Never before has a mundane theory of urbanism been such a lightning rod for outrage [...] Some online forums have claimed that the 15-minute city represents the first step towards an inevitable Hunger Games society, in which residents will not be allowed to leave their prescribed areas. They see it not as a route to a low-traffic, low-carbon future, but as the beginning of a slippery slope to living in an open-air prison. — The Guardian
The man widely credited with developing the “15-minute city” concept, Colombian-born French academic Carlos Moreno, is the most likely source for paranoia owing to his radical left-wing identity. Though, as Wainwright points out, the idea dates to the 1920s, many conspiracists view its adaptation by cities like Brussels and Paris as tied to the “Trojan horse” that was the pandemic.
Thousands attended a rally against Oxford’s forthcoming plan last month, decrying the city’s embrace of the idea as one entiwned with Stalinism and surveillance culture. Oxford will indeed levy fines on motorists, but the plan’s core, according to Wainwright and Moreno, is more democratic than the extant circulation strategies far-right misinformation campaigns are seeking tacitly to uphold.
"Today 80 percent of urban mobility is forced, because people have to get up early and commute to school, to workplaces that are far from their homes," he told Politico recently. "In a city of proximity in which services are always close by, mobility is a choice: On foot, by bicycle, by public transport or electric vehicle, you go where you want because you want to, not because you have to."
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From the good people who brought Brexit. Rest assured they aren't coming up with alternative solutions.
The people screaming so loud to protect our "freedom" will be the first to jump on board with the next authoritarian who comes along.
Their "alternative solution" might just have another word before "solution. "
Irony of it all is that suburbia+industrial park+office park+strip mall is the quasi-carceral, inward looking, foreclosed ecosystem, all within 15 minute given one owns a car, I'm guessing majority of protesters would be subscribing to.
Whew! I was worried I wouldn't get any political fodder today.
Thanks, Archinect!
It's Sunday. How about a sermon?
To impose this upon an existing area, with existing businesses and homes is going to be a disaster. Can you imagine owning a restaurant in the center of that district, that will have its customers cut down dramatically because of the reduction of traffic through the area? so now a business with access from the city becomes limited to a 15min zone. What we have here is a bunch of know-nothing bureaucrats making top down decisions on the people in the name of some feel good cause. Sounds like authoritarianism with a smile...which is the second worse kind. I have no problem with making 15 minute cities in new areas, but not this re zoning bs. it will for sure harm businesses in these areas and isolate some people from family and friends who live outside of the limits. Like what we saw with covid mandates, and social media censorship, this type of soft serve authoritarianism is not enforced by men with boots, but rather by inconvenience and inability to traverse through society. So, it becomes authoritarian when it harms you, but is still imposed upon you and you can’t escape from it without significant effort, loss, or inconvenience. It’s not unreasonable to imagine that will be the case for some people.
I’m having a hard time expressing the type of authoritarianism that I see…but it’s almost as if Temple Grandin designed an authoritarian society. The livestock comfortably gets nudged around and ends up at the desired spot.
But what if the question isn't about if we're livestock, but only if we're comfortable :)
Authoritarianism doesn’t need to have some mastermind or intent. Authoritarianism can be an emergent phenomenon. Too much compassion can become oppressive- as In the devouring mother archetype.
But to suggest that the state is not concerned with expanding its power is absurd. The state always strives to expand power in the name of whatever cause - safety, security, efficacy
Maybe that’s it, authoritarianism used to look like the “tyrannical father” now it’s the “devouring mother”. And this is maybe why it’s hard for so many people to see.
I would like you to define what you think a "15 minute city" is.
I know what it is. It sounds harmless on paper until you think about how much control must be given to the state to implement it.
I know I am courting the devil here, but the 15 minute city does not require that people live within a 15 minute distance of everything. That is wilfully misunderstanding the point of the concept. If it did work that way no business would survive. The cities that work by the 15 min city rule - Paris, Tokyo, London, New York, Vancouver, etc - all manage to be money magnets and places where capitalism accumulates wealth like nobody's business. Sure it is possible to get all your daily needs in a 15 min walk. But shops restaurants and other commercial enterprises draw in people from far and wide. Basically, what cities used to be. That's it. No Truman Show, New Urbanist, pseudo-fascism required. FWIW, 15 minute city mostly emerges from deregulation, not new regulations. It is suburbia that is strict about who can live where and what kinds of activity goes on ( in the USA mostly to keep the riffraff in their proper place ). Remove the regulations in the burbs, allow intensification to happen (like most cities used to) so people can make more money AND improve their communities, and maybe the 15 city could be set aside for something entirely new. Then we could ALL be happy.
