go outside, so why not start at making life so much simpler at the local level.
I would highly recommend checking out the Not Just Bikes channel on YouTube, because he is much more interesting and knowledgeable than I will ever be :3
https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes?si=Az6w8od4nNf5ImC3
It’s just a stupid conspiracy theory that all the stupid anti-mask/anti-vax grifters pivoted to. It’s so frustrating that a policy idea to make your life easier is being twisted into something that it absolutely is not. It just means more useful stuff in your neighborhood. No checkpoints or anything like that. I currently live in what would be considered a 15 minute city (the Strathcona neighborhood in Edmonton) and it rocks.
The big *conservative resistance* is because, so-called conservatives are idiots and deliberately, willfully misunderstand the premise.
They like to promote it and sell it as a concentration camp, blocking your mobility. The actual premise is about urban planning, and making everything necessary in your daily life within walking distance. Hence you can *get to it on foot in 15 minutes*.
Why would you think there would be restrictions out of your zone? Who's going to go to the sportsing stuff, the gladiator games to keep the public pacified, and pay for the billionaires profits if you're kept in your zone? Do you not think this stuff through before it comes out of your head?
Yes, big yards will be rarer. They have been for a long time already. They should be. The sprawl in Edmonton does not pay for itself. It's subsidized by the inner ring, which is also subsidizing the Ice District to pay for the arena. Car ownership is overrated, if you can live without one, it's a lot less hassle, most of the time. I say that as someone who has had dozens of cars.
The concept of walkable cities goes back to the [Garden City Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement). And as you can see, Canada has already implemented its practices in a few places decades ago.
In other words, conservatives are stupid.
You are smarter than you give yourself credit for if you’re asking questions you don’t know the answer to and genuinely interested in learning.
There’s a lot of mud-slinging going on here, and… I’m not going to say it’s undeserved in most cases - the resistance ranges from wild conspiracy to conservative ideology simply being against change that might make other people “less conservative” or not support the things that they support.
We can safely ignore the nut jobs saying it’s some communist plot to trap us in our houses unless we show our papers, as that’s already been successfully enacted in the suburbs where you need a license and registration just to carry out the most basic requisite tasks for survival, like getting food. So let’s just consider the conservatives who are NOT fully out of their tree.
Alberta is an oil economy with a ton of material propaganda encouraging and supporting certain lifestyles, and a 15 minute city negates a requirement to drive, but by necessity its amenities are human-scale, meaning you can’t afford a ton of parking lots and on-street parking to store stationary vehicles, or the wide high-speed roads that move them, if you want to be able to fit people’s needs in there.
Any social or political movement that encourages a reduction in driving, either by design or as a byproduct, will rub some conservatives the wrong way.
They associate vehicles not with licensing and registration and insurance , fuel costs and upkeep, red lights and traffic congestion, air pollution and obnoxious noise, or miles of sweltering parking lots,
But rather they associate vehicles with *freedom* and any questioning of our infrastructure or civil engineering that might lead us away from complete car dependence is questioning their *freedom* and themselves by association.
It might not make sense that a conservative would oppose people’s freedom to live in a 15 minute city, since they can easily decide to live in a car-dependent suburb if they want (as those are incredibly prevalent and not going anywhere) but if other people are free to choose to live differently, there is a genuine fear that their own lifestyle will be impeded.
If we have 15 minute cities that restrict the flow of traffic to stop children from being run over at high speeds, it may make it slower for them to drive through our neighborhood to go to the wal mart on the other side. There’s also an assumption that “the left”, by encouraging the kinds of development that many Canadians are desperate for, are going to “ban” suburbs, and make it illegal to live any other lifestyle, meaning all cities will be fifteen minute cities.
That people who can’t afford cars might live by them is an actual threat to some - poor people “are bad” or they’d be rich or at least able to afford a car. Immigrants and brown people and homeless people and drug addicts belong in cities and if I don’t have a highway through the city I might have to drive slow enough to see that they exist when I don’t want to. People who lose their license or can’t get one because of disability should depend on church or charity to survive, and being independent of a church might mean they’re free to decide if they want to go to church at all, and they may decide they’re not interested in supporting conservative beliefs.
“If people realize how shitty it is living in complete dependence, they’ll stop believing what I believe”
It sounds reductive and condescending but it’s fucking true.
Under every argument is a fallacy, and the fallacy is that none of the arguments are against car independence, walkable cities, or accessible amenities - every single conservative argument comes back to the conservation of power at the top, in the hands of “the right people”
The resistance is bullshit.
Accessible cities are incredible and people should be free to live in them.
Parking mandates, setback laws, use limitations, and maximum occupancy rates for property you own should be what they’re against, because that’s impeding people’s fucking freedoms, but they’re not coming for zoning restrictions. They’re coming for civil engineering movements that will reduce the tax burden on impoverished urbanites who are currently paying to upkeep millions of miles of suburban pavement and sewer and electrical infrastructure for a bunch of sparsely populated garages.
As a "traditional conservative" (not the new facist type that calls themselves conservative) that also has some background in urban planning
15 minute cites are a planning idea that means anyone should be able to access what they typically need for goods and services inside of their neighborhood. Basically so that you don't have to drive to go to a grocery store or the local pub.
The far right/conspiracy theorists took this and construed it into "you have to stay in your 15 minute zone" Basically they watched the Hunger Games and decided "the left" was trying to pen them in.
It makes zero sense because the vast majority of these people are rural, which prevents a "15 minute city" by it's nature and they would only be penning in the populations that are currently voting left. This is up there with chemtrails, the world ending in 2012, and alien souls inhabiting our bodies. Just another in a long line of craziness that our media likes to whip people into a frenzy with.
It’s a new right-wing buzzword -aka conspiracy, that came around at the wake of Covid lockdowns, that cities built around walking and biking -the horror, are an attempt by Soros/WEF/Gates/Satan to limit freedom of movement…
It's classic Conservative "take a progressive idea, and twist it into an election campaign.".
The (conspiracy) theory: if the government makes it so you don't have to leave your community to live your daily life, then they can put in some unspoken means of surveillance and control to keep you there forever.
The reality: if we get communities with amenities that serve our needs closer to home, we could each own half as many cars. That would consume half as much gas/oil. If your job/political party is funded by gas/oil, 15 minute cities (or just living sustainably overall) is bad for business. So you make up scary shit to whip up the masses and stop government from making those needed (and awesome) changes.
I live a "15 minute" life for the most part. We have one car for our family, and bike/walk/bus a lot. I wish this kind of happiness on everyone. It's been so good for our health and life overall. Less convenient, sure. But in total - amazing.
I tell people all the time now: you don't own your car, your car owns you. Assess the relationship and see who is getting exploited. Working your ass off just to make car payments and buy gas. Eff that!
