15-Minute Cities for Leftists

[Music] foreign [Music] city is an urban planning concept the idea is that grocery stores markets restaurants bars coffee shops retail entertainment Recreation health care and most importantly a place to work are all within 15 minutes of your home think of them as coverage areas places that if you found yourself living anywhere inside of that area you could access everything you need within a 15-minute walk it might take two hours or more to cross the entire 15-minute City coverage areas so don't think of them as simply 15 minutes wide there are a lot of places in America that are reminiscent of 15-minute cities but the idea of most people living near where they work is more of an aspiration than a reality this is not a New Concept prior to advancements in public transit and eventually the rise of the automobile human settlements were inherently 15-minute cities but the grouping of employment decentralization and neighborhood planning as the 50-minute city is a recent development this term is most closely associated with Carlos Moreno a professor and researcher at the sorbonne in Paris Moreno believes that proximity to Necessities Community participation and decision making Community solidarity and connection and sustainable Urban living are all key elements of a 15-minute City real quick I'm going to be using the term decentralized employment throughout this video this is a concept where jobs are dispersed throughout a city rather than concentrated in downtown Suburban clusters or office Parks the 50-minute city at least on paper promises to decentralize employment and empower the people to me these two things form the foundation of a movement to eliminate our exploitative economic system do the politicians and planners implementing 15-minute City Concepts feel the same almost certainly not honestly most people probably don't associate the 15-minute city with the decentralization of employment and the elevation of communities most people probably think more of the relationship between the 15-minute City and the car the goal of All 50-minute City strategies are to reduce the need for car trips I do want to stress that this is Paramount we do need to reduce the need for car travel and and we also need to do it at a revolutionary rate to save the planet however as with all things related to climate collapse we'll either complete this change on our own terms or be required to do so by existential Force because neoliberal capitalism can do nothing beneficial with any expediency 50-minute City Concepts as a solution to climate change can feel disingenuous even as the concept grows in popularity criticism of the 50-minute city is growing as well with many seeing these improvements as a gentrification scheme a method of increasing the power of billionaires or a plot to confine you into an open-air prison if you want to balk at the use of the term or the capitalist using it I won't stop you but I do think the core concept those four key elements that I shared with you are essential to a leftist urban planning approach 50-minute cities promise to reduce how much we drive in cars or sit on transit in order to save our time our mental health and our environment they promise to protect communities and give them the ability to grow without displacement and intentional or not they promise to upend our economic system through the decentralization of employment you shouldn't just take somebody's word for it that their Vision the 15-minute City will do any of that but as Concepts they're all something to strive for I think the 50-minute city is useful because it's a way to Envision a better future without becoming utopian today I want to have a little fun I want to look at the ridiculous ways the 50-minute cities being used by the far right how it's being co-opted by centrists to reinforce our economic system and then I want to finish by sharing with you a leftist approach to the 15-minute City the far right and the 15-minute City basically you can only move or travel by vehicle further than 15 minutes away from your house 100 times per year to divide the city into six parts and you will only have the freedom to operate in the part that you live okay so I'm in the uh Walmart in London and I'm thinking all this are here but they're also putting in interestingly three or four U-turn opportunities I guess that's because you'll get a warning you're about to leave your 20-minute City your District your Zone last chance to turn back at the beginning of the pandemic conspiracy theorists were living large vaccines lockdown microchips 5G Q Anon do you remember these well they didn't just disappear white supremacists Libertarians and full-time Cooks coalesced around the 15-minute City the conspiracy likely stems from a paper published by the fossil fuel Lobby in response to the 15-minute City and how the concept is linked to the great reset in 2020 the world economic Forum started a campaign called the Great reset the world economic forum is like a Lobby for capitalism and they really fumbled this one I think people would prefer their capitalists did their scheming in some sort of underground bunker but let's take a look at their video foreign we have an incredible opportunity to create entirely new sustainable Industries investing in nature as the true engine of our economy the current Global crisis