The concept is good, if it evolves organically. The problem is with the expansion of zoning powers and central planning. It’s like calling someone an anti vaxer if they are against mandates
At the end of the day, there is an enormous amount of distrust in the state. This is not for nothing. They earned it. Today the govt bailed out a bunch of billionaires and millionaires in Silicon Valley, a few weeks ago they couldn’t find a dime to help the people in Ohio. There is no reason to not distrust the state.
Please move your bullshit pretzel logical fallacies to the bullshit pretzel logical fallacies thread.
Thanks
"No Truman Show, New Urbanist, pseudo-fascism required"
And there it is. Forget the social, mental, and health benefits of walking or the attraction of humane architecture. It's neo-facism plain and simple. No need to think about it any further, or you too will be a facist.
Arch2 and Thayer, I understand the benefits of a 15 minute city planning ideal. It’s a good model. Walkable cities are great for all the reasons that you and others point out. The problem is not that. The problem is that that state has become so captured by other interests than those of the public, that it’s hard to conceive that the power won’t be abused to benefit such interests at the expense of the public. For example, take a look at the types of businesses that were allowed to remain open during the pandemic, and the ones forced to close. Do you really believe that such a plan won’t be used to benefit…say Starbucks at the expense of some small mom pop shop?
I would like you to define what you think a "15 minute city" is.
A city where all / most services can be accessed in a 15 min walking radius. Very sensible and benign goal. Not very benign when the state is given expanded zoning powers to retrofit existing cities into THEIR definition of what a 15 minute city is. They seem to be good at taking liberty with terminology and shoehorning all kinds of things into legislation. The devil is in the details. Banning cars and levying fines per the Oxford case is an example of that. Shoe horning the idea that 15 min cities only allow 90k dollar electric cars is an example of that.
Is it hard to imagine that the state can say…you know what…we have a Home Depot…let’s not allow another hardware store., we also only need 2 coffee shops per square mile and we already have 2 Starbucks…You know Kinda like they did nearly everywhere during the pandemic lol. It’s self evident what they would do and who they would favor.
@thayer-D, the bit you quoted is not an attack on New Urbanism (though I am not a fan for a lot of very good reasons), I'm only responding to the idea that many who oppose the walkable city are worried about fences being put up, like the walled edges of the Truman Show. There are no lines to read between. This wasn't an eyebrow meme kind of comment. @xjia, i dunno man, nobody closed any stores in hyper-capitalistic and oh-so-very libertarian Tokyo during covid - and its all 15 minutes all the time. So it isn't about the concept. If you are worried about banning cars, fair enough. But again, that is not the 15min city concept.
Will, New Urbanism is just old urbanism that was re-branded to sell mixed use dense walkable urbanism (like Tokyo) to suburbanites. Instead of conflating New Urbanism with facism, why not use the "very good reasons" you proport to have rather than childish name calling.
With densification, you need proper urban planning and zoning. More specifically, increase density requires more dense off-street parking (parking structures for example) to accommodate the density of vehicular traffic which will (and has ALWAYS been the case since world war II). You also need bicycle marking, bike lanes, and public transportation sufficient to accommodate traffi c. So, actually, there does in fact need good planning that is realistic. This also mean good comprehensive zoning that doesn't allow too much density like massive multi-family unless sufficient off-street parking. I already know of the problem just in Astoria, Oregon where some property has too many units and no off-street parking to accommodate the need. ou can see this becoming a bigger issue in bigger and much more dense population. Therefore, we need off-street parking (parking lots or parking structures) so it doesn't overload on-street parking which is geometrically limited in available parking on the streets. If you don't have good sufficient regulations,you'll have issues if you don't plan things well.
Richard—
We're having the same problem in Portland, Oregon, much housing development without parking. And there's no place for parking lots, etc. I have to wonder whether they've even taken parking into consideration. Are they assuming everyone will bike or take mass transit (not great where I live)?