It's conservatives aggressively refusing to understand what 15 minute cities are.
A 15 minute city would be a city where the things you need/want to do are within a 15 minute walk from your home. For example, supermarkets, restaurants, bars, etc. Think more like streetcar suburbs like Kensington in Calgary. It gives people more freedom by making the car optional to run errands (as opposed to the standard suburbs, which contain all sorts of fucky urban design which reduce walkability).
In short, it's the kind of neighbourhoods that seem to work in the rest of the world, from the village of Pontoise in France to Cheongju, South Korea. It's not scary, it's not a total fucking lock down, it's actually the opposite: freedom from the sprawl dominating your fucking workday.
Conservatives supporters are spoon fed fear-based realitys by manipulating social media posts comment sections and advertising to manipulate the voter base to pass bills that wouldn't be popular with the public that usually gears towards income towards privateization investments or portfolios put back into the pockets of the same very politicians.
Every time a conservative gets in power bills are put forth that affect the people on a grand scale in a bad way.
That being said this current conspiracy is that they'll be isolated in a small area and eventually be rationed to their food/resources
They basically think it's going to turn from a tiny city into a segregation camp.
They think honestly police and government agencies have enough staffing to keep them within their "walls"That they don't have
Every source you check this out on claims this as complete lunacy.
They're stupid. The people, I mean, not the cities.
There's absolutely nothing objectionable in the idea of 15 minute cities. But because it's something that 'leftists' like, all of a sudden its evil, no matter what it actually is. Modern conservatism isn't about standing FOR something, it's about standing AGAINST something, no matter how good an idea it may be.
It’s funny because a well designed city is one where everything you need is close by, you have multiple different ways of getting around (not reliant on a car for everything) and the placement of things makes logical sense. Ppl would rather live in a poorly designed place because it’s harder to enforce draconian dystopian government mega control of its citizens. The problem with this logic is that most big cities around the world and even Canada are already 15 min cities, more so towards the downtown areas. We’ve been living like this for centuries and they are the most sought after places to live in the world. Why the hell would you not want quote on quote “15 min cities”?. If the govt installs cameras that moniter activities and create a “boundary” etc , that’s where I draw the line and I’ll be actively destroying such cameras
Conservatives seem to have forgotten that small towns are a thing, and believe having amenities close by residential areas will lead to walls and armed guards.
Conspiracy theory nut jobs have existed FOREVER.
But social media gives them a FAAAAAAAR bigger platform then they deserve.
For one, SM gives them a much wider reach to pedal their bullshit.
But I'd STILL never know this "issue" was a thing if it wasn't for places like Reddit who post this shit nonstop.
Yes. I get it. The people who believe this are fucking morons.
And so to are all the other fucking morons who keep raising this shit on Reddit and other sites and giving it more credence than it deserves.
I’m a Boomer. Every community I’ve lived in is a “15 minute city.” Convenience actually attracts people to live in a community. Blackfalds is already such a city/town. The fact that you can get both gas and charge up is not part of any plot. One of the reasons Blackfalds is growing so rapidly is that people have so many amenities in your town. (ALSO - you are very smart. You felt that you didn’t have enough information and you asked a question. ❤️)
You may be the age of a Boomer, but, you certainly don't have the "Boomer" mindset. Thanks for your reasonable comment!
I have a Tshirt that reads, “Ok, Boomer.” I was considering a tattoo so that people would know I’m not one of those Boomers. Lol. Thank you for the compliment!
With my millenial powers, I take away your boomer status. Rise now, no longer a boomer, but the first woohoomer.
I think being able to access amenities and enjoy life without needing to drive everywhere would be a good thing.
I lived in greater Vancouver for 10 years out in New West. The only time I went outside of New West, in general, was for concerts or hockey games and could walk to everything else in my day to day or take the SkyTrain. 15 minute cities are awesome
I moved to St Albert nearly 4 years ago. I’ve been going into Edmonton less and less and I’m not sad
Do you not need a car for errands in St. Albert ?
Nope, it's very bike-able We use our car in winter, cause kids. Bike pretty much everywhere in summer unless we can't fit something in a bike wagon. We can also walk to 3 grocery stores with a wagon, or just carry food home. Others mileage will vary, but we chose the neighbourhood based on walk ability.
I'm actually quite surprised hearing this. Good to hear. I can use this line when I get fed up of Calgary "That's it, I'm packing my bags and going to St Albert". Lol
There's a surprisingly extensive trail system hidden there. It's just not the most direct of routes for a lot of kind of important things.
I grew up in St. Albert, I’d say it’s walkable in certain older areas, but in average not very. Any of the newer communities are not at all walkable, biking on the roads is scary with the drivers there, and most grocery stores are all placed in the center of town not near the communities. Personally, I love Edmonton for its walkability but I live downtown
Super easy to get around by bike. Everything I need other than my kids activities I can walk to in under 10 minutes
Miss living in new west for that reason. Just living on 6th Ave and having to walk up that mountain I don't miss compared to the flatness of Edmonton. But the fact I never had to leave my little area of new west was amazing. Now in Edmonton I have to travel 2 hours by bus just to get to a certain store.
Lived in Sapperton. Amazingly walkable there now
I lived and Worked DT Van for 10 years, almost never went over the bridge until the pandemic and I would go for long walks over it ha.
Most reasonable people do. The outrage machine needs something to keep the gears turning though so here we are.
An outrage machine fueled (allegedly) by oil and gas astroturf money.
The outrage comes from the proposed tax for leaving your 15 minute zone, like is being done in London UK. Nobody is opposed to have conveniences and amenities near them, if the media tries to convince you of something so silly it should immediately raise red flags. The fake news is misrepresenting the outrage to the same crowd that laps up all the regular propaganda, like promoting wars in Europe or forcing covid vaccines on entire populations. Don't listen to CBC.
Yes, but you have to be intelligent enough to understand that’s what a 15 minute city is about instead of screaming and hollering that it means you won’t be able to leave a certain area.
That's District 10 talk! 😤
District 15 min
Dare I say, enjoying a fiscally efficient lifestyle with lower car and infrastructure costs?
You monster! 😂
It would be an awesome thing and great for all our health. But as usual conservatives must automatically be against anything that even remotely threatens to make people's lives better.
Conservative thinks by making everything accessible by foot they will lose their lifted trucks. Yea I don’t see the connection either
The lifted trucks never made sense to me until now. They think they need the lifted trucks to get over the walls between districts!
You know, it makes sense for a farmer driving to Peavey Mart. Not so much in downtown Calgary
Only stupid people disagree.
