Data Secrets Lox

I've noticed this subject causing increasing levels of culture warring, and rapidly spreading beyond the UK where I thought the subject had originated, so might as well have a thread on it here.

From what I can tell, the initial controversy of this goes all the way back to the UK's "net zero" policy objectives, and the way that Oxfordshire County Council has decided to carry them out. They hatched upon the idea of "15 minute cities", though I'm not sure the phrasing is their own, first coming to attention in October 2022. The Council has decided on a plan where Oxford would be divided into six "15 minute districts". Within these areas, the council claims that most people will have access to most the services they need, and thus will rarely have to travel beyond their areas. However, as you read into the fine print, you realise that the plan isn't to provide services near to where people live, but instead to monitor traffic and fine motorists if they drive a car between the districts too often.

The traffic filters are not physical barriers of any kind and will not be physical road closures. They are simply traffic cameras that can read number plates.
If a vehicle passes through the filter at certain times of the day, the camera will read the number plate and (if you do not have an exemption or a residents’ permit) you will receive a fine in the post.
[...]
Oxford residents (and residents of some surrounding villages) will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filters on up to 100 days a year. Residents living in the rest of Oxfordshire will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filter on up to 25 days a year.

Now, on the face of it, this is already baffling as a traffic-calming measure, even ignoring how punitive measures. Restricting car use on long journeys but encouraging it on short journeys is the exact opposite of what you'd expect. Add in the way it will fragment the city and leave anyone who relies on a car to travel to a workplace in another district unemployed, and it gets even worse. Add in concerns about the surveillance necessary to track whether people are moving between zones too often, and it starts to intrude on privacy. With the UK's recent history of restricting movement outside the house for dubious reasons, no wonder many people are pissed. But the reaction to the reaction to it... Oh, that's been quite something.

Opposition to the measure has been brewing for a while, unsurprisingly. People living in Oxfordshire aren't much keen on the idea of getting fined. So this opposition grew. And grew. And grew. Until it culminated in a large protest that seems to have sent the authorities reeling. In the aftermath, we have article after article being churned out by so many sources that it's credible to believe that it's a coordinated response to the protest, slandering critics of the policy as far-right conspiracy theorists. Some of these articles are from prior to the protest, some are from after.

Conspiracy Theorists Are Coming for the 15-Minute City: A movement to promote neighborhoods with amenities within walking distance has enraged far-right activists, climate deniers, and extremists.
15-minute cities and conspiracy theorists. An urban planning idea has become the focus of protests against ‘socialist’ attempt to control population
Jack Brown: Conspiracy theories about “15-minute cities” are false. But advocates should explain the concept better
https://www.iflscience.com/15-minute-cities-how-to-separate-the-reality-from-the-conspiracy-theory-67625
15-Minute Cities: How To Separate The Reality From The Conspiracy Theory
Are they a secret attempt to control the population? No. So what actually are they?

In praise of the ‘15-minute city’ – the mundane planning theory terrifying conspiracists
Conspiracy theories on '15-minute cities' flourish
Fifteen Minutes of Blame
How a wonky city-planning concept went from PowerPoint presentations to a global right-wing conspiracy theory.
Tory MP Uses Conspiracy Theory In U.K. Parliament Against 15-Minute City Concept
15-Minute-City Conspiracy Theories Insane Says 15-Minute-City Creator
Fact check: False claim ‘15-minute cities’ are actually ‘climate lockdowns’
WHAT ARE 15-MINUTE CITIES? TIKTOK MISINFORMATION EXPLAINED
12yo goes viral after pushing false 15-minute city conspiracy theory during protest. A Year 7 student has become the poster child for a truly bizarre conspiracy theory that’s quickly spreading across the globe.
Conspiracy theories on '15-minute cities' flourish
Inside the 15-minute city conspiracy theory sucking in gullible Australians. A conspiracy theory is spreading across the globe, with countless gullible Australians being sucked into the “lies”.

This is probably too much but I've been asked to provide evidence of widespread news coverage before so here you go.

Now, the first thing to observe about all these articles is that they're akin to citogenesis. Until the most recent wave of spam articles about this, I had not heard of 15 minute cities being talked about much outside of locals who would be affected by the policy in Oxford itself, and UK political wonks like myself who get a hearty chuckle about all the batshit insane policies done by many councils in the UK, local enough to fly under the attention of national headlines and certainly not noteworthy internationally. But now... Everywhere is talking about them. It wasn't a conspiracy theory taking the world by storm... until attempts to discredit it made the world notice. And then there's the accusation of being far-right, not just from the press but by counter-protesters clad in black. I could say many amusing things about this. The press is arguably propagating a conspiracy theory about brownshirts under the bed. It's a notable pattern now that those accused of being far-right or fascist near-unanimously actually believe in curtailing the power of the state, quite the opposite of the fascist ideal of "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State". But that's not the main point I want to get to.

The interesting thing about all this is, despite these protests often drawing a conspiratorial crowd (like all protests) and despite the obvious affinity between opponents of lockdowns (who are regarded as public enemy #1 in much of the press) and opponents of 15 minute cities due to shared opposition to restrictions on internal movement, and opposition to heavy handed governments in general... All the articles criticizing the protesters do a motte and bailey of what 15 minute cities actually are.

Motte: 15 minute cities are about ensuring that people have access to all the services they need nearby. Stores. Clinics. Schools. So that commute times are lower, traffic can be reduced, the environment can be improved, and we all can live more fulfilling lives. Doesn't that sound great?
Bailey: Actually, we're not going to provide any of those services, we're just going to slap you with egregious fines.

Sure, some of the articles eventually get around to the point and, begrudgingly, just about, mention that 15 minute cities are enforced with fines. But they don't accurately convey that the fines are the policy, and all those Mottey ambitions are not. The end result is that the protesters, for all their unsophisticated critiques of the policy, more accurately describe it than the press calling them conspiracy theorists does. And in doing so, for the most local of local policy issues, their message has gone global.

