15 Minute Cities: This crazy new conspiracy story is now hitting the web

Cities of 15 minutes? Yes, there are 15 minute towns. It is the name of an urban development concept that is just gaining momentum. In short, the point is that everything you need to live can be reached in 15 minutes. The concept is currently being discussed in several major cities around the world and is being implemented in some cases.

So far, so comfortable. But opponents of 15-minute cities are now criticizing the idea with crude conspiracy theories. An overview:

The basic facilities that residents should be able to walk or cycle to within 15 minutes of their home are shops, schools, libraries, health facilities and parks. In this way, cities of 15 minutes become more or less independent, functioning villages in the middle of the city.

The stated aim of the approach is to reduce car dependency, promote sustainable living and living and enable a return to a local way of life.

The concept of the 15-minute city was first formulated by a researcher at the Sorbonne University in Paris in 2016. It is therefore not surprising that Paris in particular is becoming a 15-minute city. And other cities around the world have also started to implement the concept more and more during the corona pandemic.

But the concept also attracts critics. Some of them argue with coarse arguments, far from reality. In the recent past, a new conspiracy story has developed around the concept of 15-minute cities on the Internet, as Wired magazine outlines with an example:

The story begins with Carla Francome. She lives in North London and campaigns for better cycle paths there. Francome advocates the concept of 15-minute cities and recently published in a Twitter thread written about the benefits of the idea from their point of view. Among other things, she talked about how the quality of life of her 78-year-old father and other elderly people improves if they can meet all their needs within a maximum of 15 minutes from their home.

The response to her comments was overwhelming for Francome – but not in a positive way. She is overloaded with criticism based on highly questionable theories. As one Twitter user wrote:

Among the answers are also dark comparisons with the conditions during the Nazi regime:

There are plenty of similar statements under Francome’s thread.

With her innocent statements, London’s Francome got caught in the middle of a vortex of conspiratorial meta-narratives about 15-minute cities.

But where do these conspiracy stories come from?

Many go back to the story of the Great Reset. This includes the idea that a secret elite intends to replace the current world order with a new one in order to control the world’s population. Among other things, private property must be abolished.

The story received a special boost during the corona pandemic. Supporters of the Great Reset story saw the measures taken to curb the pandemic as the first major step in limiting personal freedoms.

Thus, the claims of 15-minute cities were embedded in the Great Reset meta-story. A measure by the secret elite to restrict people’s personal freedoms, take away their cars, tell them where they can go in a city or what products they can consume.

As Wired writes, the claims provide links to supporters of a wide variety of groups with questionable views: anti-lockdown activists, anti-vaccination activists, QAnon supporters, anti-Semites, climate deniers and the far right.

The fact that the claims related to the 15-minute neighborhoods have become extremely popular lately is also due to the fact that well-known personalities are spreading the stories. So said the arch-conservative and controversial Canadian author Jordan Peterson, who responded on Twitter. Peterson also speaks of a “globalistic agenda” behind the urban planning concept.

Particularly in the UK, right-wing politicians also support the story. For example, Nick Fletcher, an MP for the ruling Conservative Tories, referenced the conspiracy story when he asked a question about 15-minute cities in the British House of Commons. He called this an “international socialist concept that wants to take away our personal freedom”.

The House of Commons greeted Fletcher’s question with laughter, clearly demonstrating the absurdity of the connection between the urban development concept and the “Great Reset” conspiracy story.

How so many people can cling to the theory is also a mystery to Areeq Chowdhury. Chowdhury is a Labor politician and councilor for his ward in the East London borough of Newham, where he has already started implementing the 15-minute policy. Chowdhury tells Wired:

Similarly, Ernie Piper, an analyst at UK fact-checking and abatement firm Logical, told the magazine there was no reason a city-planning initiative should have anything to do with such conspiracy ideas. However, the idea of ​​the “Great Reset” provides a meta-conspiracy framework that various groups could participate in. “It’s kind of like an alternate reality game: everyone can interpret their own version of events,” says Piper.

District politician Chowdhury sums up the absurdity of the theories: “I think people often overestimate the authorities’ ability to carry out these kinds of conspiracies.”