has disrupted every aspect of Our Lives burtis has also presented us with an extraordinary opportunity a chance to reset and accelerate efforts to improve the state of our world you know that quote the Earth is not dying it's being killed and those who are killing it have names and addresses they're all in the same room during this video in order to secure our future and to prosper we need to evolve our economic model putting people and planets at the heart of global value creation if there is one critical lesson we have to learn from this crisis we need to put nature at the heart of how we operate we are on the verge of catalytic breakthroughs that will alter our view of what is possible and profitable right so the world economic Forum believes just to be clear the way that they can solve the horrific destruction their members have caused to the planet is by figuring out how to make green capitalism profitable it's gross I'm a little just a little sympathetic to the conspiracy theorists who view the wef as some evil string pulling cabal but what these conspiracy people fail to realize is that now this is going to happen capitalists are no more likely to solve the climate crisis than they are to create a series of fully locked down walkable neighborhoods this conference was just a fun little trip to Switzerland for them and this video released during the peak of an anti-racist anti-police and anti-capitalist movement in 2020 was a way for capitals to tell us hey we're working to fix it please don't write it since the great reset campaign the wef has occasionally posted a fun little drawing or an article about 15-minute cities and that has been fueling the conspiracy of course now that the conspiracy is established more bigly figures are stepping in to make things a lot worse our objective will be a Quantum Leap in the American standard of living that's what will happen here are just a few of the ways we can do it we should hold a contest to Charter up to 10 new cities these Freedom cities will reopen the frontier reignite American imagination and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people all hard-working families a new shot at home ownership and in fact the American dream other people um that's me and whatever you think he's about to say you're wrong you're not ready for this another big opportunity is in transportation dozens of major companies in the United States and China are racing to develop vertical takeoff and Landing vehicles for families and individuals I want to ensure that America not China leads this revolution in air Mobility introducing Chevrolet's new lineup of vertical takeoff and Landing vehicles for families I'm already a Mobility planner but what if I became an air Mobility planner that's how we solve the housing crisis flying cars we will also have a major initiative on lowering the cost of living with a special focus on lowering the cost of a new car and lowering the cost to build a single family home and they will be beautiful homes and I will ask Congress to support baby bonuses for young parents to help launch a new baby boom I'm stopping here because it gets so much worse after this point but let's pivot to a more depressing character I just want to say that I'm really trying with this YouTube thing and I'd like more people to see my videos and I've decided that the only way to do that is to the 15-minute cities are put forward as a solution to the problem of undue distance to travel and so the idea is that wouldn't it be lovely if we had walkable neighborhoods where everything you needed was within easy reach and you know I have some sympathy for that I think he's going to be fair about this right but I looked into the C40 websites the C40 is the Consortium of municipalities that have signed on to the 50-minute city plan the C40 is a collection of over 100 mayors that are attempting to implement sustainable practices in their cities my video today is not about them so I don't want to get into how effective or Equitable their methods are but yeah the C40 adopted 15-minute cities as one potential strategy however not all of c40s solutions could be considered 15-minute City Concepts what the C40 does has no influence over what a 15 minute city is anyway I wonder what Dr Peterson thinks of 15-minute city is and I read in their own documentation their goals are to reduce color assumption to 2500 calories a day by by force essentially to ensure that the peasant class which is everybody but the elitists can't fly more than one time every three years to eliminate 90 percent of Private Car ownership so that people are forced to take unbelievably expensive in terms of time utilization and non-existent public transportation systems and to limit the amount of travel that people can do outside of their neighborhoods Jordan Peterson was mad about Oxford England a place where he probably does not drive they implemented a congestion pricing program basically drivers in Oxford are told if they pass between zones this is not a 15-minute City essential it's just a regular way to reduce congestion congestion pricing can be inequitable and a burden on low-income people but let's save that for another time everyone on the right is making a little comment about 15-minute cities this commentary usually reveals a Justified distaste of neoliberal austerity but also a hatred of anything that