15-minute neighbourhoods

[rocketphish]

I hadn't heard of this latest corruption of a good idea by the dark forces of social media:

How ‘15-minute cities’ turned into an international conspiracy theory

By Laura Paddison, CNN
Published 3:05 AM EST, Sun February 26, 2023

(CNN) - Duncan Enright never imagined he’d get death threats over a plan to reduce grinding city traffic.

But it is exactly what happened to the local politician in the UK, who found himself deluged with abusive messages on social media and by email over his involvement in a proposed traffic filtering trial run in the city of Oxford.

The plan, designed to reduce the use of snarled-up city roads during peak traffic times, would require residents to get permits to drive through the filters, enforced by cameras, on six key roads.

The accusations flung at Enright were wild and varied, and mostly from people with no connection to Oxford, he said. Many were from outside the UK.

They claimed he wanted to confine people to their neighborhoods and accused him of being part of a malign international plot to control people’s movement in the name of climate action.

“It was quite alarming,” Enright told CNN, “I haven’t really had anything like that before in my many years in local government.”

Enright had been swept into a conspiracy theory, fast gaining pace around the world, which has rebranded plans to cut traffic, reduce air pollution and increase walking and cycling in cities as “climate lockdowns.”

Oxford has become a flashpoint, in part, because its traffic filtering plan has been conflated with a separate proposal in the city to create “15-minute cities,” the main focus of the conspiracy theorists’ ire.

What are 15-minute cities?

Type “15-minute cities” into social media and be prepared for a barrage of claims the idea will usher in dystopia, people will be fined for leaving their “district” or it is “urban incarceration.”

The concept, however, is pretty simple: Everything you need should be within a roughly 15-minute walk or cycle from your home, from health care and education to grocery stores and green spaces.

The aim is to make cities more livable and connected, with less private car use – meaning cleaner air, greener streets and lower levels of planet-heating pollution. Around a fifth of the world’s human-caused, planet-warming pollution comes from transportation, and passenger cars make up more than 40% of this.

Carlos Moreno, a professor at the Sorbonne University in France, is credited with first coining the term 15-minute cities, but the broad concept is not new.

“This idea takes inspiration from many urbanists, starting from Jane Jacobs, who in the last decades have been advocating for compact, lively, and therefore more walkable urban environments,” Alessia Calafiore, Lecturer in Urban Data Science and Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh.

It has gained traction internationally. In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo based her 2020 reelection campaign, in part, on a plan to create 15-minute cities. The city has banned cars from parts of the Seine, added hundreds of miles of cycling routes and created mini parks.

Ottawa has proposed 15-minute neighborhoods, Melbourne in Australia plans to adopt 20-minute neighborhoods and Barcelona, in Spain, has been implementing a car-free “superblocks” strategy.

Even some US cities have taken up the idea. Portland introduced 20-minute neighborhoods more than a decade ago, while O’Fallon, Illinois, recently published a strategy to “grow from a typical suburban community to a community with everything you need within 15-minutes.”

Pandemic lockdowns helped boost the popularity of the concept, as people, confined to their neighborhoods, were forced to reevaluate their local area.

“We have become more aware of how important living in well-served areas is,” Calafiore said.

Yet now, the mere mention of 15-minute cities online will bring a slew of angry commentators.

“That planning has become the conspiracy theory of 2023, who’d have thought?” asked Alex Nurse, a lecturer in Geography and Planning at the University of Liverpool, who was deluged with messages after his recent article about 15-minute cities in the Conversation.

“My inbox died,” he told CNN.

Birth of a conspiracy theory

So, how did this fairly mundane strategy become a flashpoint for a spiraling climate-related conspiracy theory?

For years, certain actors within the fossil fuel industry have been trying to whip up anger about climate action by rebranding it as “climate tyranny,” said Jennie King, head of Climate Research and Policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank focused on disinformation and extremism.

Pre-2020, however, they struggled to get traction, she told CNN.

That changed with the pandemic.

A series of media articles arguing we should rebuild a post-Covid world that could maintain the drops in planet-warming pollution were seized upon to turbocharge a narrative claiming governments wanted to limit freedoms in the name of climate action.

The World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” initiative, billed as an effort to tackle inequality and climate crisis post-pandemic, fanned the flames.

The term “climate lockdown” started swirling around, pushed by right-wing think tanks and climate-skeptic media figures. From there it filtered down to more extreme conspiracy communities, King said, including QAnon-affiliated groups and anti-vaccine groups.