Yep. Part of past flawed planning of the past. I agree 100% that some of the planning took fantasy over realism. The idea that people will just give up cars to bike and mass transit is unrealistic to the extent and degree. Even when they do, there is still the need for cars. I didn't specifically talked about Portland as others are more credible even though I have seen the issues when I have been there. I spoke of Astoria because I'm more credible about my experience in Astoria. I suspect the problems I see in Astoria aren't unique but magnified in some cases in bigger cities like Portland. I'm not against densification but needs to better planning and mandatory off-street parking solutions instead of merely developing lots for occupied buildings/housing but off-street parking which works for higher density housing and concentration of vehicular traffic. While I would encourage pedestrian and bicycle and mass transit development but it is unrealistic to assume that's the way the majority of the population will transit. You're spot on to the "question".... have they taken parking into consideration. I believe they did but they over-prioritized around an unrealistic notion that people are going to just walk, bike or take mass transit (giving up driving and their cars).
I have way more faith in collective intelligence /spontaneous order than I do in centralized planning. That said, we would have walkable “15 minute” cities and suburbs if we removed many of the zoning laws. You can get to this result of walkable communities 2 ways. One way requires centralized planning. The other way involves removing some zoning regulations and allowing the free evolution of the market place. I prefer the latter.
x-jla, real world doesn't work that way.
If people can build their projects without accommodating off-street parking they would do so and save money to be budgeted for parking lots or parking structures (which by the way, isn't cheap considering you have to build to support the weight of cars, trucks, etc.) This is exactly why we have parking problems. Because, unless you require it, most people and businesses just won't spend the money on it. Most people and businesses are minimalists as in, if they don't have to do it, they won't do it.
The thing is, the zoning laws in the past made too liberal of exceptions to parking which is practically not requiring off-street parking. In Astoria, where I am and most of the downtown core is zoned (C-4). In this zone, off-street parking was not required (outright). The problem is, over densification led to insufficient on-street parking. This is even more an issue in similarly zoned areas of Portland and other cities. In good planning, not requiring off-street parking in such an outright manner is problematic because while it's okay for the small boutique shops and small offices to not require off-street parking, some type and scale of use need it and it needs to be required before such development is approved. If it is not required, a lot of development would be made without facilitating off-street parking. In fact, it would have been better to not develop those projects if they weren't going to address the parking impact of their development. Once it is done, they aren't going to do it later.
In fact, they should require off-street parking with impact that exceeds on-street parking in the immediate area of the project development and it should be addressed and incorporated from the very beginning not after the fact. If there are no zoning rules to make such requirements mandatory, there is a greater probability that they won't build off-street parking to mitigate their impact on the neighborhood. They aren't going to add it 10-20 years after the fact, either because then, it's just a project expense with no perceived increase in revenue. They might have done it when they were planning, designing, and building their project but that's now totally out the window.
I recognize the acceptable use of waiving off-street parking for boutique shops and such low impact. We need to be more mindful to not let developers abuse that leniency in regulation. Sorry, we need regulatory powers because otherwise, we'll have a much more dangerous built environment.
While Walmart and corporate chains will typically have off-street parking in their plans to begin with because most places will require it. This is less true with development of apartments complexes and some multi-family housing. Some of them do but some don't. If they can get away with not having off-street parking, they would. The truth is, they might not be able to do what they want on the site because maybe it's too small... in fact... that's the point... their plan is incompatible because they didn't arrange parking. Sometimes, arrangements may be made with parking lot/spaces sharing. Especially in cases of night-time use using parking spaces of parking lots of daytime use businesses. With an assembly use project, that was something we utilized to address parking. However, sometimes you have to develop off-street parking, even a parking structure might need to be built. Good planning would be comprehensive and sensible and realistic.... even if it means you can't develop certain kinds of development and you lose certain development opportunities because it doesn't pencil out in the pro forma analysis. Shoehorning high traffic/parking impact uses without sensible parking capacity or planned development of increasing parking is just dumb and it comes with people complaining about lack of available parking. You're not going to get them to give up their vehicles. Most that attempted that dreamy idea abandoned that in just a few weeks during rainy to winter around here. Most places aren't warm and sunny year round.
As for city planning, that's a process that involves the effected people in most modern day countries like US, Canada, UK, etc.
x-jla says reduce regulation and just let it develop however. That's a foolish notion propagated by fools who don't understand the consequences. First, there isn't exactly a uniform zoning regulation. Every place is different and varies. Some places have too little. Some, too much and the wrong areas or aspects of regulating (in my opinion), and some area where there is weaknesses and flaws that needs to be addressed. Now, urban planning and development needs to be planned and guided with oversight and accountability. Every community has a right to change and changes need to be guided with oversight and accountability.