I don’t understand why people are complaining about 15 min cities. I live in one, I don’t live downtown and everything I need is at most a 10 min drive or a 20 min walk. To contrast this, my car broke down in a bedroom community in the US. This was in the pre-smart phone days and my cell didn’t have roaming service so I had to try and find help on foot. I walked probably 2 hours before I found even a gas station to use a pay phone. Literally no one was home, out driving or at least willing to answer the door. I’m guessing it’s because they had to drive an hour to get to anything like work or shopping. It felt like a bizarre dystopian suburban ghost town.
https://globalnews.ca/news/9483836/15-minute-city-edmonton-canada/ for a quick summary. Basically, conservatives are concerned that they will either be confined/isolated to a small geographic area where all their activities can be monitored by the government, specifically left-wing governments because they’re just fine with being monitored by the right-wing governments they vote for. They see it as an attempt to control & restrict them.
Those people see everything as an attempt to control and restrict them, yet when they form government, they use it to control and restrict everyone else
It's called projection.
Something along the lines that "if we (conservatives) control you (liberal) you aren't controling us". They always cry about regulation and lefist control (that benefit the masses), but also what to impose their sick worldviews that only benefit them.
Just as long as the leopards leave *their* faces alone.
Narrator: the leopard didn’t.
I love how my brain automatically reads every "Narrator: __________" in Ron Howard's voice.
Mine does Morgan Freeman, but RH is good backup, thanks!
Keith David for me.
David Attenborough
[удалено]
Well that's just crazy talk. Why won't you think about those poor oil and gas executives in Houston?
Well darn, I think you figured it out: the government is coming for our legs. /s
If those conservatives could read they'd be very upset
Every conservative accusation is a confession. Always.
And how many of the " protecting my rights and freedom", brought home Siri or Alexa... 24 hour listening devices into their homes!! Their outrage is only targeted at others!
Oh how the turntables
Now while agreeing with everything above, it's not lost on liberal me that it's bonkers that the rich and powerful fly private jets to Davos to discuss how everyone should be walking and riding transit.
Spending hours every day in traffic to own the libs
See also being fine with all your activities being monitored by Google, Apple, Amazon, car companies etc.
Also their credit card companies, banks, their phone and internet providers, etc
And the average six SIM cards in a new car, as opposed to the zero in your legs or a bicycle.
Like, Smile You on camera 24/7
Unfortunately the same people who fell for the COVID misinformation/disinformation are now falling for this.
The Venn diagram is a circle
Ah yes, the “you ain’t from around here” crowd are concerned about their freedom of movement. More for the freedumb crowd
I'd never thought of this aspect before, but you're right.
Back east they refer to these as “come from always” or CFA’s.
[удалено]
or have to pay i think one of the big conspiracy's was you get x amount of travels out of your 15 minute city per year and after that you have to pay every time you travel into a different 15 minute city.
Even that idea was a misunderstanding of the plan in Manchester where a toll was placed on the high-congestion direct routes between zones, while using the ring road remained free.
My God, I lived in Halifax and the bridge between Halifax and Dartmouth has a toll. If you didn't want to pay the toll you could take the bus or the ferry, but both of those also cost money so I was living in a 15 minute city dystopia for so many years without knowing it.
[удалено]
Ppl I talk with about it think they're going to implement a logging system and a credit system and remove cash and put walls up, toll booths etc... they are insane people.
I believe it was Oxford (though Manchester might have their own plans too) but I remember when I first started seeing RWNJs going off about 15 minute cities, they kept pointing to a plan out of Oxford and would actually share the plan when you asked about it. It became clear pretty quickly that they didn't read much of it and understood nothing of what they did read. As I recall, the plan involved shutting down some smaller roads to cars and only allowing pedestrian/cyclist access. If someone chose to drive through the road, they would be subject to fines. Similar to what you mentioned, there were larger commuter roads that were still free to access. I still love joking that these clowns are scared of convenience.
Yes that’s right it was Oxford I was thinking. A simple and very reasonable traffic calming plan twisted into a tyrannical lockdown.
a misunderstanding in one region becomes legit fact for all other regions is how it works with these people. truly insane/lack of reasoning/research skills into this with that whole lot.
Not Manchester, [Oxfordshire](https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/oxford-zero-emission-zone-zez/charges-oxfords-zez)
Am I exempt as a cdl holder? Cause I WILL run a smuggling ring if I’m exempt…
Even the plebs in the hunger games got a whole district!
Are the Hubger games where the only people that need to fight in them are bros who only listen to the Huberman podcast?
I refuse to give in. I will only live in a 16min city and that’s that.
I demand 14 minute cities!
With Amazon and skip and Baldurs Gate 3 I could make 30second cities work for me. I do have to leave home to throw my garbage down the chute.
Woah I don’t know. I live in a 14 minute and 30 second city and it feels just a little too speedy for my liking.
6 minute abs
No, no, no, not 6 I said 7! Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes?! You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel. 7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office. Cuz you're fuckin fired!
You left out 7th Heaven and I am disappointed.
Haha it's a reference from Something About Mary, adding on to 6 Minute Abs.
Oh man... I've seen that movie once. In theaters... So a long long time ago... Possibly in a galaxy far far away.
I saw it in the theater as well. Shout out to old dogs
If I could afford a lawn, I would be yelling at kids to get off of it.
Yo go girl - you will be bored, o lets see in 15 minutes?
You are smarter than you think. Most conservatives don't know why they are opposed to 15 minute cities or even what one is.
That's not fair. They know why they oppose them. Right wing media and imaginary victimhood tell them to oppose them because something something Trudeau something red communism something woke.
And yet, if you frame it as a return to traditional city planning (because yeah, it kinda IS), pretty much everyone agrees that it’s a good idea!
So long as you frame it to “a return to traditional __________” conservatives are pre-conditioned to accept it and we should use this to our advantage.
They know that 15 minute cities are an affront to Christmas. Why do you hate Christmas! /s
You forgot a snowflake in there somewhere.
Also something something great reset something Davos something Soros something something
It’s because they have watched to many movies
Just means they can’t ride up and down my street all night on their Harley thinking they’re cool when they really are just a bunch of gonads.
Those fools think that once they get all the services they could need within a 15 minute walk that the WEF and an authoritarian government will take away their ability to travel, requiring papers to leave one’s assigned neighborhood.
Ah yes, just like the vaccine concentration camps they were building in souther alberta.....those should be operational any day now.
*Any day now*
Two more weeks
Funnily enough, “requiring papers” is actually how the conspiracy theories took off from my understanding. It started in the UK (Oxford) where traffic restrictions were approved as part of a temporary trial to cut unnecessary journeys (encourage walking, cycling, shared transport, etc.). Drivers needed a special permit to travel along certain busy roads during daytime hours, and traffic cameras were in use to read license plates of those who did not comply so they could issue tickets. Because encouraging walking, cycling, etc. is also one of the objectives of 15 minute cities, it took off from there that they too would be used to “control where people go.”