Fox News took it up, along with high-profile climate deniers.

Ordinary people were swept along, too. The pandemic left millions with genuine trauma and real concerns about government overreach, King said. “And that has been weaponized by a vast ecosystem of bad actors.”

Disinformation is opportunistic

The idea of 15-minute cities fits neatly into the “climate lockdown” conspiracy theory, partly because it is easy to spin that way.

“The conspiracy theorists are right that you can’t make a real city out of self-contained enclaves – those would just be villages,” Carlo Ratti, an architect, engineer, and Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the MIT Senseable City Lab, told CNN.

But it misinterprets the idea, he said. It “gives people the freedom to live locally, but does not force them to do so.”

Yet “disinformation is opportunistic,” especially when it comes to climate, King said. Anything can become a lightning rod for manufactured controversy and when an issue starts to receive attention, a host of different actors “flood into the space,” she added.

In December, Canadian clinical psychologist and climate skeptic Jordan Peterson posted a tweet attacking 15-minute cities: “The idea that neighborhoods should be walkable is lovely. The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you’re ‘allowed’ to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea.”

In early February, UK politician Nick Fletcher raised the conspiracy in Parliament, calling 15-minute cities an “international socialist concept” and claimed they “will cost us our personal freedom.”

And last weekend, online theories spilled into real life protests, as thousands of people, many from outside the area, took to the streets of Oxford to protest the traffic filtering and 15-minute city proposals.

There are, of course, plenty of criticisms of 15-minute cities, including their potential to fracture cities, furthering existing inequalities between richer and poorer areas.

And Enright, in Oxfordshire, acknowledged local people have legitimate concerns about the traffic filtering plan. They will continue to consult, he said.

But this successful spinning of a huge conspiracy theory, by miscasting the intentions of 15-minute cities, has worrying long term implications for climate action, King said.

Governments, both local and national, may find it very hard to implement any policies that even touch on the climate crisis, she warned. “They are the most vulnerable at the moment to this enormous surge of hostility and public mobilization.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/26/world...ntl/index.html

[J.OT13]

[YukonLlama]

It's funny how people time and time again fall victim to corporate conspiracies, and then in turn vote against their own interests. Luckily, this is one of the easier ones to poke holes through.

Car-oriented infrastructure has created isolated communities where you inherently have to "pay" one way or another to leave. You're not paying "government fines" (unless you blow through a speed trap on your way out) but there are regular expenses that come with having to own and maintain a car. If you live in the suburbs and happen to lose your job, you may not be able to continue regularly using a car due to finances. Same goes for experiencing an unexpected injury or going into old age; if you don't have a car, this can impact your ability to access healthcare, visit friends, buy food etc, therefore indirectly limiting your life to the limits of your home.

By creating 15-minute communities, people have the ability to make different choices depending on their life scenario. They can bike or walk to work or school or run errands. They can also take their car to visit friends outside the area. Point is, you're not stuck or isolated depending on whether you own a constantly depreciating asset or not.

Also, if surveillance is the key concern, why aren't these groups also taking issue with modern gated suburban communities?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by YukonLlama

It's funny how people time and time again fall victim to corporate conspiracies, and then in turn vote against their own interests. Luckily, this is one of the easier ones to poke holes through.

Car-oriented infrastructure has created isolated communities where you inherently have to "pay" one way or another to leave. You're not paying "government fines" (unless you blow through a speed trap on your way out) but there are regular expenses that come with having to own and maintain a car. If you live in the suburbs and happen to lose your job, you may not be able to continue regularly using a car due to finances. Same goes for experiencing an unexpected injury or going into old age; if you don't have a car, this can impact your ability to access healthcare, visit friends, buy food etc, therefore indirectly limiting your life to the limits of your home.

By creating 15-minute communities, people have the ability to make different choices depending on their life scenario. They can bike or walk to work or school or run errands. They can also take their car to visit friends outside the area. Point is, you're not stuck or isolated depending on whether you own a constantly depreciating asset or not.

Also, if surveillance is the key concern, why aren't these groups also taking issue with modern gated suburban communities?

You're confusing how you define their interests with what they think their interests are.

They want to live in a suburb and keep the downtown problems away from them. A ton of negative comments for example about moving Sens to downtown as they will be forced to go there, take transit or it will be gridlock compared to the well located arena of today. They might vote for token carbon taxes so they can continue their lifestyle and not feel guilty but they do not want to make nor pay for changes necessary to end our car dependency. Even EVs are greenwash to our suburban lifestyle. EVs are not carbon free and in fact reduce lifetime carbon output by from 0-50%.

