It is a commonly held belief that cars bring freedom and independence, but the reality may be the opposite. Car dependent cities are Orwellian in many aspect...
This ideology could be astroturfed fossil fuel propaganda, but electric cars are being mandated in most countries. Fossil fuel corps won’t hold on to a battle they’re already losing.
The 15 min city “conspiracy theory” comes from people not wanting government over reach, especially since these govs are considering centralized digital currencies. This needs to be addressed.
Otherwise we’re going to trade one dystopia for another.
The 15 minute cities conspiracy theory came from covid deniers who, when it became clear that governments weren’t trying to instate perpetual lockdowns, needed a new thing to latch on to and came up with the idea of “climate lockdowns”.
The actual 15 minutes cities idea is literally just to have the things you need daily within a 15 minute walk of your home. It’s pretty sensible and not harmful to your mobility at all. But now the guy that came up with the idea gets death threats because of people spreading this bullshit.
Most things aren’t created out of malice, like the 15 min city idea. Communism was created in the same light, people trying to come up with a better system.
If we don’t do these kinds of things very carefully though, it will be exploited. Obviously death threats aren’t the answer, but there is legit cause for concern here
I’m concerned we’ll all be stuffed into little apartments, with “everything we need” in a 500m radius. That’s going to be a disaster if the wrong people get into power. There’s a reason the Canadian Charter of Rights includes “free movement”.
Imagine if “the wrong people” got into power and restricts the access to oil. How many days do you survive before starving cause you can’t even walk to a super market?
Lol man, if oil was shut down tomorrow so would the super markets. They’d have stock for like 2 days before there isn’t a super market to walk to anymore
The current status quo in most of the US and Canada is that in large areas nothing but large single family houses are allowed to be built, which forces people into spending thousands a year on their cars to get anywhere. The alternative being proposed is building areas that can have a mix of housing types and uses, so people can live without needing a car to get anywhere, not to stop being from having cars and going places.
I assume your mention of Shanghai is referring to their COVID lockdowns, which I also think were too severe, but as far as I am aware have completely ended. This was also in response to a virus, and has nothing to do with urban design.
My mention of Shanghai was how they have a horrible ruling class, that has implemented a Social Credit Score. Do or say something they don’t like? No more taking the train out of the city. People become bound to the zone they are designated. Sounds a little dystopian no?
The large single houses thing is not true either, I live in Canada and my neighborhood has big corps sweeping through buying properties and building cookie cutter condos in place of the houses. Many don’t even have parking
There’s a lot you could criticise about the Chinese government, and yet you choose more conspiracy theories. The social credit score in the way that you speak of it comes from a misunderstanding of a vaguely worded Chinese policy document, which lead to various pilot projects by some companies, cities and ministries which have all been conflated into one thing. Here’s a good video which goes over the whole thing which I’m sure you won’t watch but will still have many opinions about.
The issue you describe in Canada is part of the problem that I describe. Here’s a zoning map of Vancouver for example:
In all of the yellow areas, only single family homes and duplexes can be built, which have very low densities. This means anytime there is space where something more dense can be built, the most dense thing possible is built. If there was less restrictive zoning which allowed more mixed uses across the area, what’s known as missing middle housing, that is all of the other housing types in between single family homes and large condo towers, could be built.
Thank you for enlightening me on the Social Credit Score, it’s good to know it’s only court ordered in cases where people aren’t allowed to take the train or fly. That’s still not great though. I work under some (overly nepotistic) execs for a corp and they use similar vague style tactics. It’s honestly both a weapon and a shield that leaves the players powerless and the game masters with too much control. I wouldn’t want a country run this way.
I also think of people like Xu Xiaodong who had his score reduced to “D” until he paid $40,000USD for calling a fake martial artist a fraud ಠ_ಠ. The courts in China are another discussion though. I’m just saying there is too much room for weaponization in scenarios like this. If it can be exploited, it will.
The missing middle housing stuff does look interesting, and I see your point with it. If it doesn’t impede peoples sunlight or take away yards/gardens while mixing buildings like that, it might be a good solution that we could agree on.
It seems that I could only find about 18 countries with mandates. That hardly accounts for most of them. There have been an increasing effort to make them but that doesn’t really show that fossil fuel companies are in a losing battle. If anything, they’ve gone up.
I don’t see how the conspiracy, which is what is is, has anything to do with government overreach and digital currencies. The conspiracies usually go into weird territory about being cut off from using your car or similar nonsense. Creating a walkable city is really very easy to do once you weed out the political roadblocks, which is of course much easier said than done. The end result wouldn’t be limiting people’s movement. If anything it would be expanding it when done right.
You do have a point that it can be nearly impossible depending on the country or the city and how much of a grip corporate interests have. My own country has done pretty well with what you might call “15 minute cities.” It probably helps that local government or the cities that built the way they are don’t have a strong multinational presence in them.
Would those 18 countries be considered “first world”? Car manufacturers don’t have the capacity to make a different vehicle for every country, it’s operated more by continents with a couple exceptions. So a few large economies kind of get to decide for everyone.
Our older vehicles often end up in poorer countries. I’d actually never thought about this implication before, but those poorer countries will struggle to get any electric infrastructure up and might be worse off. Hopefully not.
The 15 min city idea doesn’t have good publicity, especially when you see Shanghai attempting it with their social credit system.
Ultimately, we need a way to regulate the regulators, without restricting peoples movement or current freedoms. I think we both agree on this. I’m all for a greener, less congested cities if it can be done, but it needs to be a careful transition period with intensive, neutral, and transparent planning so we don’t end up with tyrants running the show. I still don’t think cars are the enemy here though.
