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The 15-Minute City Conspiracy

hunck said:
After a brief look at these, most are about issues/problems with the 15 minute city idea. I can’t see anything about



I haven’t delved that deeply though. @kesavaross Have you got a link for this?
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There was a WEF statement about what they planned to do with them, but I can't seem to find that, sorry.
Maybe they took it down because people were making a big fuss?
 
15-minute cities got a mention on BBC Radio 5's "Wake up to Money" programme this morning.
The demise of Wilko and the wider difficulties for high street retailers was the main topic. One interviewee mentioned the 15-minute city concept, whereby towns like Oxford and others are deliberately making life difficult (and expensive) for visitors with cars, as having a detrimental effect on the beleaguered high street, whilst encouraging out of town shopping malls.
 
Most high street shops will disappear as people use on-line shopping to buy things. I'm not keen on on-line shopping but it is convenient. Eventually most goods will arrive in robot-driven electric delivery vans.

Curiously I remember electric vehicles delivering dairy goods, bread and cakes back in the 1950s, so it is not such an innovation.
 
eburacum said:
Most high street shops will disappear as people use on-line shopping to buy things. I'm not keen on on-line shopping but it is convenient. Eventually most goods will arrive in robot-driven electric delivery vans.

Curiously I remember electric vehicles delivering dairy goods, bread and cakes back in the 1950s, so it is not such an innovation.
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AKA milk floats
 
Yes, and bread-floats.
640px-Wilson_Electric_BMW_10_cwt_LBC_136.jpg
 
eburacum said:
Most high street shops will disappear as people use on-line shopping to buy things. I'm not keen on on-line shopping but it is convenient. Eventually most goods will arrive in robot-driven electric delivery vans.

Curiously I remember electric vehicles delivering dairy goods, bread and cakes back in the 1950s, so it is not such an innovation.
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I have often said the on line world is just the bastard child of the old mail order business model
 
brownmane said:
@blessmycottonsocks or @eburacum, what does "high streets" shops mean? Does it mean high end retailers?
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Hi @brownmane .
In UK English, "high street shops/retailers" usually means small to medium sized shops, selling food, toys, clothes, hardware, music, second-hand goods and pretty well everything, that used to be found in town centres everywhere.
Now that retail has significantly relocated to out-of-town shopping malls and also the effect of internet shopping, many people see the high street suffering a slow death, notably with the demise of shops like Woolworths, BHS and Wilko.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Hi @brownmane .
In UK English, "high street shops/retailers" usually means small to medium sized shops, selling food, toys, clothes, hardware, music, second-hand goods and pretty well everything, that used to be found in town centres everywhere.
Now that retail has significantly relocated to out-of-town shopping malls and also the effect of internet shopping, many people see the high street suffering a slow death, notably with the demise of shops like Woolworths, BHS and Wilko.
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Ah yes. We seem to refer to "the downtown" as your high street. Many towns and medium sized cities will talk of the loss of the downtown retailers due to ...
 
I'd love it if I could walk or catch a bus to all amenities within 15 minutes, but I live in a village in the south west of England. We're reasonably well-served by public transport and it's just about possible to live here without a car but if you're elderly, disabled, or hard-up it can be a struggle.
 
AnonyJ said:
I'd love it if I could walk or catch a bus to all amenities within 15 minutes, but I live in a village in the south west of England. We're reasonably well-served by public transport and it's just about possible to live here without a car but if you're elderly, disabled, or hard-up it can be a struggle.
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Where I live now has a terrible bus service and it's a reasonably large market town in the West Midlands.
There is no standard route for some reason. It depends on the day (and whether it's the second Tuesday in June I think).

MrsF got on one that usually does a particular route, but it happened that at this time and day it goes via Glasgow.
She thought she would never get home.

(I'm just talking of the local town bus here).
 
ramonmercado said:
Interesting.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1708455573165948954
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- Because most Brits would be happy to walk 15 minutes to a supermarket, then walk back with a week’s shopping.

- Because most sick Brits would be happy to walk 15 minutes to a doctors’ surgery.

- Because most Brits would be happy to walk their kids 15 minutes to a school in the morning, then the round trip home for lunch, then home again in the afternoon.

Etc.

I’d be interested to see the phrasing of the question, the sample size, the constituency and so forth.

maximus otter
 
ramonmercado said:
Interesting.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1708455573165948954
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It surely is a good idea to have all/most amenities within walking distance, I'm not surprised most people agreed. Obviously not everyone can walk a reasonable distance and it is impossible in low density population areas.

Something governments will have to do is pushback against the Lovecraftian spread of Amazon, local businesses cannot compete.

No, tinfoil-hatters, I am not suggesting anyone be confined to within 15mins of their house.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
It surely is a good idea to have all/most amenities within walking distance, I'm not surprised most people agreed. Obviously not everyone can walk a reasonable distance and it is impossible in low density population areas.

Something governments will have to do is pushback against the Lovecraftian spread of Amazon, local businesses cannot compete.

No, tinfoil-hatters, I am not suggesting anyone be confined to within 15mins of their house.
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The question was:

"Would you like to live in an area with all amenities within 15 minutes' walk?"

- Not "Would you personally be prepared to walk 15 minutes each way to do your shopping, visit the doctor, etc?"

Ask 100 people in your High Street whether they'd like to see a gymnasium built in said High Street, and 95 of them would probably say "Yes", despite the fact that no more than 1% of them would actually use it.