All that to say the suburbanites love their suburbs. They don't want to live even in a sterile Lansdowne type downtown let alone one where people different than them live.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

You're confusing how you define their interests with what they think their interests are.

They want to live in a suburb and keep the downtown problems away from them. A ton of negative comments for example about moving Sens to downtown as they will be forced to go there, take transit or it will be gridlock compared to the well located arena of today. They might vote for token carbon taxes so they can continue their lifestyle and not feel guilty but they do not want to make nor pay for changes necessary to end our car dependency. Even EVs are greenwash to our suburban lifestyle. EVs are not carbon free and in fact reduce lifetime carbon output by from 0-50%.

All that to say the suburbanites love their suburbs. They don't want to live even in a sterile Lansdowne type downtown let alone one where people different than them live.

People in places like Gatineau and Orleans generally don't think the arena is in a great location, even if they live in auto-dependent suburbia.

I'd say 90% of people in the metro area live in directions away (mostly east) from the arena that make it difficult to get to.

Though sure I suppose people in Stittsville, Kanata and Arnprior think the location is great.

[rocketphish]

The ‘15-minute city’ idea is key to solving Canada’s housing crisis

Christopher Alexander
Special to the Globe and Mail
June 4, 2023

Yes, Canada needs more housing inventory – that is obvious to most. But the solution is not just about boosting supply.

Rather, we need purposeful inventory: the right type of housing, in the right areas, with access to the right mix of transportation and, most importantly, with liveability at its core. This should be prioritized in all cities across the country, but especially in smaller markets that are on the cusp of fast growth.

In fact, urban planners will tell you that this approach has been in practice for decades with frameworks such as the 15-minute city or 15-minute neighbourhood.

In the past couple of months, this urban planning concept has taken over headlines and sparked fierce debate. It holds that all essential services and amenities such as housing, schools, health care, parks and work should be located within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. This is the key to tackling the housing and affordability crisis in Canada.

In 2017, the National Housing Strategy set out to “create liveable communities where families thrive, children learn and grow, and their parents have the stability and opportunities they need to succeed.” But now that we have surpassed the halfway point of that 10-year, $55-billion strategy, how much headway have we actually made toward making this promise a reality?

Thus far, the NHS has succeeded in creating and repairing 213,733 units. In comparison, Canada’s population grew by more than one million in 2022. With demand that is perpetually outpacing supply, many find themselves at a fork in the road where difficult choices must be made, but what is the reality of the choices that Canadians are being provided?

Decisions such as the Ontario government’s move to build developments on the Greenbelt are piecemeal solutions that fail to address the real problem. We know that building on wetlands eliminates a natural climate mitigator, which can lead to flooding and homes that are uninsurable, unliveable and nothing more than empty inventory in the long-term. Moreover, building homes farther and farther out, contributing to urban sprawl, is not the solution.

A recent study by TomTom revealed that Canadians spent approximately 144 hours in rush-hour traffic across the country in 2022. Despite suburbia offering pockets of affordability and promising improved liveability, this perceived appeal quickly becomes diluted with commute times. In fact, according to a 2023 Leger survey commissioned by RE/MAX Canada, about one in four Canadians believes that reducing commute time to 15 minutes or less would improve their quality of life.

The question now becomes: How do we build more homes, while simultaneously fostering communities that amplify liveability?

While it’s never too late for any municipality, regardless of its size, to adopt the pragmatic strategy of the 15-minute city, there is more impetus to do so on the less populous ones. It is an opportunity present for smaller markets in the throes of expansion to avoid the mistakes of their larger neighbouring city centres. And we should look to existing cities that have gone down this path.

At its most basic level, the 15-minute neighbourhood can reduce carbon emissions, promote social cohesion and even improve public health. These are all benefits that are already being enjoyed by cities such as Paris, Copenhagen and Melbourne.

Meanwhile, cities such as Helsinki have captured the spirit of this framework and even surpassed it, by ensuring that each neighbourhood has a balance of market housing, mixed-income housing and subsidized housing. This offers residents access to a culturally and socio-economically diverse, vibrant community where small businesses and people thrive.

Closer to home, it’s clear that the measures and initiatives adopted by the municipal, provincial and federal governments in Canada have not been enough.