A careless laissez-faire approach to Urban planning (which btw, zoning/community comprehensive development codes are for facilitating oversight and accountability) is harmful. That logic is like building without building codes. The minimum standards of construction was dangerous that it resulted in massive-scale disasters before building codes.
Building codes (although imperfect) provides some level of professional consensus as to what the requirements should be as a minimum standard for protecting public health, safety, and welfare. I believe there should be sensible regulations. You might think we can just go to the building codes to determing required parking. You'd probably be wrong. It might address requirements for accessible parking but in the U.S., it doesn't address overall parking requirements. It's usually the role of zoning laws not building codes to regulate amount of parking. Zoning laws, in general, determines the minimum number of parking among many other land use regulation. Building codes don't usually address how many parking spaces to provide.
Yeah, we need regulations to prescribe the minimum. How would I know what is needed? I can try to guess it but how would I know there is enough? I'm not usually involved in such studies but city urban planners are more likely to be more connected with such studies and know of them or have conducted or had them conducted.
At the end of the day, I'm making a judgment call for how much more above the minimum but the minimum requirements are what is prescribed.
It’s all a matter of degree. 0% tax = anarchy. 100% tax = slavery. There is plenty of grey area in between and that should be within the realm of a functional democracy to hash out. Same goes for zoning, regs, etc.
Unfortunately we do not have a functional democracy. We have an oligarchy. Maybe we always did to a degree, but It has accelerated since 9/11.
You do realize that zoning/land use laws are largely city and county/parish regulations and big corporations have less influence on city/county level governments (except where they are located). The influence of corporations on politics intensifies as you go up to the state and federal levels. There are pragmatic reasons for that. Fewer people needed to influence the higher in government (state and federal) but even small towns and counties have been known to give the bird to big corporations.
"It seems fitting that a leaflet drop warning against Oxford’s traffic filters plan was organised by Not Our Future – a new pressure group led by none other than Fred and Richard Fairbrass of 1990s band turned anti-vaxxers Right Said Fred. Too sexy for their car? Maybe they could try cycling to the shops instead."
You anti- muppets should get more credible loonies than the above and Jordan Peterson....
wow that's so wild. D-list celebrities leading the descent to madness.
JP is a F-list "celebrity"
JP is the best Canadian since bubbles.
Jordan Peterson needs to get off the internet and go to therapy.
Everyone needs to get off the internet.
you first.
Just FYI to everyone: a lot of the comments on this thread have been hidden because they are loony talking points from conspiracy theorists.
Note to conspiracy folks: "everything should be available within a 15 minute walk" does not equate to "you will be forced to stay within a 15 minute area." Calm down.
No one is saying that. “Conspiracy theorist” is one
of many words used to shut down debate by people afraid to debate the topic.
A lot of folks, in fact, are saying that. And a lot of the folks saying that are using language surprisingly similar to the language you used above in your rant against the idea.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://impakter.com/15-minute-city-conspiracy-how-convenient-concept-become-controversial/
https://www.politico.eu/article/dont-lock-me-neighborhood-15-minute-city-hysteria-uk-oxford/
Not just in Britain, but here and everywhere the rabids are looking for something to latch on to. The Silicon Valley Bank collapse, we're being told, was caused by wokeism.
I remember when centralized planning was looked upon with suspicion and doubts in architecture school. Places like Brazilia and even TOD’s were the examples of what not to do, while organically growing places were looked at as examples of dynamic and rich urbanism. When did academia start embracing the more top down models like this?
Probably around the time we began looking at our fellow citizens with suspicion and doubts and put
Un earned trust in government to tell us what is best for us.
"We need to be be more trusting of our fellow citizens except for the ones we decide to elect to public office"
unearned trust in developers shoehorning development that brought in consequential problems which could have been mitigated.
Professional city/urban planners don't have public health, safety or welfare that high on their priorities due to a general lack of duty to the public. City officials have a duty to the public as public employees. So there is a generally higher amount of incentive. Who is the public going to complain to? The developer? Nope. What's the point. They don't care. The city officials are more likely to care more about what the public thinks about issues. It's their job on the line, after all. Zoning laws has been established under the "police powers" of the state governments because there is correlation between development uses and behavior.
For example, where do we locate the "redlight" districts? (you know, the places where the bars/taverns, casinos, and in the past, where prostitution was allowed). You wouldn't want those locations close to the schools and public parks.