[Mod: added (later modified) tag - a reader]

enraged far-right activists, climate deniers, and extremists.

But what about anti-vaxxers and white nationalists?

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enraged far-right activists, climate deniers, and extremists.

But what about anti-vaxxers and white nationalists?

They aren't enraged, just miffed.

Quote from: Conrad on February 21, 2023, 06:42:30 pm

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enraged far-right activists, climate deniers, and extremists.

But what about anti-vaxxers and white nationalists?

They aren't enraged, just miffed.

It also chuffed the homophobes and mildly annoyed the transphobes.

Meanwhile, Houston is infamously an hour away from Houston.

The idea of a 15 minute city doesn't make sense in the first place.  You lose all the gains of scale you had by having a city (instead of numerous small towns).

15 minute cities are just another of the bad ideas emanating from the New Urbanist/car hater cluster of bad ideas.

https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/connecting-oxfordshire/traffic-filters#paragraph-12832

Seems like a terrible idea, but also not sure this has to do with 15 minute cities at all?  Looks like six roads “near city center(?)” where you can’t drive during certain hours. 

The idea of a 15-minute city, steelmanned, is that you can have all or any the advantages of a small town if you want to.  If you want to go to the nearby grocery store, drug store, church, etc., you can.

That's not really an idea, that's just a goal.  I can say the idea of a motorSUV is I can have all the advantages of a motorcycle if I want to, but still carry cargo, but it still can't actually be done.

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It has nothing to do with the bailey of 15 minute cities because it's instead the motte.

It doesn’t look like it has to do with either.  15 minute cities aren’t mentioned anywhere in the proposal.  It’s a dumb and bad traffic reduction scheme and I will laugh heartily when it blows up in their faces, but it doesn’t appear connected to the title of the OP.

The apparent intention is to push traffic to the outer ring as opposed to through the city center.  Seems like a simple congestion tax would be much easier.

The plan being called 15 minute cities comes from the council itself, sometimes mentioned as 15 minute neighbourhoods instead: https://www.oxford.gov.uk/downloads/file/8144/bgp_14_15_minute_cities https://twitter.com/OxfordCity/status/1582295424768962560

Edit: And the way they mention lockdowns as inspiring this policy is no doubt the reason why people keep making that connection to lockdowns.

The plan being called 15 minute cities comes from the council itself, sometimes mentioned as 15 minute neighbourhoods instead: https://www.oxford.gov.uk/downloads/file/8144/bgp_14_15_minute_cities https://twitter.com/OxfordCity/status/1582295424768962560

On the traffic filter page they claim the traffic filter proposal has nothing to do with the 15 minute cities proposal.  And you can believe that or not, I suppose.  I suspect any such division is arbitrary; they're all under the basic "car hating New Urbanist" umbrella.

On the traffic filter page they claim the traffic filter proposal has nothing to do with the 15 minute cities proposal.  And you can believe that or not, I suppose.  I suspect any such division is arbitrary; they're all under the basic "car hating New Urbanist" umbrella.

And we can all laugh at car hating idiots till the cows come home.  But that doesn’t mean this incredibly dumb traffic proposal by a different government led by a different political party is part and parcel to an unrelated utopian urban design idea.

Even the goals aren’t the same - the idea is to shift traffic to a highway that rings the city instead of the city center.  It’s a very inept attempt at congestion reduction in the city center, not trying to reduce travel between neighborhoods. 

It’s a wrong framing and we should acknowledge it’s wrong.  And then mock it endlessly for being stupid.

Now might be a good time to revisit Scott's Everything Not Obligatory Is Forbidden.

Now might be a good time to revisit Scott's Everything Not Obligatory Is Forbidden.

Mora LeQuivalence is an Assistant Professor of Bioethics at Facebook University.

Seems like a big failure here. She's much more likely to be the Priscilla Chan Endowed Chairperson of Bioethics at Harvard University.

This never ceases to amaze me. A passably-interesting goal (ensuring that in an urban area most everything you need is within a 15 minute drive of all residents) is going to be achieved by the least-nice methods available. Gone is the idea of strategic zoning, building codes, etc. to achieve goals over years or decades. No, instead we are just going to fine people for doing a legal activity "too much".

UK: what happened? You used to have a magnificent empire.

This never ceases to amaze me. A passably-interesting goal (ensuring that in an urban area most everything you need is within a 15 minute drive of all residents) is going to be achieved by the least-nice methods available. Gone is the idea of strategic zoning, building codes, etc. to achieve goals over years or decades. No, instead we are just going to fine people for doing a legal activity "too much".

UK: what happened? You used to have a magnificent empire.

Granting for the moment that the fines are connected to the "15 min city" thing, there's two possibilities. first, that they are very lazy in implementation, and second that the pleasant sounding thing is just PR for the control mechanism.

The idea of a 15-minute city, steelmanned, is that you can have all or any the advantages of a small town if you want to.  If you want to go to the nearby grocery store, drug store, church, etc., you can.  Or, if one time you want to go to the better store or the symphony or museum farther away, you can do that too - but you don't have to.

Most European cities are already like this. Oxford is small enough that you can drive through it end to end in 35 mins.

This isn't about making cities more liveable, it's about internal passports and population control.

Yes, but they want it to be 15 minutes on foot or by human-powered bicycle. 

England used to have this.  It was called feudal manorialism.  Time to bring it back I guess.

This is what happens when you take two different projects by two unrelated groups and assume they are the product of a single unified actor.

Yes, we call that actor an egregore.

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Yes, but they want it to be 15 minutes on foot or by human-powered bicycle. 

England used to have this.  It was called feudal manorialism.  Time to bring it back I guess.

In the Dune series, as the God-Emperor solidifies his power, one primary means is that transport becomes limited. There become only 3 forms of transport available, with no intermediate methods. Walking/Running for shorter distances. Thopters for very long trips that are deemed necessary by some body. And guild ships for interplanetary travel.