Real estate has historically given homeowners great long-term returns that they have been able to pass down to future generations. This is one of the reasons Canadians still believe it is one of the best investments they could make. However, a home is more than a commodity – it is also a dwelling anchored by the promise that it will enhance and improve our individual and collective quality of life.

In truth, if we want to make strides toward sustainable, long-term affordability and liveability, we must use existing land more pragmatically and create cities, towns and neighbourhoods that offer a mix of housing types with a vision for quality of life at the forefront.

Christopher Alexander is president of RE/MAX Canada.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...ousing-crisis/

[J.OT13]

We know that the Ontario Government's move are about ling the pockets of their friends, and not solving the housing crisis, otherwise the zoning requirements for the Greenbelt lands would be much higher and "Smart" Centres would no longer be allowed as they exist today, amongst other actual potential improvements to housing policy.

[shelltime]

We'd have to go full Haussmann renovation for Ottawa to have the type of Density that attracts retailers and services to be within a 15-minute walk. It's a pipe dream.. we're not Europe.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by shelltime

We'd have to go full Haussmann renovation for Ottawa to have the type of Density that attracts retailers and services to be within a 15-minute walk. It's a pipe dream.. we're not Europe.

Even in Europe that kind of density is rare.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by shelltime

We'd have to go full Haussmann renovation for Ottawa to have the type of Density that attracts retailers and services to be within a 15-minute walk. It's a pipe dream.. we're not Europe.

Sure, thinking that everyone in the city will live in a one is a pipe dream, but we already have 15-minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa, we just need to build more of them going forward. Converting a lot of the power centres located along the transit lines would be a good start by turning the sea of parking lots into dense housing.

I find Singapore's goal of 20-minute communities in within a 45-minute transit metropolis a more holistic way of looking at the issue.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

We know that the Ontario Government's move are about ling the pockets of their friends, and not solving the housing crisis, otherwise the zoning requirements for the Greenbelt lands would be much higher and "Smart" Centres would no longer be allowed as they exist today, amongst other actual potential improvements to housing policy.

Guessing Ford's motives is a certainly acceptable given how this was rolled out but of course his supposed friends who own the land in the greenbelt would prefer more density in their lands so not sure what evidence that is. Fords idea is to build as much housing as possible so people can move out of rental apartments and into suburban bliss. Creating new consumers, happy families and yes frequenting more power centres. He's also not wrong that's what a lot of people want as the shortage in housing is really mostly ground based housing.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Sure, thinking that everyone in the city will live in a one is a pipe dream, but we already have 15-minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa, we just need to build more of them going forward. Converting a lot of the power centres located along the transit lines would be a good start by turning the sea of parking lots into dense housing.

Businesses in the 15 minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa are heavily dependent on customers from outside the 15 minute area driving in. I don't think there are any self-supporting 15 minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Businesses in the 15 minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa are heavily dependent on customers from outside the 15 minute area driving in. I don't think there are any self-supporting 15 minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa.

Isn’t this a bit of a generalization? Of course some businesses need to draw from bigger areas, but the ones providing the day to day needs? Taking the Glebe as an example, I highly doubt that businesses like Metro, Nicastro, the pharmacies, the hardware store, florist, the opticals etc. are dependent on people from outside of the neighbourhood. Sure, there wouldn’t be as many restaurants without people from outside of that range, but I don’t think that disqualifies it. Westboro is similar.

Even if we can get up to 80% of people’s daily needs met nearby, that would be a huge improvement over the status quo.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

Isn’t this a bit of a generalization? Of course some businesses need to draw from bigger areas, but the ones providing the day to day needs? Taking the Glebe as an example, I highly doubt that businesses like Metro, Nicastro, the pharmacies, the hardware store, florist, the opticals etc. are dependent on people from outside of the neighbourhood. Sure, there wouldn’t be as many restaurants without people from outside of that range, but I don’t think that disqualifies it. Westboro is similar.

Even if we can get up to 80% of people’s daily needs met nearby, that would be a huge improvement over the status quo.

Westboro is certainly dependent on drivers, note the large surface lot beside the superstore, LCBO, and MEC as well as the free parking at Farm Boy (and all the streets).

Glebe is harder to tell. Certainly Landsdowne and the specialty stores are car dependent. The fact that Mckeen validates parking is probably a clue though as to its car dependence.

