New towns? Pedestrianised urban areas with walkways and underpasses? High rise apartments with shared green spaces? Large soulless shopping centres? Flat roofed pubs? Promised public transport that never appears? Bin there. Dun that. It failed due to naive planning, poor design, shoddy construction, parsimoniousness and utter contempt for the working class. Let's not go there again. It doesn't work.
That's not actually what's proposed and the cities don't have to be small for the principal to be applied. In fact, the three cities held up as examples of how the 15-minute city has best been implemented, are Paris, Barcelona and Copenhagen.
The difference now is people work from home (no idea what work but that's another thread) and can get all their wants and needs delivered to their door. You can voluntarily be a prisoner in you own home.
A concept that would ensure all necessary amenities are within a 15min walk/bike ride for all residents,
My father used to work for the Council Housing Department. He said that the people who deigned the housing estates should have been forced to live in them.
Sounds horrendous. Much rather sit in a car on a ring road for an hour a day, but at least not be a prisoner.
Trouble is, the big supermarkets are doing everything they can to put the nearby convenience store out of business so you have to drive to the out of town "mall" to shop.
The concept of 15 minute cities is one those things that gets talked about as a conspiracy theory way more than it actually ever gets suggested as something to implement. It's just a vague urban planning concept, which is probably too expensive and idealistic to actually achieve in the UK any time soon with the way our society and economy work, but conspiracy theory folk have latched onto the phrase like they do with these things from time to time, and it has become a way bigger talking point in their circles than it has ever been in wider society. It gets talked about as something "the government" are pushing even though in reality nobody with any power is pushing it and the government we actually have are politically the total opposite of this kind of thinking.
Horrifying though it is, I think you're actually serious. If you lived in a neighbourhood where everything you needed was within 15 minutes walk, how would you be a prisoner?
In an ideal world it could be nice but in reality it's going to be a struggle. All the corner shops and convenience shops have gone, but there's no need for them when Amazon can deliver every thing you need to your door. Entertainment is supplied to you in the comfort of your own sofa by the likes of Netflix and sky, no need go go out into the big bad world and potentially bump into other people.
Giving up hope of a better future because of a shoddy past. That's the British way. God bless our backwards islands slowly crumbling into the sea.
it's not practical to have everything you need within 15 minutes I like to go to Ikea - even just for the meatballs you will never get an Ikea within 15 minutes other shops wont have the range of goods that Ikea has we have a Sainsbury's and M&S close but we dont fancy carrying everything home. it's much better to go with our car.
