Why is the apparently harmless idea of 15-minute cities exercising conspiracy theorists?

What are 15-minute cities?

The 15-minute city is an urban-planning concept developed by Prof Carlos Moreno of the Sorbonne Business School that was quickly adopted by environmental thinkers and activists around the world. It’s basically just the notion that everyone should be able to have what they need – shops, schools, workplaces – within 15 minutes’ of their home (ideally by foot or bike) because this would be good for both the environment and for people’s quality of life.

Why does that sound familiar?

Because some people just call this “having a functional neighbourhood”. Many small Irish towns and suburbs already fit the criteria. And most town and city neighbourhoods across the world had it in the days before urban decline and food deserts, when people began driving long distances to huge shopping centres.

It sounds like a good thing. What’s the problem?

Some people on the internet have decided that 15-minutes cities are actually a form of “climate lockdown” and that the shadowy elites who run everything will soon be keeping us within 15 minutes of our home, probably with military checkpoints.

Oh dear, are the shadowy elites really planning to do that?

No, of course not! The 15-minute city idea is a long-term aspiration to add more services to neighbourhoods and plan cities better. Meanwhile, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are being trialled in UK cities such as Oxford and this is seen as the beginnings of a conspiratorial 15-minute city master plan by some local and online rabble-rousers.

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Oxford has beome a magnet for protest. Some councillors have received death threats. But the truth is: there are no schemes where people will need permission to leave their neighbourhood. No one will be locked in their homes. No one will be tracked every time they leave the house, except, of course, by the phones with which they are posting conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities.

But isn’t it better to be safe than sorry? I don’t want to be microchipped or have to do paperwork!

Stop. Almost anything can be made sound sinister if you add evil things that aren’t happening into the mix. You like custard, right?

I do like custard.

Well, what if the shadowy elites were going to force you to eat nothing but custard for the rest of your life, at gunpoint, because it was Karl Marx’s favourite food. How would you feel then?

[ Can the ‘15-minute city’ concept of urban living become a reality for Irish cities? ]

[ Ireland well-suited for 15 minute cities, report finds ]

I hate custard. We should ban custard. Oh, I see what you did there. You’ve made me terrified of something innocuous and bland by adding something randomly evil and untrue to it. But here’s a counterpoint: it’s fun to add wacky conspiracy theories to what would otherwise be a boring urban planning debate.

Lots of people agree with you. Wide-eyed conspiracists from Canada to Ireland are all over social media discussing how our Ted-talking Davos-frequently overlords are planning to keep citizens in open-air prisons. GB News hosts have pontificated about it. Tory MP Nick Fletcher recently asked for a parliamentary debate on the “international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities”.

What other issues has Nick Fletcher been exercised by?

He says too many women have been given starring roles in the Star Wars franchise. That’s why there’s so much crime, he says. He has taken a really strong position on this.

Still, I think it’s better to be cautious. We should ban 15-minute cities before they come to Ireland.

You live in Ranelagh. It’s filled with shops. You already live in a 15-minute city.

Then we should close all the businesses in Ranelagh in order to stop socialism and I will spend two hours a day sitting in a car to demonstrate how much I love freedom.

I feel like this explainer has backfired.