What is a ’15-minute city’, and should we be worried?

The explosion of conspiracy theories around the ‘15-minute city’ brings into focus the question, what is it?

The 15-minute city isn’t a novel idea – it’s how many older parts of older cities already operate – but its growing use as a model for redesigning neighbourhoods has been met with extreme speculation that some proponents of the idea have veiled malevolent intentions.

And while some people with a more conspiratorial outlook see sinister motives, much of the conflict about events as they are happening on the ground seems to be a good old scrap over territory – who gets to use the road.

In essence, the 15-minute city is the idea that a person is able to undertake most of their daily life in a 15-minute radius around where they live, and the conspiracy aspect is about forcing this lifestyle on people.

Among the most alarming conspiracy theories to have emerged are suggestions that a 15-minute city is just a stalking horse to pave the way for climate lockdowns – similar to Covid lockdowns – with residents forcibly confined to their neighbourhoods to control emissions.

In this country, Hamilton is pursuing the idea of a 20-minute city, and says it has heard some concerns along the lines of those promoted in conspiracy theories.

The 15-minute city idea is more developed in some other countries. For example, in the UK several councils have stopped private cars using some streets as through routes – a move considered a step along the way towards the kind of neighbourhoods the 15-minute city idea is trying to create.

One way of restricting car use through neighbourhoods is to take photographs of car number plates passing certain points, called filters. Drivers who aren’t supposed to be there get a fine.

In the English city of Oxford, residents of the so-called low traffic neighbourhoods (LTN) can apply for a permit to drive through the filters on up to 100 days a year. Residents living in the rest of Oxfordshire can apply for a permit to drive through filters on up to 25 days a year.

So, there is more bureaucracy, and more state surveillance, but the main issue seems to be about private car use.

And it’s heated. Furious debate has raged around the Oxford project, with the UK government even appearing to join the fray.

In October, it announced what it called “The Plan for Drivers”. One of the “actions” proposed by the nationwide plan is to: “Stop local authorities using so-called ‘15-minute cities’ to police people’s lives.” Another is: “New guidance on low traffic neighbourhoods”.

While the plan may be seen as an attempt by an unpopular Conservative government to win votes, it also suggests qualms about how the 15-minute city idea could be used aren’t restricted to a radical fringe.

And the closure of some streets to through traffic in Oxford has reportedly meant much longer travel times on remaining routes.

One woman told the Daily Mail that trips that used to take her four minutes now take 30-40 minutes, and The Telegraph reported on an acclaimed private school that said teachers were resigning, or deciding against joining the school, because of long travel times caused by the LTNs.

In a letter to the local council, Magdalen College School had said a bus trip that used to take nine minutes, could now take almost an hour.

In an article in the UK magazine New Statesman, which describes itself as “progressive”, American writer Michael Lind said that while there was “no Davos conspiracy to confine everyone in 15-minute concentration camps”, the 15-minute city was “an overclass dream and a working-class nightmare”.

Most working-class people with suburban lifestyles relied on cars to get them to work and to go shopping. They could be “forgiven for being resentful of environmental regulations whose cost falls on them in the periphery, rather than on upscale professionals in pleasant urban enclaves”, Lind wrote.

Paris-based urbanist Carlos Moreno is widely credited with the description, “15-minute city”.

“In a nutshell,” Moreno said, “the idea is that cities should be designed or re-designed so that within the distance of a 15-minute walk or bike ride, people should be able to live the essence of what constitutes the urban experience.”

The dysfunction and indignities of modern cities should no longer be accepted, for the sake of justice, well-being and the climate.

In a Kings College London survey, respondents were asked about a range of conspiracy theories, and found 33% thought it was probably or definitely true that 15-minute cities were “an attempt by governments to restrict people’s personal freedom and keep them under surveillance”.

A third of those questioned in Britain said they were less likely to believe official information because of how government and media behaved during Covid.

Suggestions the institutional response to Covid damaged public trust were discussed in a 2022 article by researchers from the UK, US and Canada, in the journal BMJ Global Health.

They wrote it was likely “many of the alternative explanations of the pandemic, often called conspiracy theories, were further entrenched when vaccine policies were forcefully implemented in 2021”.

That had created “a strong confirmation bias that governments and corporate powers were acting in an authoritarian manner”.

“Furthermore, multiple social perceptions and logics about science, technology and corporate and government power have been grafted onto the public discussion about Covid-19 vaccines, specifically related to authoritarian bio-surveillance capabilities.”

An article on the University of Kent website in April said the concept of the 15-minute city was perceived by some as a threat to individual autonomy, and feeling autonomous and in control of one’s environment was a fundamental psychological need.

Research had shown an association between the frustration of that need and a higher belief in conspiracy theories.

The University of Kent article noted conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities had been caught up in a broader conspiracy theory known as ‘The Great Reset’.

Under that theory, “an unelected global elite allegedly remake society and permanently alter life as we know it”.

The words “great reset” were used by World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab in a June, 2020 article about how to fix the woes of the world. It was headlined: “Now is the time for a ‘great reset’.”

Publication of the article led to the re-emergence of a 2016 WEF video post of eight predictions for 2030. Prediction 1, superimposed over the face of a smiling man, was: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”

According to numerous scientific articles on the internet, there’s nothing new about conspiracy theories.

“Belief in conspiracy theories … is a widespread and culturally universal phenomenon,” according to a 2018 article in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Conspiracy theories had been widespread throughout human history, with research supporting the idea they were common before people had access to modern communication technologies.

But in the past, a 2022 article in the journal Convergence noted, conspiracy theories had mostly operated in what were described as socio-cultural niches, with varying degrees of exclusivity and deviance.

In contrast, these days conspiracy theories were highly visible on social media platforms.

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