Quote from: Garrett on February 22, 2023, 01:58:51 pm

No, instead we are just going to fine people for doing a legal activity "too much".

Putting aside whether the idea and execution are any good, there's nothing wrong with putting a price on externalities.

The problem is in deciding what to to declare an "externality".

You breathe out CO₂, right? That's an externality.

The problem is in deciding what to to declare an "externality".

Correct. My claim isn't that this is a good policy, just that we can't determine whether it's a good policy on the basis that it puts a price on a legal activity. I can park downtown, but it's not free and I don't expect it to be, to provide a pretty obvious example that is generally uncontroversial.

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 04:38:08 pm

The problem is in deciding what to to declare an "externality".

Anything that consumes (/produces, if it's a positive externality) a scarce resource that you do not own and makes somebody's else life harder (/easier).

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 04:38:08 pm

You breathe out CO₂, right? That's an externality.

Not really because that carbon comes from the food you ate which in turn took it from the CO₂ in the atmosphere not too long ago, so it's a closed cycle that doesn't change the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere. CO₂ from burning fossil fuels is a different thing, while that carbon still ultimately was in the atmosphere at some point, it was from a very long time ago when the CO₂ concentration was much higher. So CO₂ from fossil fuels is an externality, the resource it consumes is the reciprocal of the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere, whether it is a significant externality, or even whether it's a positive or negative externality, it's essentially all the "climate change" debate.

Driving my car is an externality. Hell, walking on the street is an externality (I have been in an entirely pedestrian traffic jam). Exhaling CO₂ is an externality regardless of global warming (see all the rat-adjacent panic about levels of CO₂ in a room and how they affect cognitive abilities). Of course ownership itself has a bunch of externalities associated with it. Etc., etc.

Exerting power and attempting to control behavior is very much not the same as striving for economic efficiency, even if you use terminology like "externality".

As a car-hating new urbanist, this is awful and I would oppose it if it were threatening my city.

I think I have a decent claim to be the car-hating new urbanist champion of DSL (never held a driver license, own three bikes, used to belong to three bicycle advocacy organizations, have spent my entire adult life living with unrelated adults), and I fully agree with you there!

Quote from: Evan Þ on February 21, 2023, 07:15:32 pm

The idea of a 15-minute city, steelmanned, is that you can have all or any the advantages of a small town if you want to.  If you want to go to the nearby grocery store, drug store, church, etc., you can.  Or, if one time you want to go to the better store or the symphony or museum farther away, you can do that too - but you don't have to.

Most European cities are already like this. Oxford is small enough that you can drive through it end to end in 35 mins.

Not during the day you can't - Oxford manages to pack global metropolis calibre traffic jams into a small provincial city. You could walk from one end to the other faster than drive during busy times.

The problem the measures ostensibly address is real. I just have absolutely no faith they'll solve it.

Quote from: Tarpitz on February 22, 2023, 08:38:13 pm

The problem the measures ostensibly address is real. I just have absolutely no faith they'll solve it.

Their proposal is very capitalist: in the default case to get thorough the town you pay in time; they propose to replace it by paying in money.

Anyone who can be deterred from driving in Oxford at rush hour already is - no sane person would attempt it if they had a realistic alternative. Demand will prove inelastic at the times that matter. People will pay in time or money at quiet times when they currently pay in neither, and in both at busy times when they already pay in time.

From an economics point of view this isn't strictly speaking true: it could be that the other people in the jam had stronger reasons to be there than you do, such that it is economically efficient for them to be there, but not for you to be there. If we end up with the non-economically-efficient outcome of a traffic jam, the explanation for this inefficiency is that you imposed an externality on others -- it is not self-internalizing in the economist's sense, because you are not interchangeable with those other people for the purposes of the scenario.

Leading to the conclusion that if a $600/hr lawyer and a $60/hr tradesman are both delayed 1 minute (and lose that billable time) by a traffic jam involving only the two of them, the way to internalize the externality is for the tradesman to pay the lawyer $9.

Vice versa -- it's economically efficient for the lawyer to pay the tradesman $9 so that the tradesman gets out his way.

The first step on the road to extinction via unsanitised telephones.

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 10:01:13 pm

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 22, 2023, 07:04:27 pm

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 05:42:28 pm

Hell, walking on the street is an externality (I have been in an entirely pedestrian traffic jam).

Yes, but everyone caught in that traffic jam was also contributing to it; it's either not an externality or a self-internalizing one.

As Dacyn has pointed out, it's not necessary for my own costs to be zero when I'm imposing an externality on others.

If you measure the cost in time rather than money, it nets out to zero (approximately; there are some edge effects)

Quote

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 22, 2023, 09:18:29 pm

Leading to the conclusion that if a $600/hr lawyer and a $60/hr tradesman are both delayed 1 minute (and lose that billable time) by a traffic jam involving only the two of them, the way to internalize the externality is for the tradesman to pay the lawyer $9.

Vice versa -- it's economically efficient for the lawyer to pay the tradesman $9 so that the tradesman gets out his way.

That's not what the "externality" view says.  The tradesman has imposed $10 of cost on the lawyer, the lawyer has imposed $1 of cost on the tradesman, so the tradesman should pay the lawyer $9.  If we were to have a Pigouvian tax instead, the lawyer would pay $1 and the tradesman $10.

Yes, its an arbitrary Coase assignment property law situation where the tradesman would be paid to not use the road. 

Quote from: clutzy on February 23, 2023, 04:32:03 am

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 23, 2023, 02:54:36 am

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 10:01:13 pm

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 22, 2023, 07:04:27 pm

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 05:42:28 pm

Hell, walking on the street is an externality (I have been in an entirely pedestrian traffic jam).

Yes, but everyone caught in that traffic jam was also contributing to it; it's either not an externality or a self-internalizing one.

