What are the dystopian 15 minute cities that conspiracy theorists are freaking out about?
Why 15-minute cities are a dystopia disguised as common sense urban design.
As cities and neighborhoods are redrawn, modernized, and sometimes created, a new concept has materialized. 15-minute cities, also called smart cities, can be exactly what they sound like: everything you need within a 15-minute walk. One purpose is to reduce the need for cars and to increase community and small local businesses. Another more sinister possibility is the containment, surveillance, and control of its citizens. 15-minute cities--in this sense--first began during the COVID pandemic in China. Chinese citizens must be biometrically scanned and have a valid vaccine passport--in the form of a QR code--to leave or buy things within their 15-minute zone. The rise in digital ID technology and an effort for the UN-funded World Economic Forum's (WEF) "New World Order" via the "Great Reset" leave the future of 15-minute cities in the air. While they could benefit society, they could also end society as we know it. There is no problem with making areas more walkable, with less pollution, more community, and with closer--and better--services. The problem is that the infrastructure being put in place could lead to a dystopian future where the next lockdown is permanent. It is critical to separate the headlines regarding urban design, and possible authoritarian technology; 15-minute cities do not have to be--and aren't always are--dystopian, but they can become it. Even if you "don't do anything wrong" and "have nothing to hide," you assume that your government does--and always will--agree with and want the best for you.
15-minute cities are being proposed and planned all across the United States and the rest of the world. The US's first 15-minute city is called "Culdesac'' and is located in Tempe, Arizona. Culdesac is car free, residents are allowed to own a car as long as it's parked off site. Residents are only allowed to rent. Without a collection of 15-minute cities in close proximity or as required living spaces, it is hard to get an accurate idea of how these cities will be managed in America. However, 15-minute city concepts in England and other Western countries show early signs of surveillance and containment possibilities.
Some neighborhood parks in Australia have implemented facial recognition and can track wifi devices--connected or not--inside, recording a list of everyone who enters and exits. The 15-minute neighborhood projects in Oxfordshire have divided residents into six different zones. Implementing "traffic filter systems” that use license plate scanners to fine residents for driving on certain roads, unless they purchase a 100 day permit-limited to one per person a year; meaning that residents can only leave their zones 100 days a year without incurring penalties. The Oxford Student says that "under these new filters, residents will be able to drive freely around their own neighborhoods but will be fined up to £70 for driving into other neighborhoods through the filters." London has been using facial recognition cameras since 2020 and has garnered serious backlash from organizations such as the Big Brother Watch. At the same time, bills in the United States have been proposed to mandate kill switches into cars, while the EU has required Driver Monitoring Systems starting in 2026.
The 15-minute cities in China show us how this structure can allow fascist powers to control the liberties we take for granted. The "neighborhoods" are lined with barbed wire fences requiring facial scans and vaccine passports (QR code) to pass. The neighborhoods are littered with checkpoints and guard towers. Some aren't even cities in a traditional sense, but rather a 20 thousand plus person apartment building with "everything" someone would need. City streets are lined with cameras capable of facial recognition. Cameras deduct social credit score points every time they catch someone jaywalking or speeding. These are the 15-minute cities being feared across the internet are not a more walkable or sustainable neighborhood. Technological advancements have made this possible and have started a global push for digital ID.
Digital ID (eID) is a collection of biometric-- face, iris, fingerprints, ext.--and personal data, centrally stored by the government(s). An eID would be global and could be used instead of a physical ID. In order to more easily utilize the dystopian technology being installed in 15-minute cities, eIDs will be necessary. Now that cameras can recognize you--via eID--they can track everything you do. According to Dutch European Parliament Member Rob Roos, Commissioner Thierry Brenton said, "now that we have a digital wallet we have to put something in it," suggesting the new digital Euro--the European Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)--as the likely "something". An eID will be attached to the local government's CBDC, bringing us ever closer to a social credit score system. Many fear the tethering of "carbon credit scores" to the eID wallet; if you exceed your carbon limit you will not be able to produce more. Simultaneously the WEF has been talking about "personal carbon allowance programs" via "My Carbon". Increasing AI capabilities create a scenario where it is not unlikely that everything a person does will be logged by AI. You'd be correct if you said this sounds straight out of 1984. That is the threat of the WEF's Great Reset.