This ideology could be astroturfed fossil fuel propaganda, but electric cars are being mandated in most countries. Fossil fuel corps won’t hold on to a battle they’re already losing.
The 15 min city “conspiracy theory” comes from people not wanting government over reach, especially since these govs are considering centralized digital currencies. This needs to be addressed.
Otherwise we’re going to trade one dystopia for another.
The 15 minute cities conspiracy theory came from covid deniers who, when it became clear that governments weren’t trying to instate perpetual lockdowns, needed a new thing to latch on to and came up with the idea of “climate lockdowns”.
The actual 15 minutes cities idea is literally just to have the things you need daily within a 15 minute walk of your home. It’s pretty sensible and not harmful to your mobility at all. But now the guy that came up with the idea gets death threats because of people spreading this bullshit.
@mondoman712 @Shake747
#StocasticTerrorism
Most things aren’t created out of malice, like the 15 min city idea. Communism was created in the same light, people trying to come up with a better system.
If we don’t do these kinds of things very carefully though, it will be exploited. Obviously death threats aren’t the answer, but there is legit cause for concern here
You’re concerned about having a supermarket too close to your apartment?
I’m concerned we’ll all be stuffed into little apartments, with “everything we need” in a 500m radius. That’s going to be a disaster if the wrong people get into power. There’s a reason the Canadian Charter of Rights includes “free movement”.
Shanghai China is the usual example here.
Imagine if “the wrong people” got into power and restricts the access to oil. How many days do you survive before starving cause you can’t even walk to a super market?
Lol man, if oil was shut down tomorrow so would the super markets. They’d have stock for like 2 days before there isn’t a super market to walk to anymore
The current status quo in most of the US and Canada is that in large areas nothing but large single family houses are allowed to be built, which forces people into spending thousands a year on their cars to get anywhere. The alternative being proposed is building areas that can have a mix of housing types and uses, so people can live without needing a car to get anywhere, not to stop being from having cars and going places.
I assume your mention of Shanghai is referring to their COVID lockdowns, which I also think were too severe, but as far as I am aware have completely ended. This was also in response to a virus, and has nothing to do with urban design.
My mention of Shanghai was how they have a horrible ruling class, that has implemented a Social Credit Score. Do or say something they don’t like? No more taking the train out of the city. People become bound to the zone they are designated. Sounds a little dystopian no?
The large single houses thing is not true either, I live in Canada and my neighborhood has big corps sweeping through buying properties and building cookie cutter condos in place of the houses. Many don’t even have parking
There’s a lot you could criticise about the Chinese government, and yet you choose more conspiracy theories. The social credit score in the way that you speak of it comes from a misunderstanding of a vaguely worded Chinese policy document, which lead to various pilot projects by some companies, cities and ministries which have all been conflated into one thing. Here’s a good video which goes over the whole thing which I’m sure you won’t watch but will still have many opinions about.
The issue you describe in Canada is part of the problem that I describe. Here’s a zoning map of Vancouver for example:
In all of the yellow areas, only single family homes and duplexes can be built, which have very low densities. This means anytime there is space where something more dense can be built, the most dense thing possible is built. If there was less restrictive zoning which allowed more mixed uses across the area, what’s known as missing middle housing, that is all of the other housing types in between single family homes and large condo towers, could be built.
Thank you for enlightening me on the Social Credit Score, it’s good to know it’s only court ordered in cases where people aren’t allowed to take the train or fly. That’s still not great though. I work under some (overly nepotistic) execs for a corp and they use similar vague style tactics. It’s honestly both a weapon and a shield that leaves the players powerless and the game masters with too much control. I wouldn’t want a country run this way.
I also think of people like Xu Xiaodong who had his score reduced to “D” until he paid $40,000USD for calling a fake martial artist a fraud ಠ_ಠ. The courts in China are another discussion though. I’m just saying there is too much room for weaponization in scenarios like this. If it can be exploited, it will.
The missing middle housing stuff does look interesting, and I see your point with it. If it doesn’t impede peoples sunlight or take away yards/gardens while mixing buildings like that, it might be a good solution that we could agree on.
what’s that got to do with anything?
It seems that I could only find about 18 countries with mandates. That hardly accounts for most of them. There have been an increasing effort to make them but that doesn’t really show that fossil fuel companies are in a losing battle. If anything, they’ve gone up.
I don’t see how the conspiracy, which is what is is, has anything to do with government overreach and digital currencies. The conspiracies usually go into weird territory about being cut off from using your car or similar nonsense. Creating a walkable city is really very easy to do once you weed out the political roadblocks, which is of course much easier said than done. The end result wouldn’t be limiting people’s movement. If anything it would be expanding it when done right.
You do have a point that it can be nearly impossible depending on the country or the city and how much of a grip corporate interests have. My own country has done pretty well with what you might call “15 minute cities.” It probably helps that local government or the cities that built the way they are don’t have a strong multinational presence in them.
Would those 18 countries be considered “first world”? Car manufacturers don’t have the capacity to make a different vehicle for every country, it’s operated more by continents with a couple exceptions. So a few large economies kind of get to decide for everyone.
Our older vehicles often end up in poorer countries. I’d actually never thought about this implication before, but those poorer countries will struggle to get any electric infrastructure up and might be worse off. Hopefully not.
The 15 min city idea doesn’t have good publicity, especially when you see Shanghai attempting it with their social credit system.
Ultimately, we need a way to regulate the regulators, without restricting peoples movement or current freedoms. I think we both agree on this. I’m all for a greener, less congested cities if it can be done, but it needs to be a careful transition period with intensive, neutral, and transparent planning so we don’t end up with tyrants running the show. I still don’t think cars are the enemy here though.