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Comment by aklju90709 | Hacker News Reader

He's referring to this article by the same author: https://www.wired.com/story/15-minute-cities-conspiracy-clim...

There are very valid criticisms of the "15 minute city" including the widespread surveillance required to enforce certain proposed traffic restrictions (by personally identifying drivers and only allowing access to some areas at certain times). Councils and national governments in the UK have long abused data gathering to the detriment of its citizens. Unfortunately the Guardian and its ilk have derided critics of these plans as far right extremists and conspiracy theories.

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Traffic restrictions are not part of the "15 minute city" initiatives. I think they are often confused because of Oxford's traffic filter scheme. As the article you link says, tying walkable city initiatives to one particular city's traffic scheme is indeed a conspiracy theory.

If you have valid criticisms of the traffic filter trial in Oxford then that's fair enough, although I imagine Oxonians won't be particularly interested in hearing it unless you're a local resident.

> including the widespread surveillance required to enforce certain proposed traffic restrictions

But 15-minutes cities aren't about traffic restrictions. I might be wrong but this seems like people are conflating low traffic zones (which can involve the kind of automated system to limit traffic that you seem to refer to) with 15 minutes cities, which is an idea in urban planning to decentralize services (the "15 minutes" is intended as "you can reach anything you need every day with 15 minutes of walk", not "you won't be allowed to travel more than 15 minutes")

The 15-minute neighbourhoods proposal (and similar proposals) are centered around ensuring that every resident has all the essentials (shops, healthcare, parks) within a 15-minute walk of their home.

It has absolutely nothing to do with traffic filtering or traffic restrictions, and this is simply misinformation (sadly, misinformation perpetuated by the political party with a majority in the United Kingdom). Nobody is going to be confined to a distance-based-radius of their home, and anyone stupid enough to believe this is a damning indictment of the UK's education system.

To reiterate the other comments - 15 minute cities are about _adding_ things so _more is accessible_ within a 15 minute travel time, such as stores, schools, public transit etc. Nothing to do with restrictions. Check this podcast out for a thorough debunking of all the misinformation about 15 minute cities, including the "Oxford trial" which has absolutely nothing to do with 15 minute cities - https://youtu.be/VxQBCIvwIho?si=tTnQS78TyUpp4gv8

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