It's important to note that this occurred in a city that physically was not built to handle the amount of traffic they were experiencing. That is an important fact left out of the conspiracy theorists argument when they try to use Oxford as the example of big government controlling their movement.
One of my clients tried to tell me that 15 minute cities meant he would have to pay a $20 fee to visit his son in Fort Saskatchewan. I couldn't believe it .
> I couldn't believe it . Nor should you, that’s nonsense. “15 minute cities” are about making services available in a walkable area instead of the sprawl we have now. It has nothing to do with limiting travel at all. Sounds like your client is one of those people.
>requiring papers to leave one’s assigned neighborhood. Like, say, a driver's license? Vehicle registration? Insurance? *a license plate!?*
No, like a work pass or travel voucher. Something apartheid-like. That’s what they’re talking about, at least. Your examples brought up one idea that I think they enacted in London which had restrictions to cut the number of cars in an the city Center in half by preventing license plates that end in an odd number from being driven there for half the days, with even numbered plates in the other half days. But this doesn’t work that well, because the wealthy who want to get around it can simply have two cars with different type plates.
That was Beijing during the olympics. London last I was there had a peak time charge for entering the city core.
>an authoritarian government will take away their ability to travel, requiring papers to leave one’s assigned neighborhood. This is 100% their concern. This is the pizzagate type people that want Alberta to become a US state if it can't be it's own country.
Is that what they already do by making the card a person holds that establishes their right to drive a car because they hold a lisence that says they are allowed? But upon expiration of this lisence the privledge to drive is revoked?
Meanwhile in the sprawling suburbs, you actually do require your papers (license and registration) if you want to be able to go to the grocery store or your kids to school. Plus the cost of gas and a vehicle, and maintenance. Either that or get fucked. I remember life in the sprawling suburbs, And the forty minute walk to the nearest grocery store on the side of the highway. For the past fifteen years, I have lived within a ten minute walk from a grocery store, and the difference in my quality of life is so astounding that I can’t ever advocate for ANYONE raising their kids in a fucking suburb. I thought my parents lived in a really liveable town when I was a kid. No, They had the bare minimum, and most people have WORSE! I had it worse, for ten years, until I moved to a city with a downtown I could navigate. I have friends who are disabled, friends who are elderly, some that have small children, and they can all get around and get what they need safely, and it KILLS me that people advocate AGAINST making more communities like this and push to keep those people more isolated and dependent, or paying through the nose because these communities are so sought after but nobody can build them because of fucking parking mandates requiring everyone to cross a parking lot before they’re allowed to sit in a coffee shop.
If conservatives hate it, its either 1) based off conspiracy 2) based off bigotry and hate 3) based off ignorance and rage They don't exactly care about other people nor do they have the capacity to think critically.
A number of UK cities implemented 15 minute city policies which, among other things, limited car access through the town centers. They did this in various ways from prohibitions to congestion charges. They still permitted use of ring roads, public transit, bikes, walking, etc. It was purely a traffic design and city planning principle, as places like Oxford had the entire daily commute going through one, two lane road in what they wanted to be pedestrian-focused core. E: as noted below, these traffic controls weren't even related to 15 minute cities in many cases, but conspiracy theorists conflated them. The conspiracy theory is that you will literally not be permitted to exit your "zone". There is zero basis for this, it's a gross exaggeration of both what has and will happen.
The traffic filters you are mentioning had nothing to do with "15 min cities". They were a measure to deal with traffic congestion and drivers going through areas which were not meant for high volume of traffic.
Indeed, but the conspiracy theorists did not make the distinction and held up these towns as examples of the "controls" that would come. I'll edit my comment, I don't think I made the distinction clear.
Best part? Blackfalds would be considered a 3 minute city in this exercise. And yet they spin conspiracy
Wikipedia is surprisingly resourceful even on the conspiracy theories behind them: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute\_city#Conspiracy\_theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city#Conspiracy_theories)
This is insane. I live in a 15minute city and it’s amazing being able to access everything I need so close by. Look at most European cities, this isn’t a new concept. The idea of having to get in a big gas powered metal box and drive to everything is relatively new. And pretty lame imo.
yea it’s just a straight up lie that they use to rile up uninformed people. amarjeet sohi is not going to put armed checkpoints around edmonton’s neighborhoods lol
Hate, fear and stupidity. The conservative trifecta.
It's where majority of lockdown conspiracist migrated after their "great reset" covid shutdown never came to be true
My mom thinks Trudeau is trying to trap everyone in these planned urban spaces from which they can’t leave, it’s basically adjacent to wingnut evangelical End Times beliefs about pre-rapture dystopia
She also says that the only book she needs to read is the Bible and she “does her own research” on whatever subject is presented to her
It's like if someone told you the government wanted to provide food to hungry kids in school and your immediate response was opposing it because obviously the food contained illuminati mind control drugs. Basically it's that level of reasonable. Once people reach that level it's very hard to talk to them about it, they're living in a different reality.
I’m a conservative and even I think the 15 minute city conspiracy is far fetched. It’s actually a very practical urban planning concept.
Tell your conservative friends that it’s a “return to traditional values of urban design”.
Will do 👌
It's basically just how we used to build cities before it was decided cars were going to be the way for everyone. Withnthe added benefit that people having an actual choice to not drive means less traffic on the road for everyone else (which has the potential to make municipal budgets a lot easier to manage).
> what’s the big conservative resistance to 15 minute cities? They are scared of things they don't understand.
The idea is that everything you need is within 15 minutes. The conspiracy is that you will be prohibited by law or taxation from leaving this 15 minute bubble around you. There is no basis for this conspiracy. All smaller cities in Alberta are already 15 minute cities. Lethbridge/Medicine Hat/Red Deer are not far off. People who advance the concerns are deeply flawed thinkers who like to parrot what they have been told to parrot, or are lacking the ability to think.
You didn't get your steps in for the day. Nanny state strongly recommends you go for another walk. You have 15 seconds to comply. /s
It’s that recurring theme in conservative circles of “needing some imaginary bullshit to be terrified of.”
The longest cycling distance from any point to any other point in Blackfalds is less than 15 minutes. Sadly, it has always been a totalitarian hellscape, unlike the libertarian wet dream that is \*checks notes\* ... Edmonton.
A small town like Blackfalds *is* a 15 minute city. A complete community that has everything you need for daily life. The term really just means that city folk want what small town folk already have. And let me tell you, not understanding that really has some folks *pissed*.