Let's not confuse good sensible regulations with that of certain "strict regulations" that are oppressive and racially based. Good regulations should not be discriminating on basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
American comprehensive zoning began largely with Edward Murray Bassett.... who largely influenced zoning regulation and urban planning from 1916 onward. New York City, is one of the first cities in America to begin dealing with the numerous issues we see in other cities that are struggling with these issues today. Being among the densest cities in the U.S. in development density, says very clearly the challenge faced with densification.
Where I am, we have new zoning regulation changes allowing ADUs in all residential zones but we also need to be careful in the implications of densification. Higher density in residential zones would require careful planning and necessary off-street parking if you are not careful, you'll overwhelm the on-street parking and then this can lead to dangerous conditions.
Generally, in the U.S., we are a people with a strong culture of not doing more than what is required. You have to force the requirement or it will just not happen. Yet, the danger is in abusive enforcement of such regulatory power but there still needs to be regulatory power to enforce.
"We need to be be more trusting of our fellow citizens except for the ones we decide to elect to public office" Oh stop. That’s not how this duopoly works and you know it.
Rick, I completely understand the valid point that corporatism is as big a problem as government. As we see with the bank collapse and the predictable govt bailout…they are not really separate entities anymore. The government acts in the interest of the big corporations. Any power given to the state is power given to big corporations until the capture is somehow fixed…which seems as difficult and hopeless as interstellar travel.
There will always be an public government interest in businesses and financial institutions being in good shape. If government didn't care, I'd actually be very concerned.
I do agree with: "corporatism is as big a problem as government" and I agree it may be "as difficult and hopeless as interstellar travel." At least, how it may seem to be.
"That’s not how this duopoly works and you know it." I agree, I was just paraphrasing what seems to be your point throughout.
Richard—
Developers are motivated by all kinds of factors that make them insensitive to the needs of a community, especially in the long term. Parking is just one example. And they can manage debt and absorb losses in ways that mystify me. They can handle units lying vacant for long periods of time or allow bought property to lie undeveloped for years. If a project goes bust, no big deal, but it is a big deal for the community where it was built. Often, if not usually, they are physically and motivationally distant from the people they are supposed to serve.
One influence is speculative investment:
The financialization of housing is happening worldwide, driven by Wall Street’s discovery that residential real estate could be the source of tremendous profits. It’s been described by powerful United Nations reporting, led by Leilani Farha, saying, “Housing is at the centre of an historic structural transformation in global investment and the economies of the industrialized world, with profound consequences for those in need of adequate housing … Housing and real estate markets have been transformed by corporate finance, including banks, insurance and pension funds, hedge funds, private equity firms and other kinds of financial intermediaries with massive amounts of capital.”
https://www.streetroots.org/news/2019/09/13/wall-street-speculators-and-loss-affordable-housing
In the case of Portland:
“Large global private equity investors including Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, GlobalLand and others have spent more than $6.3 billion acquiring nearly 29,000 units in the Portland area in just the past four years,” said Hanson. The housing they’re buying is mostly “naturally occurring affordable housing,” for which they pay less than two-thirds per unit what’s being spent in local efforts to expand our stock of affordable housing.
This written in 2019. 2008 comes to mind. As King cautions, speculative bubbles can go pop.
I agree with what you wrote above. Since they are not as publicly obligated to the public as public employees, it is no surprise that disregard or are (from time to time) insensitive to the community.
I don’t know how the topic shifted to affordable housing, but this is exactly what I’m talking about. The 15 minute city as a Trojan horse for all kinds of things, global warming, equity, etc. By itself the concept is benign-beneficial. In the hands of bad actors which is exactly what we have, it’s not so benign.
Whenever considering how much power u want to give to the state, remember that in 4 years that power will be held by people with different agendas from your own.
We'd have to have a balance of regulation and liberty. Abosolute libertarian is absolute anarchism. I believe there should be good regulation. That is where things get tricky.... no society entirely agrees and it needs to adapt to the needs of the people to whom it serves but people as a whole not just the interest of some. Of course, your argument of big corporation is actually you, yourself because you are as a private enterprise part of that.
One major motivation is propping up stock prices. See "A $60 Billion Housing Grab by Wall Street":
“What is really dangerous to tenants and communities is the full integration of housing within financial markets,” says Maya Abood, who wrote her graduate thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the single-family-rental industry. “Because of the way our financial markets are structured, stockholders expect ever-increasing returns. All of this creates so much pressure on the companies that even if they wanted to do the right thing, which there’s no evidence that they do, all of the entanglements lead to an incentive of not investing in maintenance, transferring all the costs onto tenants, constantly raising rents. Even little, tiny nickel-and-diming, if it’s done across your entire portfolio, like little fees here and there — you can model those, you can predict those. And then that can be a huge revenue source.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-landlords.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
i distinctly remember conspiracy theorists screaming about how trump was going to force all architects to do neoclassical public architecture or something. Remember that?
