I suspect part of the reason #15MinuteCities took off in Paris but have spawned conspiracy theories in the UK is that #AnneHidalgo invested in the benefits alongside the traffic calming measures, whereas UK councils had no budget to invest in the positives and also no budget for proper public consolations explaining what was going to happen so people felt it had just been dropped on them without warning.
"We don’t have the conspiracy mongers because it is impossible to say in Paris that Moreno wants to create a new Paris lockdown..
“We have created a lot of new districts and they have been popular. The opposition in Paris is not the same that you have in the UK, because nobody can say in Paris we want to create an open jail – this is evident that it is not the case. We have beautiful new green spaces and areas to live”
Carlos Moreno
Conspiracy theories begin and are fanned by corrupt politicians in the UK, supported by much of what passes as ‘the press'. It is not only the reporting of ‘facts' that harms, it is the way that when these claims are repeated, the media fails to call out the story teller (and yes BBC/C4/ITV I am talking about you).
The sooner the #Tories are consigned to the dustbin of history the better...And whilst I'm having a moan, for the love of God, please bring in #ProportionalRepresentation in the UK. Maybe then our #politicians would work harder to actually do what's right for this country & the #environment.
I didn’t need feel I needed more evidence that #Sunak is an extremist who uses conspiracy theories to further his #FossilFuel promoting agenda….but oh look, here’s just that.
#15MinuteCities are about making life easier, cleaner and just pleasant…there is no agenda to limit where people can travel to.
The #UK government has no evidence to back up its attack line that Labour and Lib Dem councils are using traffic calming measures to “police people’s lives” or planning “inappropriate blanket use” of 20mph speed limits, documents have revealed.
The debunked claims were contained in the Plan for Drivers, launched last month amid a row over the scrapping of the northern leg of the HS2 railway project.
For instance, today NPR has a story about an #UrbanPlanning trend called #15minuteCities —designing cities so that you #access amenities in a short walk, bike ride or trip on public transport. Now there's a #ConspiracyTheory saying that this is a way to restrict people's movement or to trap people in an open-air prison.
Podcaster #JoeRogan said on his show last month, “You'll essentially be contained unless you get permission to leave. That's the idea they're starting to roll out in #Europe.”
@Nonilex I desperately need to blog about this specific conspiracy theory and how it not only misses serious critiques of #15MinuteCities but also tends to be held by people who support the aspects those serious critiques criticize. It's a good reminder of how conspiracy theories like this are always bullshit. Even if there's a real problem with their object of criticism, they ignore it and make things up, and never cooperate with the more serious critics.
Moreno says they're “an urban policy for living with more healthy proximity to local jobs, local commerce, green areas, sports activities, cultural activities. This is a way to liberate our economy, liberating our ecology with more bikeability, more walkability. It is not, not, not a traffic plan.
#Oxford Council are responsible too, as they have badly communicated their plan to manage traffic.
"Never before has a mundane theory of urbanism been such a lightning rod for outrage. It’s like suggesting that public parks are part of a sinister plant-worshipping plot to demolish our homes and replace them with grass."
So apparently the protest movement that thinks #15minuteCities are a communist plot to lock people into neighbourhoods was astroturfed by the fossil fuels industry because of the threat it posed to bottom lines. 🤔