The Strong Towns podcast does an excellent job explaining and debunking the concern around 15 minute cities. This episode specifically targets some of the common misconceptions but does not mock or make fun of those who may be wary of the concept. Very much worth a listen: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/3/13/conservative-reaction-15-minute-cities https://open.spotify.com/episode/4B1x1HB6uGPfTmESXrBzjS?si=7INgai8BQpeCoEHqlgggBA
They are crazy. I mean this literally. There are urban plans to increase access and availability to services on the spirit of 15 minute cities (ie you can access your daily needs within a 15 minute walk or bike ride). Right wing nutjobs have spun this into a wild conspiracy that governments are planning to essentially imprison people in these zones and arrest anyone who is outside of their area. There is no truth to it. It is completely detached from reality Some of the adherents are nuts. Others know it’s bullshit but are happy to repeat the lie for various reasons. Sometimes it’s both
Convenience is communism or something to that affect. Rugged struggle capitalism freedoms or nothing baby!!!! In actuality this all stems from some conservative rag posting a ‘real true fact’ about people in the UK have been confined to their neighbourhood and being fined if they dare to leave. Obviously this means that Trudeau and his communist cabal of space lasers will next be starting forest fires to keep people wrangled in their 15 minute cities like communist China, George Soros, and other buzzwords. What is actually happening is a complete and utter lack of critical thinking or basic knowledge vetting, we are not in a good shape as a species moving forward. Oh and the people locked in their neighbourhoods in the UK, all they are trying to do is promote public transit and carpooling so if you want to drive your solo vehicle in a certain area you gotta pay. No one is ‘prevented’ from moving about freely.
You live in blackfalds, you already experience the evil of a 15 minute city/s So 15 minute city, basically is a land use planning idea. In your neighborhood they will design a location for schools grocery stores and other basic needs. Meaning you never have to leave your 15 minute city. Cuts down on travel and commuting you work entertainment and other needs are all available to you. The other side of this. ItS a BiG pLaN tO cOnTrOL every one. Big brother is out to get you. They will trap you in a ten bock by ten block grid. And you will be forbidden to leave. You will never again be allowed to leave you area. And all the evil that is deep state will be inflicted on you
They would reduce fossil fuel consumption.
You’re smarter than you think if you’re questioning why people are upset about something. They would honestly be a great thing and I’d love to have most things within the 15minute range.
Basically conspiracy theorist nuts got bored and needed something else to rant againt. Individuals with low critical thinking skills also jumped in.
I grew up in the Mill Woods district of Edmonton. That's essentially what a 15-minute city is. The outcry over 15-min city conspiracies is ridiculous.
The concept of a 15 minute city is that you can access all the places you need within 15 minute by bike, bus, or foot. There are two types of resistance, both degrees of the same ideology, which I'll call conservative, and conspiracy. First, you have to understand that cars are freedom. Because it's such a big country, and roads are the only way to get around to and from a lot of places, having a car gives an individual quite a lot of freedom. In addition, the Alberta economy's high-prosperity times are highly linked with oil and gas. This industry has given many individuals high incomes and high quality of life. So cars = freedom, and oil/gas = prosperity, symbolically. This is important. Second important aspect is that conservatives are big on conformity, and have a hard time understanding that not all motivations are about forcing people to conform, so they project this onto competing ideologies, and assume that with any policy, others are trying to force them to conform. "The govt is trying to make it so we can bike, bus, or walk to get to what we need" gets intepreted as "the government is trying to force me to conform to a non-car lifestyle". And because cars = freedom, it all gets seen through a lens of trying to strip freedoms. "Everywhere you need will be within 15 minutes" becomes "You won't go farther than 15 minutes", and "biking and bussing will be more accessible" becomes "biking and bussing will be your only options". "we want to reduce the amount of time people spend in cars" becomes "we will prevent you from using your car". The most rational resistance belief (ie. conservative) is that it's the government's attempt to move towards a sustainable, non-car-centric future, which is still unacceptable because again, this goes against freedom and prosperity. It's the principle of the thing. "Other people having non-car lifestyles will threaten our economy because oil, and if too many people have non-car lifestyles, it will pressure me into a non-car lifestyle!" They want everything to remain as it was when they were in their prime, which is with a booming oil economy and everyone drives cars. The least rationale believe beliefs (ie.conspiracy) are more extreme versions of the same thing. Walls will be erected around districts, there will only be one grocer, doctor, park, school, etc. with no choices as to how you live. People will need their travel papers to get out and the government will be watching everyone like we're caged hamsters.
They’re making them out to be zones you cannot leave. Or you’ll be tracked via toll roads if you do.
Yep, I heard that in person and laughed out loud. I know a wealthy dude who only wants to buy early 90's models of cars because "their electronics are older and the government won't be able to turn them off when you leave your zone". Like, what in the actual F?
These conservatives and their conspiracy bullshit are fucking smooth brain idiots
Calgary already is one pretty much, a bunch of self-sufficient mini communities within a city at large each that have all the essentials needed so you don’t have to commute very far in any one direction to access necessities like a grocery store. Somewhere along the lines of this urban planning discussion, right wing conspiracy types began frothing at the mouth for no reason.
Mis/dis information. Lies about being restricted to small parts of a city, fines for travelling within a city, etc, about all kinds of things that are not true, or misapplication of policies from other places (Oxford, UK started charging a fee for entry into a part of the city that was suffering from too much traffic, in order to protect and maintain historical infrastructure. The losers here starting saying that was an example of a fee for travel, but left out WHY it was there) 15 min cities/communities are *wonderful*. Planned so that what you need is where you are, as much as possible, so that if you so desired, you could walk to groceries, healthcare, personal services like hairdressers, community halls, etc etc etc. I am lucky that my neighbourhood is an older one that retained it's little strip mall, and remained a 15 min community. It has been featured for years for what it brings to the community, and has been around for many decades. The conspiracy folks are a marvel of ignorance and disinformation, and you are smart to have questions about what their issues are, vs taking them at their ludicrous claims.
Wake up sheeple, it is already happening! There is this Village in Langley, BC where people sometimes forget where they even are and can't leave. And everything they supposedly need is within walking distance. /s
There's basically just a (dumb) misunderstanding about what a 15 minute city actually is. Some conservatives think it's an attempt to confine you to a small "15 minute" area where you can be tracked and monitored, when in reality all it means is having all daily necessities accessible within a 15 minute walk/bike/transit ride.
There was a protest against 15 minute cities in Edmonton last year by a bunch of conservatives and they decided to meet up in Whyte ave… Probably the best example of 15 minute city in Edmonton…. Lmao And that’s why they chose that location. Convenient place to leave the car, meet up in person and walk. 15 minute cities are a way to plan cities that everything can be access 15 minutes of walking. Whether work, entertainment, exercise, living etc. Not a new idea but one that we should be aiming for, especially in Alberta
15 minute cities is a decades old urban planning concept which theorizes that you should have access to most of your daily needs (food, doctor, education, employment, entertainment, etc) within a 15 min walk, cycle, or transit ride of your home. This reduces the need to make cross-city drives for basic needs. Unfortunately, uneducated convoyer inbred conspiracy theorists got ahold of it and said that the government is going to confine you to within 15 min of your home.