As Dacyn has pointed out, it's not necessary for my own costs to be zero when I'm imposing an externality on others.

If you measure the cost in time rather than money, it nets out to zero (approximately; there are some edge effects)

Quote

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 22, 2023, 09:18:29 pm

Leading to the conclusion that if a $600/hr lawyer and a $60/hr tradesman are both delayed 1 minute (and lose that billable time) by a traffic jam involving only the two of them, the way to internalize the externality is for the tradesman to pay the lawyer $9.

Vice versa -- it's economically efficient for the lawyer to pay the tradesman $9 so that the tradesman gets out his way.

That's not what the "externality" view says.  The tradesman has imposed $10 of cost on the lawyer, the lawyer has imposed $1 of cost on the tradesman, so the tradesman should pay the lawyer $9.  If we were to have a Pigouvian tax instead, the lawyer would pay $1 and the tradesman $10.

Yes, its an arbitrary Coase assignment property law situation where the tradesman would be paid to not use the road.

Or the tradesman could pay to use the road. It doesn't matter, you arrive at the same allocation of scarce societal resources either way, assuming low transaction costs and tradeable property rights.
The easiest implementation is actually a toll road, which it sounds like the town is trying to do in a rather round-about way. The problem is given preferential treatment to locals, which undercuts the entire purpose of congestion pricing/toll roads. It's like trying to tax gasoline to reduce gas purchases while subsidizing gas purchases at the same time.

Yeah, but I wanted to flex my nerd points by saying Coase, so I still won.

Quote from: ROACT on February 23, 2023, 04:39:35 am

Quote from: clutzy on February 23, 2023, 04:32:03 am

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 23, 2023, 02:54:36 am

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 10:01:13 pm

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 22, 2023, 07:04:27 pm

Quote from: Lumifer on February 22, 2023, 05:42:28 pm

Hell, walking on the street is an externality (I have been in an entirely pedestrian traffic jam).

Yes, but everyone caught in that traffic jam was also contributing to it; it's either not an externality or a self-internalizing one.

As Dacyn has pointed out, it's not necessary for my own costs to be zero when I'm imposing an externality on others.

If you measure the cost in time rather than money, it nets out to zero (approximately; there are some edge effects)

Quote

Quote from: The Nybbler on February 22, 2023, 09:18:29 pm

Leading to the conclusion that if a $600/hr lawyer and a $60/hr tradesman are both delayed 1 minute (and lose that billable time) by a traffic jam involving only the two of them, the way to internalize the externality is for the tradesman to pay the lawyer $9.

Vice versa -- it's economically efficient for the lawyer to pay the tradesman $9 so that the tradesman gets out his way.

That's not what the "externality" view says.  The tradesman has imposed $10 of cost on the lawyer, the lawyer has imposed $1 of cost on the tradesman, so the tradesman should pay the lawyer $9.  If we were to have a Pigouvian tax instead, the lawyer would pay $1 and the tradesman $10.

Yes, its an arbitrary Coase assignment property law situation where the tradesman would be paid to not use the road.

Or the tradesman could pay to use the road. It doesn't matter, you arrive at the same allocation of scarce societal resources either way, assuming low transaction costs and tradeable property rights.
The easiest implementation is actually a toll road, which it sounds like the town is trying to do in a rather round-about way. The problem is given preferential treatment to locals, which undercuts the entire purpose of congestion pricing/toll roads. It's like trying to tax gasoline to reduce gas purchases while subsidizing gas purchases at the same time.

Yeah, but I wanted to flex my nerd points by saying Coase, so I still won.

Nerds are bad, tech bros and all that stuff in Revenge of the Nerds that aged so poorly...

The latest Blocked and Reported episode is about this. (I'm a subscriber, so I listened early; I don't think it will be out for the rest of you for a day or two.) The discussion is not very good. Katie stans the 15 minute cities concept, while never explaining how the stupid proposals Oxford is trying will actually bring about such a thing, and then complains that some people have made it a conspiracy. She also makes the terrible argument that, with respect to government overreach, fining people for driving to other parts of the city is no different from traffic lights.

It seems to me that the concept of 15-minute cities (and I'm talking about the idea and not about fining people for daring to poke their nose out of their reservation) necessarily requires high density of population which means that everyone lives in high-rise apartment buildings. So I suspect that the popularity of this idea with the new urbanist crowd is not so much because it promises convenience, but because it offers another way to force everyone out of their houses and into apartment buildings.

Nah, easily achievable with terraced houses mixed with purpose built low-mid-rise blocks. Most of outer London (including my area) and pretty much all of Paris is like this. I live in a 4 story Edwardian terrace converted into 4 flats with a shared garden; most of the housing round here is roughly like that, fair number of houses are still houses (though they cost 7 figures), maybe some of the more modern purpose built blocks are as high as 5 stories. No high rise anywhere nearby. I have extensive choice of shops, pubs etc. within 15 minutes' walk; vast within 15 minutes by public transport. And this is nearly 10 miles from Charing Cross. Or Hell, any random market town. My brother in Banbury lives the 15 minute city experience; not a lot of apartment blocks in Banbury.

This still isn't for everyone, I'm not trying to funnel everyone into it, I'm just saying that this doesn't actually require people to live in the pod and eat the bugs for it to work.

But it may require making things inside the city less than maximally convenient for people who don't want to live there.

But it may require making things inside the city less than maximally convenient for people who don't want to live there.

Which is fine in general.  Not so fine if you want your city to be a hub for the region or state or the world, at which point you're trying to have it both ways. 

Can someone define what the 15 minute city is supposed to be? @Tarpitz makes it sound like it just means retail is close by. But the fines for going out of the area in Oxford sounds like it means ALL stuff is in the area, including employment, schools, entertainment, maybe other stuff I haven't thought  of. Tarpitz, do you not leave this 15 minute walk area more than a dozen times per year?