claims to be helpful to the environment some take it a bit further and claim that the 50-minute cities actually an attack on the moral order of a Christian world in the article the Catholic argument against 15-minute cities the author says that private property in this case owning a car is a fundamental principle of morality he also said that caring about Net Zero is a shibboleth yes he said it a shibboleth a shibboleth if you somehow don't know what a shiblet means it's a custom principle or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important NetZero a shibboleth finally kookiest of all he says that governments have proven unable to effectively manage Transit because when the Taliban had control of the government in the early 2000s they fired IEDs at the British army and how could you possibly think that a government could provide Transit after that please don't read it it's awful also the pope lives in a 15-minute City anyway let's talk about some freaking liberals liberals in the 15-minute City in researching how different cities Implement 15-minute Concepts you find similar statements about the need for public engagement methods for creating car free or car light areas and means to encourage land use changes however in practice 50-minute cities might seem like a carrot for developers while being a stick for residents a city government under neoliberal capitalism has very few tools to radically change where amenities are located and who gets to enjoy them what we're seeing with 15-minute City implementation are zoning changes car restrictions and low-level beautification projects it's possible that making these investments in particular neighborhoods a city government could initiate the gentrification process those who benefit the most from 50-minute cities are those who work and live in the same place people who work from home are the most likely candidates to seek out a 15-minute type City not only because they have the freedom to live wherever they want but also because they have the financial means to live in amenities-rich neighborhoods people who work from home tend to have much higher paying jobs without tenant protections and no public housing there's no guarantee that lower income residents will be able to remain in their neighborhoods as they convert to 15-minute cities there's nothing a city can do without acquiring more land to actually guarantee a 15-minute city a city can't say specifically we need a grocery store here we need a coffee shop here we need Offices here that's only something they can allow they would still need the private Market to decide that those locations are profitable Carlos Moreno has admitted that the 15-minute City fall short here he says there are aspects of this for which we do not have a solution because it's a matter that's up to private Enterprise to change he notes the need for revolutionary change and how we control land but he says that it's not up to him to hang the black or red or whatever colored flag from the rooftop but what if you could start from the ground up what if you did have full control over where things were placed what if a capitalist billionaire in his infinite benevolence decided to build a 15-minute City one that would be guaranteed to provide everything that people needed and desired let's talk about the city of telosa Mark Laura is a former Walmart executive and current bill millionaire he believes that he's come up with the solution to climate change and the housing shortage and neoliberal capitalism by building his own 15-minute City for 5 million people let's roll it we are going to be the most open the most fair and the most inclusive city in the world if you really want to go after your moonshot which I would consider the city to be you have to start with a big bold Vision you need to raise the required Capital you need to surround yourself with the very best people in the world and if you get those three things right you can achieve incredible magical things are you seeing what I this is the desert I shouldn't have to tell you that building a city in the middle of the desert is unsustainable the desert will always be more sustainable as a desert then if we put 5 million people on it we're taking a stab at what we call equitism here equitism he is creating his own economic system you are witnessing the shift from neo-liberal capitalism to neoliberal equitism I'm not really sure how he thinks he can just install a new government in the middle of the desert it's not like telosa is a city state or something what if you can pay the same taxes that you pay today but get the best social services of any country in the world that's equitas it's a city-state it's an independent city state in the middle of the desert um let's at least look at his team and see if they're trying to make this more sustainable than it appears we will create a 15-minute City that promotes active and sustainable modes of transportation mixed-use districts that ensure all daily needs are within a five minute walk from your house no matter where we build tulosa we will always have two aspects in mind the environment and the people Sonora Mojave Chihuahua I'm not certain which desert they're going to but none of these can support 5 million new people sustainably snow new water supply how are they going to get enough water the same thing with water generating