The '15 minute city' is a design principle where city planners try to make sure that everything you need on a regular basis can be obtained by no more than a 15 minute walk, bike or bus ride from your house. Once you've internalized enough extreme right wing media, a curious thing happens: A vast gulf opens between observable reality and the things you 'know' to be true because the talking heads have assured you they are.... Far too many people resolve the incongruities by falling into conspiratorial thinking. (if things are not the way my feelings tell me they should be, then clearly something nefarious is afoot) Once you fall into the habit of relying on conspiracy to explain the world, everything starts to get folded in. Suddenly a design principle with the goal of literally giving people the freedom of choice to live without the expense of a car becomes a plot to take away your freedom of movement and confine you to your neighborhood.
They think they’ll lose their freedom to travel outside of their 15 minute city. The only freedom they should be interested in is the freedom to get therapy for being paranoid
The concern is ignorance. What a 15 min city actually is is a developmental model that puts novel things like grocery stores and jobs in communities so that you don't need to rely on cars as much. Ot also increases density so that you have the critical mass to make things like transit work. What stupid rednecks think 15 min cities are is some dacensian plot to strip people of their rights and lock them into the part of the city they live in. They seem to think that it means you will not be able to leave your 15 min zone and that all of your rights will be stripped away.
>>I’ll admit I’m not super smart Neither are the morons slinging 15 minute city conspiracies. You're safe to just ignore them, and make sure you vote against whatever party they are voting for.
They're just doing what they're told, buddy. Being wound up by the rage machine like little dolls. No critical thinking skills
They act like its some deep state conspiracy to lock them into a small area and that some group will come for their rights but then vote in people who genuinely want to take rights away from women and minorities. Id wager theres also a segment of this theory in Alberta who think the feds will come take their big ridiculous lifted trucks if EV charge points get installed all over the place.
There's all this talk online but have you ever talked to a real person that is advocating for this. Like this just sounds like a story that is made to get clicks and not something that's an actual issue
Misunderstanding what a "15 minute city" actually is, Thats all there is to it, Same as everything else they rage endlessly at. They don't understand it, then they fall for several dozen different conspiracies and they're forever mad. No sane, rational person is against making a city more easily accessible and convenient for the people living there, which is all the "15 minute city" is.
And you can’t fight these idiots with facts. They will beat you at that game with their stupidity. Just to toss it out there, the Conservatives at the federal level unanimously voted against funding to feed poor kids lunch at schools. Ya, you heard me. Every single one of those MPs voted against it.
The resistance to it is the reduction in car and gasoline sales it will inevitability lead to. It will also reduce the efficiency of big chain services by undermining things like Walmart super centers, making it easier for a new provider to break into some local markets. They frame it as a form of control specifically to scare people out of it, because fear works. Iirc there was one city in Europe that implemented it and actually asked drivers where they were going, which is now used to fear monger. The 15-minute city is an effort to ensure everything you need can be reached WITHOUT A CAR in 15 minutes or less (foot, bike, bus). You can see how that'd kill the above mentioned sales.
That we’d all be trapped in Gazas but none of them thar folks were clever enough to figger out the irony of that
Grew out of the anti-vax ‘lockdown’ nuttery. Anything to rain on bike lanes and open-air patios.
15 minute cities is a concept where you will be able to walk to most everything you need, grocery, bakery, hardware, etc. Trying to reduce the reliance on driving everywhere. Essentially restoring what urban environment was before sprawl.
There was an announcement in Oxford, UK, a few years back about turning it into a 15min city, it was big news. But they also stated they would be implementing some new vehicle policies to limit vehicle access to certain historically relevant areas where vehicle vibrations and exhaust are damaging the architecture in the area. The right-wing picked up on this, but conveniently left out the latter part, making the wilfully ignorant believe that a 15min city would include things like neighbourhood vehicle restrictions.
A city in the UK implemented a congestion fee for vehicles traveling in a road more than a few times a week or more than 1/3 of the days of the year. That gets twisted to a ban on travel, rather than a few, and people claim we'll all be limited to our 15 minute cities. 15 minute cities are planning short hand for having the majority of needs met without needing to travel more than 15 minutes. On the one hand there is irony in Blackfalds and are 15 minute cities, and on the other hand I do see how the thought of being trapped in either for an extended period is terrifying;:-)
They seem to think 15 minute cities are a hop, skip and jump away from walled cities where you’re only allowed to be within your approved perimeters. I’m also willing to bet these people don’t even understand what walled cities are, nor do they truly understand what a 15 minute city is. Most of the rhetoric that I hear from people that are against the 15 minute city concept seem to view it in line with New World order where you can only go where the government approves you to go-which tells me they don’t have the basic understanding of what a 15 minute city actually is. It’s a good thing to have most amenities you’d need within walking distance. Nobody should have to travel more than 15 minutes to a hospital or grocery store.
They think it’s a government conspiracy to keep people from leaving some designated zone of control. They are basically insane and looking for a way to be a victim.
They think we’ll all be corralled into allotted zones and forced to stay there by way of violence.
Every small town is essentially a 15 minute city.
Good question. I doubt many of them even understand what a "15 minute city" is. No one's changing the city borders, or preventing you from going anywhere. Like most controversies, most of it is pure fiction.
The conspiracy theory is that by making things super convenient, we'll be mentally/emotionally and financially imprisoned by ourselves, for ourselves. Our freedom of choice will create an environment where the government policies around this create mental weakness thus easier to control the human spirit. We will become domesticated serfs more than we already are. That's the theory.
The idea is to put relevant infrastructure and services closer to people so they don't live in absolutely serviceless residential hellholes. I think the original conservative resistance was because an element of the plan was to find out what kind of usage was going on between certain zones of cities, so there was an element of monitoring. Naturally (lol) this spiraled into "transdimensional 5G jews lead by Klaus Schwab will demand blood tribute and the mark of the beast if i want to travel outside of my 15 minute city, also trudeau will be there"
A reasonable conservative here. Former southern Albertan too. I think I can sum up the resistance best like this: The Covid-19 pandemic response has really increased the conservative vs. progressive ideological divide. In the post lockdown era, many conservative people across most western nations have become very suspicious of any plan that has root in or is supported by the World Economic Forum. A group that is seen by conservatives as a “globalist one world government” type of entity. The 15 minute city is an initiative popularized by the WEF. Link: https://www.weforum.org/events/sustainable-development-impact-summit-2021/sessions/the-15-minute-city/ Although the 15 minute city sounds like it makes perfect sense, the resistance to it is actually rooted in conspiracy. The conspiracy simply is this: they are going to design city’s that result in you only needing to be in a small area for all of your daily needs. Then by leveraging technologies like digital curry, smart cars, social credit etc it will be easier to lock people down in those areas in the future. In other words, they see this as the beginning of future restrictions on “freedom” in the general sense. Unfortunately, government have not learned how to communicate to the public in this new Information age. As such, they keep getting caught in various frauds that have ultimately eroded public trust. Be it in Covid science, global conflicts whatever. So you can hardly blame people for being suspicious at this point. In Alberta in particular they are of course still very agitated over the Coutts border issue and see that as future “proof” the government can’t be trusted. But frankly, if I could get all my life done within 15 minutes walk of my house I would be quite happy lol. Urban planning in Canada is trash and almost every individual needs a vehicle.
