What is a 15-Minute City?

What is a 15-Minute City?

Iain Davis

The 15-minute city (FMC) is an urban planning concept designed to meet the sustainability targets and indicators pursuant with Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11). The international construction of 15-minute cities is a global project that is being rolled out in the UK in cities like Oxford and Bath.

The local council’s FMC objective in Bath is to establish a “movement strategy” to engineer “how people move” and “how space is shared.” This will “shift” resident “away from decades of car dependency” and will instead compel them to prioritise “sustainable travel”—walking, cycling and public transport.

The overarching ambition in Bath is to achieve “climate goals.” The local authority is, like nearly every other UK local authority, on an SDG-driven “Journey to Net Zero.” This has led to the creation of four “traffic cells” in Bath. The clearly stated reason for the zoning is to enforce a “reductions in car use.”

Bath’s Journey to Net Zero is being implemented in pursuit of SDG 11.b:

By 2020, substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

The UN defines “inclusion” to mean the provision of “equitable access to opportunities and resources.” Therefore, the equitable access to resources—inclusion—in a 15-minute city maximises the “resource efficiency” of residents who must mitigate and adapt to UN climate policies.

The FMC project is Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) council’s contribution to the UN’s centralised and coordinated management of the distribution and allocation of all resources. Otherwise known as sustainable development or, more accurately, Technocracy.

In accordance with SDG 11.2, by 2030 people living in “human settlements” in BANES should have access to “sustainable transport.” By making car use more difficult and expensive, the plan is supposed to achieve SDG 11.6—“reduce the adverse per capita [individual] environmental impact of cities.”

The UK national move towards 15-minute cities is part of “strengthening national and regional development planning” under SDG 11.a. Thus the FMC, in compliance with SDG 11.3, is an attempt to achieve “sustainable human settlement planning and management.”

Planning initiatives like garden cities sought to enhance the draw of urban living—employment, education, health care, etc.—by improving living standards through better access to green spaces, affordable housing and greater opportunities for self sufficiency. The objective was to tackle the rampant squalor and often horrific health consequences of living and working in 19th and early 20th century UK towns and cities, thereby stimulating urban economic growth. For garden city developers, the primary social engineering tools were thoughtful planning and creative design.

The FMCs—variously referenced as complete communities, 20-minute cities and 20-minute neighbourhoods, etc.—utilise an entirely different approach. While the touted FMC offer is to provide residents with access to everything they need within a 15 minute walk or cycle ride from their home—chrono-urbanism—the use of surveillance technology and punitive restrictions to coerce and/or enforce compliance is the preferred social engineering tool.

For example, Oxford has six—rather than Bath’s four—traffic cells or “15-minute neighbourhoods” as local councilors like to call them. ANPR cameras will track Oxford residents who travel by car to ensure they comply with their allocated 100 day car travel allowance. Fines will automatically be levied if they drive outside of permitted times or exceed their 100 day annual limit. Residents living outside the approved zones will need to buy the necessary permits to travel by car, for a maximum 25 days per year, across and between Oxford’s restricted zones.

Ending Oxford residents’ freedom to roam, cutting entry by car for none-zone dwellers, and restricting residents’ movement within their assigned FMC is part of Oxford city council’s commitment to the UN’s global policy agenda. Its latest 2040 Net Zero Action Plan, like Bath’s, splits the city up into Zero Emission Zones (ZEZs) which can be used to control driver’s behaviour by “raising the charges to reflect higher requirements for vehicle efficiency.”

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