He attempted it but it was the backlash that halted that. If no one spoke up, he would have gone through with it.
There was a literal executive order. No conspiracy needed. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-beautiful-federal-civic-architecture/
Richard—
A somewhat related but opposite problem. Oxford thrives—and overheats—because of the school, the history, the tourist attraction. Astoria—I haven't been there—is scenic and draws tourists as well?
I, however, live in an area that is attractive enough but not a tourist or commercial draw. Not rich, either, working/serving class, lower middle. Yet in many ways it is ideal. It is quite walkable and bike friendly, has a downtown area, tree lined, on a two lane street, quite accessible. But it is moribund. Some half of the retail spaces are vacant, and this was a problem before Covid hit.
Portland zoned it for medium density years ago—four stories—but tried to preserve the streets. Several mixed-used units were built, but much of their commercial space still lies vacant. I've heard mixed-use isn't working elsewhere.
How to bring life back to the area? A lot of people live nearby. I fear what could have been a vibrant community will turn into a crowded outpost of people isolated from each other, commuting long distances to get by. And I don't think my neighborhood is alone.
Summing up, this could be a successful 15 minute city in itself. It has all the social and physical conditions to become one. But it's not happening.
Yep, astoria has tourism challenge as well.
In the case of Portland, I think you are pretty much spot on with observation. Considering the Portland area is a metropolitan conglomorate of cities (not too unlike Los Angeles but smaller in scale and sprawl but still. While downtown portland may be vibrant but the surrounding cities that makes up the Portland metro area isn't always vibrant in each of the commercial districts of each of the sister cities around Portland. Some areas are pretty dead, commercially but there is still lots of residences. I've seen issues when I lived in L.A. where downtown Los Angeles is quite active but if you look at each of the communities areound L.A., they may have as little to no real commercial district other than where a K mart or Target or similars stores be located but they don't have the scale of commercial investments. Just whatever some chains decides to put in. Mostly grocery / department stores, fast food, and occassional this or that... some motels and then there are the official city governments for those incorporated cities. If you looked at L.A., you can go to just about anywhere a person would want to go to in an area footprint of Clatsop County (OR), Columbia County (OR), Pacific County (WA), Cowlitz (WA), Wahkiakum (WA), west half of Lewis County (WA). Yet, a great majority of whereever you want to go was within a 50 miles or less travel.
If traffic is good when you time your travel, you can go to most places within 1-1/2 hour. Of course, what makes a town or city a 15-minute town? That will depend on mode of travel. If you are talking walkins, everything has to be in a footprint of 1/2 mile x 1/2 mile square. This can only realistically be achieved either in a town of small footprint or in a city inside of a building... until we can successfully teleport living people safely. Only, then would you have the density three dimensionally to fit a city in a borg cube 2500 ft wide, deep and tall. (Maybe rectangular to about 1 mile high above grade and below grade to about 15-20 stories down and anchors down another 200 ft. With vehicles like automobile, we made this world feel smaller because 15 minutes, you can traverse several miles. With aircrafts, that can be 100s of miles. Time and distance is relative.
If you can teleport, anywhere in the galaxy can just be seconds away. The perception of the world and where people come and go, things can be mystifying. In the age of virtual reality, internet, and virtual realms, maybe the social life is not taking place so "physically located" but "virtually" located where the virtual realm may be the scale of an entire galaxy and you can just instantly go to wherever with teleport speed of instantaneous. The question we face now, is not to just look at the challenge physically but also virtually. Just where are we going with all this in our societies.
Nothing has separated and and divided and deprived us of our virtue more than the virtual realm. In real life the irony is that the more people are packed together, the more isolated they become. My assumption is that it would do us all good to see each other, people like us, people different from us, face to face, in a variety of activities. I also think we'd be better off in our sprawling cities and suburbs if we could think and act locally. I talk about it here and elsewhere, if you're curious.
For about 2 million years humans have had a few different types of relationships. 1-family, 2-friends, 3-colleagues 4-acquaintances/community, 5-strangers. The internet has created new types of relationships that humans aren’t really adapted to. Physical community is not just nice, I’d argue that it’s probably the antidote to many of these social/political/and psychological problems that seem to be accelerating.