Per the comments earlier in the thread, the proposed traffic fees have nothing to do with the "15 minute cities" concept. Why are people so insistent on confusing themselves by conflating the two? I mean, I get the urge to dunk on the outgroup, but come on now. It's one thing to make a mistake, and another to keep making it even after someone points it out.


1. Find two different people
2. Assume they are part of a unified hivemind
3. Act confused when they advocate for different things
4. ???
5. Profit

Quote from: Lumifer on February 24, 2023, 07:51:34 pm

It seems to me that the concept of 15-minute cities (and I'm talking about the idea and not about fining people for daring to poke their nose out of their reservation) necessarily requires high density of population which means that everyone lives in high-rise apartment buildings. So I suspect that the popularity of this idea with the new urbanist crowd is not so much because it promises convenience, but because it offers another way to force everyone out of their houses and into apartment buildings.

Nah, easily achievable with terraced houses mixed with purpose built low-mid-rise blocks. Most of outer London (including my area) and pretty much all of Paris is like this. I live in a 4 story Edwardian terrace converted into 4 flats with a shared garden; most of the housing round here is roughly like that, fair number of houses are still houses (though they cost 7 figures), maybe some of the more modern purpose built blocks are as high as 5 stories. No high rise anywhere nearby. I have extensive choice of shops, pubs etc. within 15 minutes' walk; vast within 15 minutes by public transport. And this is nearly 10 miles from Charing Cross. Or Hell, any random market town. My brother in Banbury lives the 15 minute city experience; not a lot of apartment blocks in Banbury.

Seems to me it's actually the "cities" part that's hard -- "daily needs within 15 minute walk/cycle" describes evey small town in America, and probably is a good fit with village life in the UK/Europe.

Houses in many of these places are pretty affordable, even -- especially compared to the parts of London and Paris mooted for discussion. And you get a big lot with a yard.

So if the fifteen minute cities people are so enamoured of this aspect -- why don't they move to a small town? It's the location of the kind of neighbourhoods that they like close to all the big exciting urban amenities that makes things difficult. That and the fact that there isn't actually room for everyone who lives in a city to move to a small town -- which all in all is more of a sign that Malthus was right after all, if you ask me.

I stayed in a small town once where I could literally walk from downtown out into the mountains (about 1.5 miles per Google Maps). But that also means it was small enough to not have much of interest.

Therein lies the rub for the urban planner types -- they want to live in a city, but don't like the way that cities naturally form into different neighbourhoods with different use-cases.

Funny, I would have said the opposite. The anti-urbanists want to live on big lots but don't like the way that that implies that it takes forever to get anywhere and the critical mass for many types of business and community is missing.

You can "get whatever you want" as long as "whatever you want" is one of the five restaurants in town.

Yeah, "you don't have an inherent right to do something if it might negatively affect someone else" is just shorthand for "you don't have an inherent right to do anything at all."

If you buy into it it also implies that the world must be overpopulated if you look around and observe that your life is incredibly restricted. It engenders distaste for your fellow man who is not allowed to do much of anything productive, but takes up space that prevents you from doing anything productive either.

Funny, I would have said the opposite. The anti-urbanists want to live on big lots but don't like the way that that implies that it takes forever to get anywhere and the critical mass for many types of business and community is missing.

No, those are urbanists living in the exurbs.  The actual anti-urbanists just get in their cars and trucks and drive.

I expect a 15-minute city to be something like the the pre-1950s cities (and suburb) in Israel, where you can indeed find most stuff within 15 minutes of your home. Except for work, which is farther away, but for work within a city there is generally public transit that is about as fast as a car in traffic.

They are not building any more of them these days, but property prices indicate that many people very much like to live in them.

I expect a 15-minute city to be something like the the pre-1950s cities (and suburb) in Israel, where you can indeed find most stuff within 15 minutes of your home. Except for work, which is farther away, but for work within a city there is generally public transit that is about as fast as a car in traffic.

They are not building any more of them these days, but property prices indicate that many people very much like to live in them.

Why aren't they building them, then?

But, like, for the time being at least there are hundreds of little towns all over North America (also the UK, if "Midsomer Murders" is any indication) where you can walk a few minutes and get whatever you want. (usually to the bar, lol) If the 15-minute-city people like this lifestyle so much, why don't they just move there instead of trying to remake all the cities that have nicely sorted themselves into residential and commercial neighbourhoods?

Excuse me,  do you live in North America? In all the states I've lived in or had relatives live in the vast majority of towns are almost purely suburban housing, and if they have a town center at all it is split down the middle by a large road that is difficult for pedestrians to cross. And this center is only within reasonable walking distance for a few residents because it is immediately surrounded by large lot houses.

What's more, the towns that are lucky enough to have maintained a reasonable core are old ones, built before the suburban movement of the 20th century. The separation of cities into residential and commercial neighborhoods is in no way a natural phenomenon; only cities built and designed in the 1900s have it (or cities that were re-built after the war). Indeed, one of the major things new urbanists want is a relaxation of the artificially imposed zoning laws that keep the commercial and residential zones separated. If someone wanted to enhance their suburban neighborhood by opening a convenience store it would be illegal in many instances.

Quote from: arielby on February 25, 2023, 03:22:01 pm

I expect a 15-minute city to be something like the the pre-1950s cities (and suburb) in Israel, where you can indeed find most stuff within 15 minutes of your home. Except for work, which is farther away, but for work within a city there is generally public transit that is about as fast as a car in traffic.

They are not building any more of them these days, but property prices indicate that many people very much like to live in them.

Why aren't they building them, then?

The claim I heard is that city planner bureaucrats are used to the "single-family housing" and "towers in the park" subdivision forms, and make approving these two easier.

The "city planner bureaucrats" are downstream of local NIMBYism.

I'm not sure it's a direct result in that local NIMBYists would be against 15-minute-city neighbourhoods, but rather that the process that the NIMBYists create means that the easiest way to build a subdivision is to have a single real estate developer company build a "single-family zoning" or a "tower in the park" development.