Now imagine a future with a social credit score; every time you drive when you aren't allowed to, your score goes down, because the government controls your Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) you can't use "your money" to buy anything. Your every movement is tracked and you aren't allowed to leave without a "permit" or vaccine--or an equivalent forced action--passport. While the dangers of 15-minute cities may seem theoretical and require additional changes to the base structure of government and the 15-minute city concept itself, when looking at examples in China, and what is being said by the WEF the dangers become real.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) was founded in 1971 by Swiss banker Klaus Schwab. In 2019, the UN signed a strategic partnership with the WEF to help promote Agenda 2030. Agenda 2030 has been adopted by 193 countries; on the surface, it seems like a good plan; it seems to want to reduce emissions, promote equality, build sustainable cities, and move the human race forward. However, when reading deeper, the plan becomes more sinister. When figuring out what a term like "sustainable development" means, it's easy to jump to things like recycling, renewable energy, or better and more available food; no, this is about moving people into concentrated cities; they need all systems to be balanced and centralized to implement the "new world order" that they want so bad. The agenda has three pillars: economy, ecology, and equity. Again, these terms do not mean what most think; when thinking of equity, most assume it means to have social equality, bringing the impoverished up and giving them equal access to services that they lack. Rather, the WEF wants to go the other way, to impoverish the masses into a world where "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy." Ultimately, Schwab and the WEF globalists want to control everything; they want to erode borders using "agents of change" to further "achievements of many Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" and eventually govern the world under one government.
During the COVID pandemic, the WEF began talking about a "Great Reset." Schwab and others wanted to come out of the pandemic in a vastly different world. The main goal is a move to "stakeholder capitalism." Stakeholder capitalism differs from shareholder capitalism--our current system--by requiring companies to make decisions based on social, environmental, and governance issues. Companies will be scored with an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) score to show commitment to environmental and social justice. The stakeholders are anyone involved with the company at all, employees, consumers, investors, those who live nearby etc. Stakeholder capitalism does more than promote values relating to those represented in ESG scores. Stakeholder capitalism could increase the influence of corporations over our societies by increasing their involvement in social and environmental issues, concentrate power on a few corporations, erode individual rights and freedoms by imposing their beliefs upon the stakeholders, erosion individual rights in exchange for "collective" rights, slow economic growth via misallocation of resources, or allow companies to leverage their influence to advance their own interests at the expense of others. Stakeholder capitalism wants to move to a model where private ownership is public--governmentally--controlled. Stakeholder capitalism is fascism in disguise, it wants to dictate what you spend your money on, decisions are made at the top based on what they decide is best for the world. The government gets more control over the market and ensures that companies are meeting their goals. In a system purley focused on ESG scores and other initiatives, small businesses won't survive. Corporations with more expendable resources will be able to survive the increasing costs needed to equally address the interests of shareholders, they can also allocate much more to the same problems giving them a higher score. Coupled with an increase in market regulation, it will kill small businesses. Making the corporate monopoly bigger. Remember that they want you to own nothing and be happy.
Klaus Schwab and others among the WEF look at China as a model. Schwab has said that China is a "role model for many countries." Further saying that "the Chinese model is certainly a very attractive model for some countries.” Schwab and the WEF want to move the rest of the world into a China like system under Stakeholder Capitalism. The 2020 pandemic was a trial for governments, and citizens across the world. The globalists at the WEF are trying to roll this plan out in a way that does not inspire resistance, but rather encourages acceptance. The fears of 15-minute cities have nothing to do with the design of cities themselves, but rather the restrictions and oppressive infrastructure being put in place all around us. A 15-minute city does not become a problem until you can’t leave. What may seem like a great, and obvious idea–to make services and stores closer to people–is really a wolf in sheep's clothing; being used to oppress us in the near future. Until people are able to separate shops and services being 15 minutes away, and only being allowed to go 15 minutes away. The dystopian version attaches your “currency” to your digital ID, which is tracked and monitored 24/7. The 15-minute cities that the “right-wing conspiracy theorists'' are freaking out about are not everything you could need being within walking distance. Instead they are a fundamental change to the way society operates, a massive reduction in freedom and the end of privacy; not everything you could need being within walking distance.