I concur with the generality. I agree with the essential point you are making. We can all agree that internet and the virtual reality has its good but also its issues and problems. I don't recommend people living in the virtual 24/7.
I'd even recommend people live in one world and only visit the other but living in two worlds, you can see all kinds of issues. However, I'd recommend living in the physical wourld and tourist visit the virtual if you want strong interpersonal relationships.
I’m just trying to steel man their argument. To often we ascribe “loon” or “nut” or “conspiracy theorist” to folks without trying to understand their concerns and their legitimate dis trust of a state that has fucked them and sold them out for decades. There is no coincidence that the rust belt had turned against what they perceive as the establishment. I absolutely hate when working class people are demonized for their skepticism of the state, especially with clear contemporary examples of why such skepticism is perfectly reasonable, such as the treatment of the train derailment vs the treatment of the banks.
We are a nation of "two countries". We are not united. We are divided. The United States is dead. We are the Dying States of America, divided and at war with ourselves. Why? We elected the worst man in history to ever be President.... Donald J. Trump. He already done to this country worse than Osama bin Laden. He fulfilled bin Laden's dream who is praising the glorious days of the divided schizophrenic infidels.... right there next to the toasty fires of hell smiling and giggling. Some people are just lost like with some brain disease. Principled people with self-discipline and high level of cognitive capacity to understand sophisticated isues wuld know, the skepticism should not be in the government itself. Te skepticism should be in the people running it. There are those who are just flat out nuts or loony. We have an identity crisis. We have a crisis of dividedness. We are at war with our neighbors and friends within our own country not some outside third-party threat to unite us. Maybe we need another dictator hell bent on taking over the world from outside the U.S. forging our unity and putting aside our differences to fight the enemy of democracy. However, we need to know ourselves and what we believe in.
Oh stop. The only thing that made trump any different than most politicians is his decorum. In terms of policy, he was an average president. He was above average on humor, below average on decorum, and about flat average on corruption and value for civil liberties.
In which case, most of should not be Presidents or leaders. It takes a quality of exhibiting the of our values, living it, and making it shine brighter than our worst qualities. Trump has been the opposite... the anti-leader. A person who amplified the division is not a leader any country.... any civilization should have.
Yes, indeed Trump projected an inner turmoil that is at work that divides us at all level but remembering what unites us and the importance of unity that is more important. Being part of a country is being part of a family.
Donald Trump should be indicted and arrested for his crimes as any of us would be.
"Nothing has separated and and divided and deprived us of our virtue more than the virtual realm. In real life the irony is that the more people are packed together, the more isolated they become. My assumption is that it would do us all good to see each other, people like us, people different from us, face to face, in a variety of activities. I also think we'd be better off in our sprawling cities and suburbs if we could think and act locally. I talk about it here and elsewhere, if you're curious."
Very good points there. Cyberspace has been troubling because hile it enables a certain level of free expression, it also have been ripe with lack of accountability. So people will take with deep hate but won't be accountable. Our virtue requires accountability. This is a key part in what brings civil in civility. It is the rules of conduct that makes us think carefully about what we say. It requires us to think about the feelings of others. No accountability and all you have is a bunch of anonymous assholes. Before long, they literally become those assholes in-person 24/7. It might explain Trump a little bit since he was the big Twit on Twitter. He was already an asshole so he became a bigger one on it.
I also think too many people, too dense and they become more like numbers than people. People aren't meant to be alone or too densely packed. I agree there's an intriguing scenario when there is too little and too many. Humans are inherently and naturally social to an extent but there is a point where it may be discomforting as it is with too little. Each person is a variable. There isn't a sharp crisp line. Even virtual reality / cyberspace can serve as a tool to facilitate a unifying bridge. When I was in Eugene, I used Skype, to communicate with family. While I can use the phone, Skype (like other video conferencing tools) enabled a level of connectedness that was non-existent not long ago in history. 30 years ago, the closest I could get to connectedness would be the phone where we hear each other. Now, we can see each other, even though we may be 100s of miles apart. Before phone, it was the written letters and post cards and before that, it may be weeks or months from seeing, hearing or otherwise. So, there is a positive side to this "virtual reality" as there is negative sides to the issue, that may be resolvable. Early "virtual reality" was just text on a screen. My identity was just the alias and whatever I disclosed or expressed. It was certainly interesting way to work around ageism. If you see a child as a child, you'd naturally be condescending and treating them as "just a child" but if you did not know or able to identify the person's age, you'd wouldn't be age discriminating. You might not always be able to know the age of someone with just text based communication.