The old 15 minute cities were built as single-family homes - this was before zoning - then as land in some places became more expensive, got upgraded to apartment buildings. These days NIMBYists can generally block that.

Quote from: This ungainly fowl on February 25, 2023, 06:37:05 am

Quote from: jkf on February 25, 2023, 06:29:31 am

Therein lies the rub for the urban planner types -- they want to live in a city, but don't like the way that cities naturally form into different neighbourhoods with different use-cases.

Funny, I would have said the opposite. The anti-urbanists want to live on big lots but don't like the way that that implies that it takes forever to get anywhere and the critical mass for many types of business and community is missing.

What do you mean by "anti-urbanists?" I think people who want to live on big lots (rural, suburban) are perfectly content to state that it takes forever a car to get to work/school/stores. I've got a big house with an okay-sized lot in a suburban area. You cannot really get anywhere outside my residential neighborhood without a car, but I'm fine with that. The kids' school is 5 minutes away, the grocery store about 7, my work is 20. Church is 25, but that's only because my wife insists on going to the big family church with """good""" music instead of the old people church that's 10 minutes away. And these days with Amazon Prime, I barely go to general merchandise stores anyway.

Now, I also liked the summer I lived in downtown Seattle and could walk to the mall, the movie theater, a few dozen restaurants, etc, and took the bus to the Nintendo campus to work, but my apartment was like 600 sq ft and cost $3k+ a month. Thankfully at the time my one kid was small enough he could sleep in the closet.

This is important truth. Where I grew up. It was a 10 min walk, 1-2 min drive to the store. 15 min walk to middle school, 20 HS (4-5 car). Nothing the 15 minute movement wants cant be done in this way, other than the "need" to be in a place with lots of other people. Said "need" was rejected by most urbanists for ~18 months because they had a different need that superseded it. The reformed newer systems should, if it wasn't so "not done" (in nybbler's sense) realistically mean you could have amazing subdivisions of major companies in random Iowa rural areas, AND EVERYONE THERE WOULD LOVE IT. The real problem lies with people who "love theater" (or something equally vacuous) wanting to impose that on their entire company.

You don't even get airports probably. You'd have to hop in your car and drive two hours to the nearest airport.

An area like you describe should score high in walkability according to the index. 

It sounds like rural towns would fail the test because they lack proximity to mass transit, employment mix, and intersection density.

Quote from: Needlessly Skeptical on February 26, 2023, 03:56:01 pm

An area like you describe should score high in walkability according to the index. 

It sounds like rural towns would fail the test because they lack proximity to mass transit, implyment mix, and intersection density.

Some do, some don't.  See the West Virginia town as an example with a historic mainstreet area that scores very highly, or parts of Salem MO given above by jkf as an example of what he's talking about. 

But to see how common that is, ie whether most rural towns fit the criteria, you can just look at the map.

In good chunks of the US/Canada/UK it's illegal to build new residential towns in areas that don't already have them, unless you are extremely far from existing population centers. There's different names for it (Greenbelt in Ontario/UK, Zones Agricoles in Quebec, urban growth boundaries or urban development boundaries in the US), but it all works roughly the same way.

And Urban Growth Boundaries are supported by the same sort of people who support 15-minute cities.

I was thinking more about your claim concerning Israel:

Quote

I expect a 15-minute city to be something like the the pre-1950s cities (and suburb) in Israel, where you can indeed find most stuff within 15 minutes of your home.

They are not building any more of them these days, but property prices indicate that many people very much like to live in them.

So it sounded like they were building in a way that people liked in 1950s Israel, and then stopped, despite the older units being quite popular, and I was wondering why they had stopped.

The way the 15-minute cities got built, was that you first built a single-family home town, and then as it filled, upgraded the houses to apartment buildings. I don't think anyone managed to build apartment buildings ab initio.

Once zoning became a thing in 1950s Israel, it became impossible to do anything to single-family subdivisions since there will be enough neighbours to block any expansion plan (*)

And it's not literally true that it was impossible to build anything good in the 1960s - the government did build urban neighbourhoods. Unfortunately, they built most of them a hour's drive from anywhere jobs can be found, and nobody with money wants to live there.

Edit: or the problem might not be that it is physically hard to build these ab initio, but rather that urban planning laws made it hard to build any non-grandfathered new neighbourhood as anything but a SFH or towers-in-park. Or maybe just precedent - if everyone knows how to approve towers-in-park and nobody knows how to approve apartments, then it's hard for subdivision builders to be "brave".

(*)  I'm not actually sure what is a "subdivison". In Israel, cities are soft-administrative divided into "quarters". Often enough, when farmland is rezoned to be urban, it is sold to a single real estate developer which develops it as a single unit, and then the streets are delivered to a municipality and the buildings sold to various private owners. Afterwards, the developer generally does not keep much interest in either the buildings or the streets. The city might hire a contractor to rebuild a bunch of streets, or some other developer might buy out the owners of a building, destroy it and rebuild it, and neither of these processes happen a quarter-at-a-time.

For towers-in-the-park construction the developer generally runs the management company at least. We didn't have these for long enough to know what happens when the developer goes under.

Can't easily plop an entire city somewhere. You tend to need organic growth. You can drop greenfield developments, there's one in Missouri called New Town, but greenfield developments aren't typically well-positioned relative to economic cores.
There are plenty of neighborhoods in Midwestern cities that could use some gentrification. Englewood scores as highly walkable. 

Quote from: Tarpitz on February 24, 2023, 08:13:29 pm

Quote from: Lumifer on February 24, 2023, 07:51:34 pm

It seems to me that the concept of 15-minute cities (and I'm talking about the idea and not about fining people for daring to poke their nose out of their reservation) necessarily requires high density of population which means that everyone lives in high-rise apartment buildings. So I suspect that the popularity of this idea with the new urbanist crowd is not so much because it promises convenience, but because it offers another way to force everyone out of their houses and into apartment buildings.

