Utopian 15 minute city plans pushed by the WEF
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Summary
A 15 minute city is a planned community where all services can be reached through walking or biking within 15 minutes or less. It s a simple and nice-sounding concept on the surface, but the problem is the whole concept is a pile of unworkable, idealistic hogwash, particularly in North America.
Transcript
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concept of 15-minute cities, and that concept has been around and making news around the world as
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we've got these authoritarian-minded city planners and urbanists pushing this plan in the developed
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world. Now, the notion of 15-minute cities isn't new, and ideologically driven bureaucrats and
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politicians have been trying to implement this sort of thing for quite some time now.
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With the World Economic Forum, though, jumping on and promoting the conception, people are finally
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sounding the alarm bells on the concept, and they should. Now, no, we're not going to see walled
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World War II-style ghettos being erected in cities, as some alarmists have been claiming. Existing
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neighborhoods aren't going to be bulldozed to create packed, roadless communities either.
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But the 15-minute city plans, they're more subtle, and they'll typically be implemented incrementally.
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Cities embracing the plan will cause no significant economic and social damages. They try to create
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impossible urban utopias, and adherence to the ideology will become ever more forceful as citizens
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reject these plans. So what are these 15-minute cities anyways? Well, a 15-minute city is a planned
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community where any and all services can be reached through walking or bicycling within 15 minutes or
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less. A simple and nice-sounding concept on the surface for those who don't like the idea of
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traveling, and I guess who are in good enough shape to get around. The problem is the whole concept's a pile
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of unworkable, idealistic hogwash, particularly in North America. I mean, to make a 15-minute city
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viable, the urban density has to be far higher than pretty much any city in North America offers.
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Having employment, schools, groceries, entertainment, and government services all available within a 15-minute
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walk or bicycle ride means packing a whole lot of people into a small area to sustain those services.
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And while proponents like to point to some trendy communities and cities that are packed with
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restaurants and stores and services within walking distance, these communities also have
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extremely expensive real estate, and the small specialty stores and services charge high prices
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to maintain themselves. Cost of living is challenging enough for people already. Whether you like them
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or not, big box stores help keep necessities affordable for people. So love or hate retailers like
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Walmart, Superstore, and Home Depot, it can't be denied they keep their prices low due to their size and
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taking advantage of economies of scale. Now, how many of those big box stores would it take to be within a 15-minute
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walk or bike ride in every part of the city? Likewise, the government services can't be everywhere.
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Government services are expensive and inefficient enough as it is. So how would you like to have a
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passport office every 10 blocks or so? Come on, guys, this isn't reasonable. Now, some of the proponents
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like to point to cities like Paris and Shanghai and New York as examples to follow. Well, all of these
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cities, for one thing, I mean, some of them are ancient. The other thing is they're already high-density
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environments. And then look at the cost of living. What's it cost to rent an apartment in Manhattan
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these days if you can afford to even find one? What, six, seven thousand a month? Come on. Most North
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American cities as well have six-month winters where walking and bicycling can be uncomfortable, if not
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impossible. Imagine how it would be for seniors. But density zealots, they ignore that reality. The biggest
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obstacle for those who want to see 15-minute cities, though, is consumer demand. People just don't want to live in
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them, especially after a pandemic that drove people into working from home and living in the suburbs. And that's what
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ends up driving the authoritarian streak. And that's when it gets dangerous. If people don't want to live
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in high-density ghettos, then, well, they'll need to be encouraged, right? That encouragement, of course,
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usually comes in the form of taxing or penalizing and demonizing people living in suburbs or driving
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automobiles. Progressively run cities are pursuing charters and legislation to reach out and force density
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standards on neighboring communities. They won't block people from leaving, but they want to create a
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regulatory form of an iron curtain to make sure that if people leave, they won't find life any better
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anywhere else. The goal of 15-minute cities isn't to make the world a greener place or to pursue some
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kind of societal equity, though, of course, that's what they always like to claim. No, the goal is
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control. That's why the World Economic Forum likes it. The main enemy for authoritarians in this thing is
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the personal automobile. It empowers individuals and allows them to escape urban living. Residents
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locked into high-density communities who are dependent on public transit are under the thumb of the
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state. It's easy to control people when you can control their ability to move. That's why 15-minute
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cities hold such appeal for authoritarians with a WEF. Just think of how effective a social credit
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policy of citizen control could be if citizens are completely dependent on the state for their
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movement. Cashless, carless, and living in a crammed enclave, citizens would truly live by the whim of
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the state. A nightmare for free-thinking individuals, but a wet dream for elitist authoritarians who
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envision themselves, of course, at the top of the pile. Of course, as with every socialist paradise,
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the political elites won't live among the masses in those ghettos. You don't need to look at the
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way things turned out in the Soviet Union and how that all ironed out. You know, long row houses where
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the political elite, though, lived outside of the city in some nice acreages. The 15-minute cities
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will fail, but the ideologues pushing those concepts could push us all to the brink of bankruptcy and
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trying to make them work. The only question is how far are we going to let them go before we push back?
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How long will we keep electing progressive adherence to the WEF agenda and, you know,
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putting them into positions of municipal leadership? Yesterday's conspiracies keep turning
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into today's realities. We can't bury our heads in the sand on what the push for 15-minute cities
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