[Williamoforange]

A 15 minute walk is 1.2 km Rad, a 15 min bike is ~5km rad, a 15 min Transit rise ~10km-20km Rad (Though that doesn't include wait times)

City policy is for a 15 walkable neighbourhood, and people really do need to read what is actually in this 15 minutes neighbourhood....It doesn't require full-service grocery store (like Loblaws) within a 15-minute walk (farmers pick is just fine), or one of every facility in each category (see report) or other wish list like items.

https://engage.ottawa.ca/the-new-off...neighbourhoods

Anyways, as per that study for the majority of the area inside of the greenbelt has a "high" 15-min neighbourhood score....Outside of the greenbelt has its areas, mostly where zoning allowed commercial within neighbourhoods.

Hopefully the change of allowing commercial along any (I think) minor corridor will help things, among other changes.

The cities own zoning doesn't do it any favours for 15-min either. The Riverside south "Smart/power"centres....the 2010 & 2015 zoning of GM26/GM30, only allows 18m height (5 stories), and up to 50% FSI of residential.... but somehow the CITY is going to wait until 2025 to rectify that stupidity.

But hey if were calling on the province to come in and overwrite city zoning i'm all for it. They can start with rezoning minor corridors to allow 6+ stories as of right inside the greenbelt (per study mainly 15 min neighbourhoods) as per the cities new OP and rewriting MTSA to the new OP which would include the power centres in riverside south.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Westboro is certainly dependent on drivers, note the large surface lot beside the superstore, LCBO, and MEC as well as the free parking at Farm Boy (and all the streets).

Glebe is harder to tell. Certainly Landsdowne and the specialty stores are car dependent. The fact that Mckeen validates parking is probably a clue though as to its car dependence.

McKeen validates parking? I had no idea. I think that grocery stores are always going to have a certain percentage of customers who drive, but a few years ago I heard McKeen saying that they were largely dependent on smaller baskets, which I assumed meant local people.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

McKeen validates parking? I had no idea. I think that grocery stores are always going to have a certain percentage of customers who drive, but a few years ago I heard McKeen saying that they were largely dependent on smaller baskets, which I assumed meant local people.

https://mckeenmetroglebe.com/city-ot...ng-validation/

It is definitely the most local of the 3 grocery stores in the Glebe.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Williamoforange

A 15 minute walk is 1.2 km Rad, a 15 min bike is ~5km rad, a 15 min Transit rise ~10km-20km Rad (Though that doesn't include wait times)

City policy is for a 15 walkable neighbourhood, and people really do need to read what is actually in this 15 minutes neighbourhood....It doesn't require full-service grocery store (like Loblaws) within a 15-minute walk (farmers pick is just fine), or one of every facility in each category (see report) or other wish list like items.

https://engage.ottawa.ca/the-new-off...neighbourhoods

Anyways, as per that study for the majority of the area inside of the greenbelt has a "high" 15-min neighbourhood score....Outside of the greenbelt has its areas, mostly where zoning allowed commercial within neighbourhoods.

Hopefully the change of allowing commercial along any (I think) minor corridor will help things, among other changes.

The cities own zoning doesn't do it any favours for 15-min either. The Riverside south "Smart/power"centres....the 2010 & 2015 zoning of GM26/GM30, only allows 18m height (5 stories), and up to 50% FSI of residential.... but somehow the CITY is going to wait until 2025 to rectify that stupidity.

But hey if were calling on the province to come in and overwrite city zoning i'm all for it. They can start with rezoning minor corridors to allow 6+ stories as of right inside the greenbelt (per study mainly 15 min neighbourhoods) as per the cities new OP and rewriting MTSA to the new OP which would include the power centres in riverside south.

But the city’s definition is so flexible that most suburban neighborhoods already qualify, which is not what the Remax article is advocating for.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

But the city’s definition is so flexible that most suburban neighborhoods already qualify, which is not what the Remax article is advocating for.

Am I reading this right that RE/Max is arguing for 15 min (presumably driving) commutes?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Sure, thinking that everyone in the city will live in a one is a pipe dream, but we already have 15-minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa, we just need to build more of them going forward. Converting a lot of the power centres located along the transit lines would be a good start by turning the sea of parking lots into dense housing.

I find Singapore's goal of 20-minute communities in within a 45-minute transit metropolis a more holistic way of looking at the issue.

I hate the 0-100 mentality. I would be very happy if 80% of services I consume were within 1.2 km of my home. I don't need 100%. Grocery, doctor, dentist, coffee shop, laundromat, bank, rec centre and library probably covers 80% of most families' weekly service consumption.