enough water to supply the future of telosa and potentially even other communities through efficiency Recycling and Technology um actually tilos of the desert city will have more water than it needs we'll have so much water that we can just give it away we'll do this by recycling no questions [Music] thank you talosa will have vertical takeoff and Landing vehicles for families [Music] I shouldn't have to tell anyone here that we cannot allow billionaires to create their own city-states in the desert but I can say with certainty that this will not happen there is not even a remote possibility that this will happen this is a distraction billionaires have no understanding of how to solve the climate crisis because they only do what's profitable the term 50-minute city is being rapidly co-opted by developers often to support their vision of greenwash brawl or the gentrification of inner city neighborhoods with sustainability and community control as core tenants of the 15-minute City it's hard for me to categorize these developer-led projects as such 50-minute cities require decentralization and decentralization switches the balance of power from developers to communities a neighborhood entirely planned and controlled by a developer landlord is not a 50-minute city no matter how many coffee shops they have so now that we've talked about how the right and centrists both twist the 15-minute City to serve their goals let's talk about what a 15-minute City could look like if implemented by leftists the 15-minute City leftist version Carlos Moreno asked the question why is the place I live here and work so far away most trips by car or Transit are commuting to work commuting to work is expensive it wastes significant amount of time and it worsens the environment when you think into the future do you see yourself commuting well we still commute after we've abolished this exploitative economic system I hope not I'll commutes are bastards walking and cycling can expose commuters to Peaks and cortisol levels vehicle emissions and presently death long car and Transit commutes are linked to cholesterol increases high blood sugar depression anxiety and poor physical fitness and long car commutes and heavy congestion are linked to increases in nighttime domestic violence congestion leads to over 100 billion dollars of wasted gas every year and those idling cars are releasing deadly Planet heating emissions into the world we cannot continue like this we absolutely cannot dream of a world where everyone is still zooming around in their own car electric or otherwise if we build a movement that can dismantle or harmful economic system we cannot imitate it thereafter imagining a world without a car is hard it's hard for me too and I don't even drive I think assuming that we can't figure out how to get around and see the world and our distant loved ones without a car is defeatist so we can either organize together with demands that will benefit us and the planet or we can do nothing and let the market decide who wins and who loses in climate catastrophe reducing the time we commute is necessary Moreno describes this concept as the right to work in your home if the primary reason for driving became unnecessary for most people then we could reduce car dependency this isn't going to happen overnight and if a government attempted to do so a lot of people will be left stranded I can't give you a timeline it all depends but during the lockdown leftists in Barcelona were inspired by the lack of car traffic on city streets and the rapid Improvement of air quality resulting from those reduced car trips they gathered and wrote a letter that demanded that all commodification of the city must be replaced with the centrality of life in all its forms without delay the Barcelona Collective noted that their city had become unlivable due to Rising income inequality and Rising rents their solution is a grouping of Demands into four elements that would make Barcelona a 15-minute City those elements are the reorganization of Mobility the renaturalization of the city decommodification of Housing and d-growth their proposal has a lot of great ideas I could read them all to you but you should read it for yourself instead I'm going to give you an american-oriented approach that synthesizes their ideas with the realities of American life let's keep their four-part outline of Demands and go through each one a lot of these will appear to be expensive and yeah we'll have to spend money on it reorganization of Mobility this is a demand that the city invests in alternatives to the car we cannot expect people to change their driving habits if they don't have an alternative reorganizing Mobility looks like this providing effective Transit that covers all of the city is electrified Is frequent is reliable which means it comes at expected times and is free cost is a barrier to transit for many people and I don't support funding the police to enforce a two dollar transit fare we can reorganize Mobility by placing humans first with a Mobility Program that redesigns streets and intersections to support the safe movement of people makes all designs accessible for people with limited Mobility inverts the sidewalk which means that on residential streets the bulk of the street is for non-car travel Community Gathering and play areas for children the curb is converted