The funny thing is we all live a "virtual" reality of reality. That is, we see the world through lenses of our perceptions not necessarily the exactness of reality. (a way to circle back to topic).
The "virtual reality" of the internet makes it feel the world is just seconds away. When we can teleport goods, it literally would be. Perception is key. 15 minutes is just a unit of time. 15 minutes at the speed of light is very different than at a mere human walking pace. So what is a 15 minute city. There's going to be different interpretation and perspectives. The internet "city" is planetary yet it makes it feel like it's just inside a 10-ft square box. A physical 15 minute city will have a range in scale from a small town like Astoria to a bigger scale city. How far can you get at 50 mph is different than, maybe 30 mph.... or it can be even smaller at 2 mph. Since we all live our own "virtual" reality of reality, reality is going to be to some extent incongruent to our "virtual" reality that is in our heads. Then we now have a computer-based "virtual reality" that is impacting changes in our lives as people. Changes happen but frequently we need to "plan" and plan those changes so we can achieve desired outcomes. Changes without careful planning will often result in outcomes not planned for and therefore without solutions if they are problems.
I am a proponent for careful planning so we can address many of the consequential issues from get go. While we can't solve for all, not planning is solving none of the problems of change. Changes that effects others should be carefully planned and carefully address harmful consequences as much as reasonably possible.
Places like Oxford will always thrive and, likely, overheat. But I wonder how well structured other suburban and urban areas are, whether they are prepared to deal with a different set of problems that will only get worse, putting the concept of a 15 minute city further and further out of reach. One thing is a given: population will increase.
In my neighborhood and elsewhere, planning is for medium density and mixed-use, housing above commercial space, a common trend. Above, Central Lofts, which has 30 units, small studios and one bedrooms. It only has very limited parking, not enough. It is located in an ideal spot of a modest downtown area, with a plaza before it that has seating for gathering. It's been up a few years and is only partly let. The commercial space at the corner, a prime spot, has yet to be developed and I wonder if it ever will. The plaza area is largely used by transients, if at all. Most new housing, and there's been quite a bit, is similar, medium density, small 1 and 2 bedroom rental units, some complexes quite large, with limited or no parking. The rest of the area is zoned for the same in the future.
It's not a rich neighborhood, so housing is somewhat cheaper here than in much of Portland. There aren't many options for residents to find work in the area to make enough to get by, however, so likely they will have to commute elsewhere for an income, possibly long distances, in traffic. And traffic will increase where they live, leading to congestion.
Again, about half the commercial area is vacant. Commercial rents have gone up as well, but there are other problems. Big box stores and internet shopping have made retail an iffy proposition. Restaurants are always a challenge, more so now as inflation has pushed their prices. Housing is still expensive, and residents will have less disposable income to buy things and go out to eat.
There are other issues. At best, their stay will be temporary as they move up in life. This means they will have slight involvement and commitment to the community, if any. These units are not a good place to raise kids and likely will have few, thus depriving the community of the bonds children bring, a future.
Little is in place to give these residents a sense of belonging and the community a chance to thrive. Covid has taken its toll, but these trends were in place before the outbreak.
There seem to be only two possibilities now: either stagnation that saps our resources and resolve or rapid growth that leads to overdevelopment and social congestion. The area is not poised to handle either. Community suffers from both.
And what happens if residents go the other way, not get ahead and give up?
That had seemed to them like an open question each morning for the last three years, as an epidemic of unsheltered homelessness began to overwhelm Phoenix and many other major American downtowns. Cities across the West had been transformed by a housing crisis, a mental health crisis and an opioid epidemic, all of which landed at the doorsteps of small businesses already reaching a breaking point because of the pandemic. In Seattle, more than 2,300 businesses had left downtown since the beginning of 2020. A group of fed up small-business owners in Santa Monica, Calif., had hung a banner on the city’s promenade that read: “Santa Monica Is NOT safe. Crime … Depravity … Outdoor mental asylum.” And in Phoenix, where the number of people living on the street had more than tripled since 2016, businesses had begun hiring private security firms to guard their property and lawyers to file a lawsuit against the city for failing to manage “a great humanitarian crisis.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/phoenix-businesses-homelessness.html
From the Times this morning.
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