Nah, easily achievable with terraced houses mixed with purpose built low-mid-rise blocks. Most of outer London (including my area) and pretty much all of Paris is like this. I live in a 4 story Edwardian terrace converted into 4 flats with a shared garden; most of the housing round here is roughly like that, fair number of houses are still houses (though they cost 7 figures), maybe some of the more modern purpose built blocks are as high as 5 stories. No high rise anywhere nearby. I have extensive choice of shops, pubs etc. within 15 minutes' walk; vast within 15 minutes by public transport. And this is nearly 10 miles from Charing Cross. Or Hell, any random market town. My brother in Banbury lives the 15 minute city experience; not a lot of apartment blocks in Banbury.

Can someone define what the 15 minute city is supposed to be? @Tarpitz makes it sound like it just means retail is close by. But the fines for going out of the area in Oxford sounds like it means ALL stuff is in the area, including employment, schools, entertainment, maybe other stuff I haven't thought  of. Tarpitz, do you not leave this 15 minute walk area more than a dozen times per year?

Well, I don't live in Oxford any more, and the traffic gates approach wouldn't really translate to my area of suburban London I don't think (and certainly hasn't been proposed here). I leave the area frequently, but mainly by public transport - the car is for larger supermarket shops where I'm buying more than I can carry (local), trips to the dump (also local), and journeys out of town (mostly to visit friends/family in Oxfordshire). No-one would drive into central London if they didn't have some really pressing reason not to use public transport. I guess once I drove to Stamford Bridge for a football match because there were tube/train strikes that would have made it a nuisance.

Also, I have a pro-car Tory borough council who are suing the anti-car Mayor of London over the expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone, which is the damn fool policy that does threaten to affect me here.

When I did live in Oxford, I doubt I would personally have been affected because my house was far enough out from the centre that it almost always made sense to use the ring road anyway. Probably a nightmare for people with certain intra-city school runs, though. To be clear, I don't think the traffic gates are a good policy, and more generally I don't expect council policies aimed at creating 15 minute cities to work out well. I wouldn't trust local government to make me apple pie and ice cream, either. And I'm not even sure this is a policy aimed at creating 15 minute cities - they can do idiotic things for all manner of reasons.

Quote from: This ungainly fowl on February 25, 2023, 03:57:04 am

Per the comments earlier in the thread, the proposed traffic fees have nothing to do with the "15 minute cities" concept.

Some of the debunkings aren't quite true.

Quote from: Tarpitz

15 minute cities are discussed as an aspirational idea by Oxford City Council (huge Labour majority); traffic filters are being implemented by Oxfordshire County Council (Lib/Lab/Green coalition, Lib Dems largest party).

Quote from: The Councils

Oxfordshire County Council, supported by Oxford City Council, is proposing to install traffic filters as a trial on six roads in Oxford.

(emphasis mine)

This is still very far from establishing 15 minute cities as the motivation for traffic gating. Of course the city council support an anti-car policy. If the county council proposed a campaign of random car-bombing, or anti-tank mines on major roads, they'd support that too. They didn't need to get excited about some weird WEF musings for this to be a policy they'd like.

Here's a random question:

Put aside the issue of climate change for one minute - assume it isn't really a major threat.

Why exactly should we distinguish between 15-minute walkable cities and 15-minute driveable suburbs?

Like, I would say that I live in a "15-minute city" right now.  Everything I would conceivably need is within a 15 minute drive of my house.  And I live in a suburb that is optimized for driving.  The streets are safe, there aren't many pedestrians or bicycles, traffic is rarely a problem, parking is ample, etc.  It really is no more inconvenient for me to drive 10 minutes to a restaurant than it was for me to walk 10 minutes to one when I lived in a more urban environment.

So - why doesn't my current arrangement qualify as such?

Here's a random question:

Put aside the issue of climate change for one minute - assume it isn't really a major threat.

Why exactly should we distinguish between 15-minute walkable cities and 15-minute driveable suburbs?

Like, I would say that I live in a "15-minute city" right now.  Everything I would conceivably need is within a 15 minute drive of my house.  And I live in a suburb that is optimized for driving.  The streets are safe, there aren't many pedestrians or bicycles, traffic is rarely a problem, parking is ample, etc.  It really is no more inconvenient for me to drive 10 minutes to a restaurant than it was for me to walk 10 minutes to one when I lived in a more urban environment.

So - why doesn't my current arrangement qualify as such?

I would prefer some element of walkability; parking spaces take up a lot of space, so building for cars spreads everything out, meaning you have to get into your car to go to nearly adjacent stores and potentially pleasant spaces are asphalt.

On the other hand, not living in the city center allows for larger, nicer homes, so it's not like it's all upside to get rid of cars.

Personally I have just about everything I need walkable--or bike-able in the case of my work. But that also depends on a personal traits; I don't consider a thirty minute walk a huge drawback, and don't "need" much regularly.

No-one would drive into central London if they didn't have some really pressing reason not to use public transport.

To be fair, London seems to be uniquely terrible, as cities to drive in go. I couldn't believe James May (I think) could get lost on the way to the O2 arena, until I lived there for a couple of years.

Quote from: Randy M on February 28, 2023, 04:37:22 pm

Quote from: ROACT on February 25, 2023, 12:15:56 pm

I want Costco, Home Depot, and the Olive Garden.

What's the point of a walkable Costco or Home Depot? You can't carry what you buy there anyway.

I have both of these and it is surprisingly amazing to be able to send a 12 year old to one or the other to pick up that one thing you forgot for a project/dinner.

Sure, I can see them on a nice-to-have list, but most trips to a costco or home depot probably require a vehicle even if it is literally down the street, whereas our 10-minute walk away Vons I very nearly never drive to.

Quote from: ROACT on February 25, 2023, 12:15:56 pm

I want Costco, Home Depot, and the Olive Garden.