for Transit and deliveries and emergencies and assistance for people with limited Mobility provide subsidies for bicycle purchases expansa city-owned Bike Share system we can reorganize Mobility by making crucial connections to the suburbs with frequent reliable buses that feed into a regional rail network and we can replace the interstate system with affordable and frequent High-Speed Rail the re-naturalization of the city next is the Naturalization and re-naturalization of the city creating a more sustainable and Equitable City would require an increase in natural space here's some ideas on how to do that providing access to Green spaces for all by converting large parking lots into Open Spaces removing Lanes from wide roads for Greenways converting Urban voids into public space we can re-naturalize the City by reconnecting humans to food production by establishing a city-wide network of Community Gardens and food forests that can provide fresh produce to City dwellers we can reduce light pollution we can increase animal and vegetal biodiversity by naturalizing water bodies and daylighting Creeks by increasing the tree canopy to cool our homes and attract birds designing maintenance-free wild areas and Parks decommodification of housing this entire channel is pretty much dedicated to the decommodification of housing so obviously I'm going to talk about it today Spain has much better protections and public housing programs than we do so we need to catch up to them here are some ideas on how to make cities affordable for everyone repealing the fair cloth Amendment and implementing a massive public housing construction program enforcing a rent reduction and capping the rate of increase through rent control converting short-term tourist rentals like Airbnb back into housing providing age in place programs to ensure the elderly can remain in their communities check out my other videos for details on some of these Concepts degrove I've tried to avoid this term for a while not because I don't believe in it but because it's controversial there's a good chance you might not really know what degrowth means and that's completely okay um just don't publish an article about it until you read on it the Barcelona examples are very Barcelona specific but many do apply to American cities we can use d-growth as a means of decentralizing employment and eliminating the types of businesses that exploit our cities for profit we can do this by eliminating investments in City Brands City branding is a form of competition that seeks to attract outside funding and capital into a city this money is used to further the brand of the city rather than improving the non-torous conditions of the city we can eliminate cities as Brands by reducing the tourism economy limiting airport expansion and encouraging airport reduction and restricting the locations of Arenas and stadiums we can further degrow the City by encouraging social and local economies cooperatives and small shops the decentralization of employment conclusion the Barcelona Collective that wrote that letter didn't use the term 15-minute City I don't know what they think of Moreno's work or the utility of the term I like it personally I think it helps contain a big idea the final form of a 15-minute city is one where everybody has the right to work near their homes a city where you know your neighbors and want to talk to them a city where you have the time and energy for leisure a city where people can build the culture of a neighborhood and make it uniquely theirs without the constant threat of displacement in a successful 15-minute City there's really no driver for displacement because every place would be equally great to live in if we throw out the term 50-minute City and let the far right incentrist Define it then I guess you could say that I'm describing a convivial Society convivial is a term that has its roots in the Latin word for feast basically it means to be happy in the company of others this is a foundational Concept in communism and anarchism I really like this quote from the late Anthropologist David Graber to explain it in this case the experience of shared reality is not only the moral basis of society but also its most fundamental source of pleasure solitary Pleasures will always exist no doubt but for most human beings even now the most pleasurable activities almost all usually involve sharing something music Food liquor drugs gossip drama bed there's thus a certain communism of the senses at the root of most things we consider fun I love the word convivial it's probably in my top five favorite words I want a convivial City I want a convivial Society we can have this and we can make this happen without pushing people from their Urban neighborhoods or deeper into the suburbs I think that leftists should adopt a vision of the future that answers the question what do we do after rent control what do we do after we repeal Fair cloth as unsettling and Dreadful as the impending climate catastrophe is we have to remain optimistic and remember that we have power together thanks for listening if you like this video please consider sharing and subscribing and I'll see you later thank you

Channel: Radical Planning

Views: 83,075

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Id: HUHVD_4PkjU

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Fri May 05 2023