Everyone's happy to have nice-sounding things happen, apparently free of charge, at some unspecified time in the future and at no perceived inconvenience to themselves. It's only when you dig deep and publicise the details that people start realising what's going on...

maximus otter
 
So, despite the questionnaire's obvious attempt to Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive, they could still only get 62% of respondents to agree with it?
Had it been worded to better reflect the reality of 15 minute cities making it difficult or financially onerous for friends and family who live outside your 15-minute bubble to drive to visit you, I suspect that 62% would plummet.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
It surely is a good idea to have all/most amenities within walking distance, I'm not surprised most people agreed. Obviously not everyone can walk a reasonable distance and it is impossible in low density population areas.

Something governments will have to do is pushback against the Lovecraftian spread of Amazon, local businesses cannot compete.

No, tinfoil-hatters, I am not suggesting anyone be confined to within 15mins of their house.
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It strikes me though as a drive towards complete homogeneity, whereby every 15-minute bubble would, by definition, possess the identical shops, amenities, employment opportunities etc. If there were still some have and have-not areas though, then people would still desire to travel to the more favoured towns - and would be penalised financially for so doing. There are signs of this already happening in places like Oxford. If you don't have the local residents' permit granting you unlimited travel through Oxford's filter zones, then you will have to cough-up big time to drive there. Want to see friends and family in Oxford? Well, there's always a Zoom meeting I suppose!

I don't want totally homogenous urban areas throughout the country, nor do I want onerous travel restrictions.
I don't trust the government (of whatever hue, I hasten to add) to act always in our interests.
Who's to say that the 15-minute city initiative, which depicts itself as this:

utopia.png


.... couldn't easily end up as something more like this:

vasey.png
 
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And you think you have it bad! (I reckon this fits in here,)

The cost of a certificate to own a large family car in Singapore has jumped to a fresh record high of S$146,002 ($106,619; £87,684).

The city-state introduced the 10-year certificate of entitlement (COE) system in 1990 as an anti-congestion measure. Prospective car owners in Singapore must have a COE in order to be able to purchase a vehicle. They are sold in auctions every two weeks, with the government controlling the number of certificates for sale.

With taxes and import duties, the system has made Singapore the most expensive country in the world to buy a car. For example, a new standard Toyota Camry Hybrid costs around S$250,000 in Singapore, which includes the cost of a COE and taxes. That is about six times more expensive than in the US.

There are different types of COEs for smaller cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles. COE prices have hit record highs for several months in a row as a post-pandemic recovery has driven up demand and ahead of the government cutting rebates for the certificates next year.

The lowest COE for a car costs S$104,000, which has almost tripled since 2020 when there was less demand for new cars during the pandemic.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67014420
 
ramonmercado said:
And you think you have it bad! (I reckon this fits in here,)

The cost of a certificate to own a large family car in Singapore has jumped to a fresh record high of S$146,002 ($106,619; £87,684).

The city-state introduced the 10-year certificate of entitlement (COE) system in 1990 as an anti-congestion measure. Prospective car owners in Singapore must have a COE in order to be able to purchase a vehicle. They are sold in auctions every two weeks, with the government controlling the number of certificates for sale.

With taxes and import duties, the system has made Singapore the most expensive country in the world to buy a car. For example, a new standard Toyota Camry Hybrid costs around S$250,000 in Singapore, which includes the cost of a COE and taxes. That is about six times more expensive than in the US.

There are different types of COEs for smaller cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles. COE prices have hit record highs for several months in a row as a post-pandemic recovery has driven up demand and ahead of the government cutting rebates for the certificates next year.

The lowest COE for a car costs S$104,000, which has almost tripled since 2020 when there was less demand for new cars during the pandemic.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67014420
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They're setting the model that the rest of the world will follow.
Oh dear.
 
Mythopoeika said:
They're setting the model that the rest of the world will follow.
Oh dear.
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The following are all against the law in Singapore, there's no evidence to suggest that the rest of the world is in a hurry to copy them



 
Mouldy13 said:
The following are all against the law in Singapore, there's no evidence to suggest that the rest of the world is in a hurry to copy them



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That is a crazy list! But, yeah, I wasn't talking about that.

Committing suicide is illegal? Do they take the dead bodies to court? Insane.
 
Mythopoeika said:
That is a crazy list! But, yeah, I wasn't talking about that.

Committing suicide is illegal? Do they take the dead bodies to court? Insane.
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I agree with many of those on that list.
And suicide used to be illegal here too not that long ago.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Walking naked in your own house is illegal? I mean, who would ever know with all the curtains drawn.
If you don't flush the loo?
Well, I won't go on.
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The toilet flushing is in a public toilet. It’s a bit gross not to flush in that case. I think you can go without flushing to your hearts content in your own home. Until your partner grasses you up to the police. Then you get flogged.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
It strikes me though as a drive towards complete homogeneity, whereby every 15-minute bubble would, by definition, possess the identical shops, amenities, employment opportunities etc.
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Why do the amenities, shops etc have to be identical? They could just as easily be independents providing similar purposes.


blessmycottonsocks said:
There are signs of this already happening in places like Oxford. If you don't have the local residents' permit granting you unlimited travel through Oxford's filter zones, then you will have to cough-up big time to drive there. Want to see friends and family in Oxford? Well, there's always a Zoom meeting I suppose!
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That’s not how the Oxford scheme works. Yes, you are fined for driving through the filters between zones BUT you aren’t fined if you travel between zones via the ring road.

The purpose is to take traffic off the secondary roads and onto the ring road NOT to prevent travel between zones.

blessmycottonsocks said:
I don't want totally homogenous urban areas throughout the country,
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Sadly the British High Street is already pretty homogenous with the same chains. Support your local independents.
 
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