15 minute cities: don't fall for it

Don’t fall for the conspiracy theories, says leading transport journalist Carlton Reid.

Squint and a famous wartime map of London looks somewhat similar to a modern heatmap of Barcelona’s ‘superblocks’. That’s because Patrick Abercrombie’s ‘Greater London Plan’ of 1943 shows how London is a city of villages. And Barcelona’s superblocks are distinct neighbourhoods made more people-friendly by restricting car use. Both are compact urban zones with all amenities nearby — ‘15-minute cities’ in other words.

Bizarrely, the city of short distances urban planning model has become embroiled in the culture wars, attracting numerous cranks and not of the bicycle variety. To QAnon-types and other
conspiracists, 15-minute cities are dystopian, climate-lockdown concentration camps with people electronically chained to their locality and fed on ground-up grasshoppers. I am not exaggerating.

A Tory MP recently told Parliament that, in effect, living close to shops was an “international socialist concept”. Yet, the same people also say the urban planning model is a nefarious, bug-eating plot from the bankers and ubercapitalists of the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum.

The professor who coined the term ‘15-minute city’ in 2015 at the COP21 conference said that instead of being perfected for cars, cities “should be designed so that within the distance of a 15-minute walk or bike ride, people should be able to access work, housing, food, health, education, culture, and leisure”.

Carlos Moreno also said that the “rhythm of the city should follow humans, not cars” and that “neighbourhoods should be designed so that we can live, work and thrive in them without having to constantly commute elsewhere”. Who wouldn’t want to live within easy walking and cycling distance of shops, cafes, schools, theatres, and swimming pools? Seriously?

Ignore the lies

According to these conspiracy theories (which bubbled up after Covid lockdowns) the world’s elites want to eradicate cars and, instead, mandate bicycles for everybody. Chance would be a fine thing!

‘Libertarian influencers’ Nigel Farage, Laurence Fox and Neil Oliver, of course, have come out against 15-minute cities, and Canadian psychologist turned hard-right culture warrior Jordan Peterson tweeted that “idiot tyrannical bureaucrats [will] decide where you’re ‘allowed’ to drive”, as if city traffic departments have not done this very thing for at least the last hundred years.

Vaccine sceptic James Melville told his 425,000 Twitter followers that 15-minute cities would involve “urban incarceration”. Embedding a video shot in China of a Covid lockdown he said neighbourhoods would be “separated by a barbed wire fence. Anyone who wants to leave their zone requires a QR code/Covid passport and a face recognition scan”.

Grifters whipping up unfounded fears are now fomenting on-the-ground protests, including a recent one in Oxford; here the march railed against the 15-minute city, but conflated it with LTN expansion trials the city council plans for next year. Patriotic Alternative and other far-right groups were also in attendance.

Perhaps one positive to have come out of the recent scaremongering is that those opposing traffic reduction measures — such as LTNs — might now think twice for fear of being associated with the 15-minute city lunatic fringe?

This article was originally published in London Cyclist, London Cycling Campaign’s exclusive member’s magazine. Join as a member today for quarterly copies of London Cyclist delivered to your door, free legal advice, discounts in independent bike shops across London, and much more…