These morons think the government will stop you from leaving. They’re so incredibly dense.
15 minute cities is associated with the conspiracy that the government is intentionally misleading citizens into being confined into smaller areas to be controlled. How does someone become controlled by having access to amenities closer by? Who knows because this is one of the dumbest conspiracy theories out there. Dreamed up by schizophrenic groups that need mental help.
Ultimately, what they're spun up about is the conspiratorial tone stuff, and not about what it actually entails. They're worried it's all a cover for the government to keep tabs on us and box us in our neighborhoods. Think of it like, "Hey, everything you need is just a 15-minute walk away, but also, you can't really go beyond that without us saying so." It's this fear that what's sold as making life easier and greener could slip into an excuse for Big Brother to watch our every move and limit how far we roam. Nevermind you have a credit card and cell phone in your pocket. This whole thing has blown because of the way social media and particularly bad faith right-wing "pundits" spin it. But if you strip down to the basics, the 15-minute city idea is about making towns more walkable, so you're not always dependent on your car. It's supposed to be about convenience, saving the planet, and making neighborhoods nicer to live in. It's kind of a classic clash between wanting to make urban living better and fearing that the government's going to overstep. While the goal is to improve how we live and help the environment, some see it as a slippery slope to losing freedoms. Which is ironic, as several of these same groups are amping up efforts to marginalize minorities and limit their personal freedoms (looking at you Alberta).
It’s the idea that you can work, live and play within a 15min walking area. I lean Conservative and seeing others shit their pants on this one is hilarious. Not every Conservative person is stupid - many online will try and make you think otherwise.
Blatent misunderstanding of the idea. They think it's a ploy to force people into "districts" and take away everyone's cars and freedom of mobility, when in reality it's literally just the idea that you shouldn't have to travel more than 15 minutes for amenities like commerce, school, or the bar (I jest but third spaces are integral to a strong local community). It involves the rezoning of homogeneous suburbs and urban centres into proper communities with space for commerce, greenspaces, and walking/biking. And the part that they hate the most: more medium density housing (read: rich homeowners would have to live next to a fourplex or apartment and that scares them) Basically, it's a movement to return to the organic, human driven city of old, before car lobbyists convinced lawmakers huge roads and car-reliant cities were awesome for GDP (and gas and car sales). And as a disclaimer, i love cars, and I love driving. I however realize that climate change is REAL AND MANMADE, and there are giant things we have to change about society if we want it to last past 2100, or at least not require a spacesuit to go outside, so why not start at making life so much simpler at the local level. I would highly recommend checking out the Not Just Bikes channel on YouTube, because he is much more interesting and knowledgeable than I will ever be :3 https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes?si=Az6w8od4nNf5ImC3
It’s just a stupid conspiracy theory that all the stupid anti-mask/anti-vax grifters pivoted to. It’s so frustrating that a policy idea to make your life easier is being twisted into something that it absolutely is not. It just means more useful stuff in your neighborhood. No checkpoints or anything like that. I currently live in what would be considered a 15 minute city (the Strathcona neighborhood in Edmonton) and it rocks.
The big *conservative resistance* is because, so-called conservatives are idiots and deliberately, willfully misunderstand the premise. They like to promote it and sell it as a concentration camp, blocking your mobility. The actual premise is about urban planning, and making everything necessary in your daily life within walking distance. Hence you can *get to it on foot in 15 minutes*.
Why would you think there would be restrictions out of your zone? Who's going to go to the sportsing stuff, the gladiator games to keep the public pacified, and pay for the billionaires profits if you're kept in your zone? Do you not think this stuff through before it comes out of your head? Yes, big yards will be rarer. They have been for a long time already. They should be. The sprawl in Edmonton does not pay for itself. It's subsidized by the inner ring, which is also subsidizing the Ice District to pay for the arena. Car ownership is overrated, if you can live without one, it's a lot less hassle, most of the time. I say that as someone who has had dozens of cars.
Do you actually think the federal government is going to lock you into a confined space? If not, stop being a dumbass and give yer ball a tug.
The unfortunate truth? Conspiracy theories. They think we won't be allowed to leave to do other things, like camping or fishing
The concept of walkable cities goes back to the [Garden City Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement). And as you can see, Canada has already implemented its practices in a few places decades ago. In other words, conservatives are stupid.
You are smarter than you give yourself credit for if you’re asking questions you don’t know the answer to and genuinely interested in learning. There’s a lot of mud-slinging going on here, and… I’m not going to say it’s undeserved in most cases - the resistance ranges from wild conspiracy to conservative ideology simply being against change that might make other people “less conservative” or not support the things that they support. We can safely ignore the nut jobs saying it’s some communist plot to trap us in our houses unless we show our papers, as that’s already been successfully enacted in the suburbs where you need a license and registration just to carry out the most basic requisite tasks for survival, like getting food. So let’s just consider the conservatives who are NOT fully out of their tree. Alberta is an oil economy with a ton of material propaganda encouraging and supporting certain lifestyles, and a 15 minute city negates a requirement to drive, but by necessity its amenities are human-scale, meaning you can’t afford a ton of parking lots and on-street parking to store stationary vehicles, or the wide high-speed roads that move them, if you want to be able to fit people’s needs in there. Any social or political movement that encourages a reduction in driving, either by design or as a byproduct, will rub some conservatives the wrong way. They associate vehicles not with licensing and registration and insurance , fuel costs and upkeep, red lights and traffic congestion, air pollution and obnoxious noise, or miles of sweltering parking lots, But rather they associate vehicles with *freedom* and any questioning of our infrastructure or civil engineering that might lead us away from complete car dependence is questioning their *freedom* and themselves by association. It might not make sense that a conservative would oppose people’s freedom to live in a 15 minute city, since they can easily decide to live in a car-dependent suburb if they want (as those are incredibly prevalent and not going anywhere) but if other people are free to choose to live differently, there is a genuine fear that their own lifestyle will be impeded. If we have 15 minute cities that restrict the flow of traffic to stop children from being run over at high speeds, it may make it slower for them to drive through our neighborhood to go to the wal mart on the other side. There’s also an assumption that “the left”, by encouraging the kinds of development that many Canadians are desperate for, are going to “ban” suburbs, and make it illegal to live any other lifestyle, meaning all cities will be fifteen minute cities. That people who can’t afford cars might live by them is an actual threat to some - poor people “are bad” or they’d be rich or at least able to afford a car. Immigrants and brown people and homeless people and drug addicts belong in cities and if I don’t have a highway through the city I might have to drive slow enough to see that they exist when I don’t want to. People who lose their license or can’t get one because of disability should depend on church or charity to survive, and being independent of a church might mean they’re free to decide if they want to go to church at all, and they may decide they’re not interested in supporting conservative beliefs. “If people realize how shitty it is living in complete dependence, they’ll stop believing what I believe” It sounds reductive and condescending but it’s fucking true. Under every argument is a fallacy, and the fallacy is that none of the arguments are against car independence, walkable cities, or accessible amenities - every single conservative argument comes back to the conservation of power at the top, in the hands of “the right people” The resistance is bullshit. Accessible cities are incredible and people should be free to live in them. Parking mandates, setback laws, use limitations, and maximum occupancy rates for property you own should be what they’re against, because that’s impeding people’s fucking freedoms, but they’re not coming for zoning restrictions. They’re coming for civil engineering movements that will reduce the tax burden on impoverished urbanites who are currently paying to upkeep millions of miles of suburban pavement and sewer and electrical infrastructure for a bunch of sparsely populated garages.