What's the point of a walkable Costco or Home Depot? You can't carry what you buy there anyway.

I agree: what's the point? I can drive 15 minutes to Home Depot/Costco and bring back lots of stuff. It's great!
For amenity walkable, if you click on NS's EPA link to Walkability Scores, you'll see a bunch of suburbs in the North and NorthWestern Suburbs of Chicago with high walkability scores around a central train station. We live in one of those, and we do walk quite a lot to restaurants in summer. But as a general lifestyle, no, we drive to Costco and Home Depot, and it's awesome.

Here's a random question:

Put aside the issue of climate change for one minute - assume it isn't really a major threat.

Why exactly should we distinguish between 15-minute walkable cities and 15-minute driveable suburbs?

Like, I would say that I live in a "15-minute city" right now.  Everything I would conceivably need is within a 15 minute drive of my house.  And I live in a suburb that is optimized for driving.  The streets are safe, there aren't many pedestrians or bicycles, traffic is rarely a problem, parking is ample, etc.  It really is no more inconvenient for me to drive 10 minutes to a restaurant than it was for me to walk 10 minutes to one when I lived in a more urban environment.

So - why doesn't my current arrangement qualify as such?

It's fine for you, but what about for your kids? Now any time they want to go somewhere you have to drive them instead of letting them walk or ride their bikes (either because it's too far or because the road infrastructure that you enjoy makes it too dangerous for them). Or for your neighbor who can walk but can't drive?

Of course, I'm not saying that motor vehicles are never useful, as that would be silly. They have advantages in being rain-proof and climate controlled, being able to carry large and bulky loads, and being able to go long distances fast. But they also have disadvantages in cost, health, pollution, parking and accessibility, among other things. So being able to walk or bike seems like a good deal when possible.

You can't have it all, though.  The walkability people know that, they talk about "human scale" and "infrastructure built for people, not cars", set priority on driver's desires to zero, and go from there.  And tell you you'll love it, of course.

If I had to choose between my current 15-minute-suburb-by-car lifestyle combined with a mandatory 30 minute government approved exercise class, or living in a dense urban environment, I'd pick the former every time.

If I had to choose between my current 15-minute-suburb-by-car lifestyle combined with a mandatory 30 minute government approved exercise class, or living in a dense urban environment, I'd pick the former every time.

Are you assuming that the exercise class would be as reasonable as the one depicted in 1984? Why? That's a high bar!

There are no cars in NYC, it is known.

Nobody drives cars in NYC, there is too much traffic.

So the thing is, in addition to life's necesseities, I also quite often want to go to places where other people are.

Like what?  A crowded restaurant or movie theater?  My suburb has those!  It doesn't have, like, a major league sports stadium or an opera company, but I'm fine with having to drive 45 minutes for those rare luxuries.

It really is no more inconvenient for me to drive 10 minutes to a restaurant than it was for me to walk 10 minutes to one when I lived in a more urban environment.

This seems like it actually gets to a big part of the underlying disagreement. I would rather walk 20 minutes than drive 10 minutes and the decision isn't even close unless the weather is really unpleasant. Walking is nice both physically and mentally, driving is neutral at best. Any time that I could reasonably choose between walking a mile or driving a mile, I choose walking. Any time that I could reasonably bike two miles or drive two miles, I choose biking. In the case of biking, it's often a better urban choice anyway due to parking difficulties, but even when I'm guaranteed easy parking, I'd still rather bike than drive.


I take it that this does not match your preference?

I take it that this does not match your preference?

Not really.  I would only prefer walking if I am guaranteed good weather (not common here), guaranteed both ample room/sidewalk space, guaranteed not to get harassed by homeless people, not having to carry any significant weight either direction, and not having to walk back home on a full stomach.

And even then, 15 minutes is probably my walking limit, for anything other than just "taking a walk for its own sake."

Quote from: GoneAnon on February 28, 2023, 08:10:48 pm

Quote

So the thing is, in addition to life's necesseities, I also quite often want to go to places where other people are.

Like what?  A crowded restaurant or movie theater?  My suburb has those!  It doesn't have, like, a major league sports stadium or an opera company, but I'm fine with having to drive 45 minutes for those rare luxuries.

Pretty soon the Chicago Bears will be 15 minutes away, too.

15 minutes from what? If you live next door to the stadium it would still take you 20 minutes to get there. Current Soldier Field is a disaster, Arlington Field will probably be worse. That city is already a shitstorm for traffic.

Quote from: ROACT on February 28, 2023, 09:15:12 pm

Quote from: GoneAnon on February 28, 2023, 08:10:48 pm

Quote

So the thing is, in addition to life's necesseities, I also quite often want to go to places where other people are.

Like what?  A crowded restaurant or movie theater?  My suburb has those!  It doesn't have, like, a major league sports stadium or an opera company, but I'm fine with having to drive 45 minutes for those rare luxuries.

Pretty soon the Chicago Bears will be 15 minutes away, too.

15 minutes from what? If you live next door to the stadium it would still take you 20 minutes to get there. Current Soldier Field is a disaster, Arlington Field will probably be worse. That city is already a shitstorm for traffic.

Well, I'm in the Northwest suburbs, so it's a LOT closer for me.

Quote from: smocc on February 28, 2023, 10:36:14 pm

You can't have it all, though. The car-centric people know that, they talk about "progress" and "freedom", set city-dweller's desires to zero, then go from there to bulldoze your neighborhood for a highway and enact zoning laws that stop you from rebuilding your city how it was before.

I'm tempted to yeschad.jpg, but actually you're missing the point.  The point is that walkable versus drivable is an actual conflict of interests and therefore "walkability" is not an automatically desirable thing.

I know it's a conflict of interest. I don't think it's a conflict of interest with no possibility for meaningful compromise. I think you are the one acting like it is and insinuating that anyone who doesn't agree with you is in a conspiracy to take away everything you hold dear.