What is the ’15-minute city’ conspiracy theory?

There are two very different views of the “15-minute city” idea.

To some, it’s an urban planning concept that promotes sustainable and healthy living.

To a small group of others, it’s a plot by “tyrannical bureaucrats” to take our cars and control our lives, which could lead to a real-life Hunger Games scenario.

After outlandish claims about lizard people, 5G and COVID-19 vaccines, conspiracy theorists are now targeting the world of urban planning, with protests against the 15-minute city concept springing up around the globe.

Toderian, who has lobbied for the idea internationally including in Australia, sums up: “It’s a bit surreal.”

What is it?

The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept where neighbourhoods provide residents with the basic things they need — shops, schools, parks, leisure options, health care — within a 15-minute radius by foot or bike.

“We used to have 15-minute cities as the norm. They were called good neighbourhoods — where you didn’t have to get into a car for everything,” Toderian says.

From mid-last century, cities have largely been planned around cars, at the expense of walking and biking, which has often resulted in car dependency and urban sprawl.

The 15-minute city is presented as one possible remedy for this.

“There are so many public interest reasons to want to do this. It’s kind of a no-brainer,” Toderian says.

“Your carbon footprint is a lot lower, so it’s a powerful climate change mitigation tool … It promotes urban health and thus promotes the actual reduction of public health costs … It promotes individual affordability and household affordability because you don’t need to own the second car or maybe even the third car.”

Many cities have taken up the idea — or a variation of the idea — in recent years.

“Melbourne was one of the world’s originators of the idea of applying time to our neighbourhoods – the amount of time it takes for us to get to the thing that we need or want every day,” Toderian points out, something the city continues to embrace.

The idea has been called many things, like “complete communities”, “mixed-use communities”, “the city of short distances”, the slightly different “20-minute neighbourhood” or as Toderian, as chief planner of Vancouver, used to call it “the power of nearness”.

But the 15-minute city really came to global prominence when Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo made it a big part of her 2020 re-election campaign. For her, pedestrian and cycle-centred design was the future. She was re-elected.

“Cities around the world — mayors, politicians — started talking about this very old, normal concept of why do we have to drive to everything? Why can’t we have more choices and more freedom to choose rather than just having only one choice: The car,” Toderian says.

So cities started to draw up plans and implement different versions of the 15-minute city concept, with increased bike lanes, pedestrianising areas, cutting down on where cars can go.

As NSW minister Rob Stokes put it last year: “The pandemic has seen demand for walking and cycling infrastructure soar, and outdoor spaces valued more than ever. Our vision for 15-minute neighbourhoods will also improve health and wellbeing outcomes, and ensure local communities thrive.”

But then the pushback started.

From ‘small lies’ to ‘big lies’

Much of the pushback against the 15-minute city concept is rooted in fiction rather than fact.

The claims start with the idea that limiting car use is government overreach and an attack on individual freedom (even though, as Toderian says “ironically, it’s providing more choice”).

And from there, it gets, well, weird.

Limiting cars and promoting pedestrian or bike access is framed as a slippery slope to government-run, open-air prisons.

One British TikToker says authorities are planning to “divide up towns, cities etc … and you’re going to have to apply for a f**king permit to leave your zone”.

Spoiler: Not true.

According to a tweet from controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson: “The idea that neighbourhoods 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 — and, make no mistake, it’s part of a well-documented plan.”

What “plan”? The 15-minute city concept has also been promoted by the World Economic Forum, leading to claims that it’s part of a global scheme around centralisation and control.

“The lies range from small lies — like ‘they’re going to not want you to drive [at all]’ — to big lies — literally using terms like ‘they want to turn your neighbourhood into a concentration camp’ that ‘your life is going to be like the Hunger Games, where there’s different sectors that you’ll be representing’,” Toderian says.

It’s even made it into UK parliament, with one MP calling the idea an “international socialist concept” that “will cost us our personal freedom”.

Death threats and protests

These sentiments have led to real-life protests.

For example, Edmonton in Canada recently embraced 15-minute city plans, which, according to the city, “moves us closer to our vision for a more connected, prosperous, healthy and climate-resilient city”.

The plan has triggered protests, with organisers incorrectly claiming “you will spend 90 per cent of your life in this 15-minute area as they are monitoring your ‘carbon footprint’”.

The UK city of Oxford is trying to curb car use ON some roads, enforced by traffic cameras and fines. This triggered protests against so-called “climate lockdowns” and councillors there have received death threats.

One Oxford protest, which attracted thousands of people, featured a speech by a 12-year-old girl who warned against the “dangers” of the plan.

“[They are] soon to become digital ID facial recognition zones … How dare you steal my childhood and my future, and the future of our children, by enslaving us in your crazy digital surveillance prison.”

Planning our towns and cities

Toderian is one of many in the urban planning world who have been fighting back in recent months.

The more he talks about the ongoing reactions to the 15-minute city concept, the more exasperated he gets.

The biggest casualty may be rational community discussion around the future of towns and cities.

“I’m not an anti-car guy. I’m an anti-car-dependency guy. We can’t keep planning cities and regions where the car is the only choice, because that may seem like freedom to some but it’s kind of the opposite. Dependency is never freedom,” Toderian says.

“There’s always going to be debate in city planning. Always. But there’s good faith debate, based on disagreements, and then there’s deliberate lies and misinformation.

“If we’re going to have real debate, discussion and democracy, and good decision making, truth is a necessity — it’s a necessary starting point to make good decisions.”