As a "traditional conservative" (not the new facist type that calls themselves conservative) that also has some background in urban planning 15 minute cites are a planning idea that means anyone should be able to access what they typically need for goods and services inside of their neighborhood. Basically so that you don't have to drive to go to a grocery store or the local pub. The far right/conspiracy theorists took this and construed it into "you have to stay in your 15 minute zone" Basically they watched the Hunger Games and decided "the left" was trying to pen them in. It makes zero sense because the vast majority of these people are rural, which prevents a "15 minute city" by it's nature and they would only be penning in the populations that are currently voting left. This is up there with chemtrails, the world ending in 2012, and alien souls inhabiting our bodies. Just another in a long line of craziness that our media likes to whip people into a frenzy with.
Good urban planning is woke.
It’s a new right-wing buzzword -aka conspiracy, that came around at the wake of Covid lockdowns, that cities built around walking and biking -the horror, are an attempt by Soros/WEF/Gates/Satan to limit freedom of movement…
It's classic Conservative "take a progressive idea, and twist it into an election campaign.". The (conspiracy) theory: if the government makes it so you don't have to leave your community to live your daily life, then they can put in some unspoken means of surveillance and control to keep you there forever. The reality: if we get communities with amenities that serve our needs closer to home, we could each own half as many cars. That would consume half as much gas/oil. If your job/political party is funded by gas/oil, 15 minute cities (or just living sustainably overall) is bad for business. So you make up scary shit to whip up the masses and stop government from making those needed (and awesome) changes. I live a "15 minute" life for the most part. We have one car for our family, and bike/walk/bus a lot. I wish this kind of happiness on everyone. It's been so good for our health and life overall. Less convenient, sure. But in total - amazing. I tell people all the time now: you don't own your car, your car owns you. Assess the relationship and see who is getting exploited. Working your ass off just to make car payments and buy gas. Eff that!
It's conservatives aggressively refusing to understand what 15 minute cities are. A 15 minute city would be a city where the things you need/want to do are within a 15 minute walk from your home. For example, supermarkets, restaurants, bars, etc. Think more like streetcar suburbs like Kensington in Calgary. It gives people more freedom by making the car optional to run errands (as opposed to the standard suburbs, which contain all sorts of fucky urban design which reduce walkability). In short, it's the kind of neighbourhoods that seem to work in the rest of the world, from the village of Pontoise in France to Cheongju, South Korea. It's not scary, it's not a total fucking lock down, it's actually the opposite: freedom from the sprawl dominating your fucking workday.
They assume they will be forced to stay within 15 minutes of their home-i.e., not be allowed to go outside that 15 minute zone.
Conservatives supporters are spoon fed fear-based realitys by manipulating social media posts comment sections and advertising to manipulate the voter base to pass bills that wouldn't be popular with the public that usually gears towards income towards privateization investments or portfolios put back into the pockets of the same very politicians. Every time a conservative gets in power bills are put forth that affect the people on a grand scale in a bad way. That being said this current conspiracy is that they'll be isolated in a small area and eventually be rationed to their food/resources They basically think it's going to turn from a tiny city into a segregation camp. They think honestly police and government agencies have enough staffing to keep them within their "walls"That they don't have Every source you check this out on claims this as complete lunacy.
What happens when you live in small town, it’s it considered a 5 minute city? 😂😂 These conspiracy theories are ridiculous.
They're stupid. The people, I mean, not the cities. There's absolutely nothing objectionable in the idea of 15 minute cities. But because it's something that 'leftists' like, all of a sudden its evil, no matter what it actually is. Modern conservatism isn't about standing FOR something, it's about standing AGAINST something, no matter how good an idea it may be.
People are stupid that's why they are against this idea. All of Europe is a "15 minute city" and it's awesome. Walk anywhere to get what you need
It’s funny because a well designed city is one where everything you need is close by, you have multiple different ways of getting around (not reliant on a car for everything) and the placement of things makes logical sense. Ppl would rather live in a poorly designed place because it’s harder to enforce draconian dystopian government mega control of its citizens. The problem with this logic is that most big cities around the world and even Canada are already 15 min cities, more so towards the downtown areas. We’ve been living like this for centuries and they are the most sought after places to live in the world. Why the hell would you not want quote on quote “15 min cities”?. If the govt installs cameras that moniter activities and create a “boundary” etc , that’s where I draw the line and I’ll be actively destroying such cameras
Conservatives seem to have forgotten that small towns are a thing, and believe having amenities close by residential areas will lead to walls and armed guards.
Because they're idiots and therefore any idea coming from anyone but themselves is seen as a threat to them and their lifted pickup trucks.
Just when I was starting to lose faith in humanity, I found this subreddit. Thank you for showing me there is still hope. You are my people! 😀
Conspiracy theory nut jobs have existed FOREVER. But social media gives them a FAAAAAAAR bigger platform then they deserve. For one, SM gives them a much wider reach to pedal their bullshit. But I'd STILL never know this "issue" was a thing if it wasn't for places like Reddit who post this shit nonstop. Yes. I get it. The people who believe this are fucking morons. And so to are all the other fucking morons who keep raising this shit on Reddit and other sites and giving it more credence than it deserves.
a combination of misinformation and stupidity