[iron_albatross]

I’d argue that any sufficiently dense city is naturally a 15 minute city, and tens of millions of people (including myself) live in them. For example: in New York, Tokyo, London etc. one can feasibly access all the amenities they need within a “15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride”.

The key thing is that these cities developed this way organically. There is nothing stopping me leaving my 15 minute radius if I want to, and I regularly do.

[nephihaha]

The suburbs aren't in most major cities. The idea of being stuck in that small area is nightmare fuel... Like Melbourne, Victoria telling that residents could not travel more than a few KM/miles away four years ago.

[iron_albatross]

I get what you mean, it’s hard to retrofit/force this concept on low density, car dependent suburban sprawl.

But I’m not sure if I understand the conflation of 15 min cities and covid lockdowns? I don’t think any government would want its people to be permanently geofenced to 15 minute bubbles, this would absolutely kill commerce.

[nephihaha]

It's not a conflation at all, it's all coming from the same mentality. The rulers trying to work out what to do with the ruled. In the Middle Ages, peasants were limited in how far they could travel, what they could eat and which fuel they could use. There are people on top who would like to see that return, and we see signs of that returning.

Lockdown killed off a lot of commerce, and we're still paying it off. Whether it was necessary or unnecessary, it was mismanaged. Automation will take almost any job if it keeps proceeding this way, and so that means the masses will become of little use to the ruling class economically. There are several ways to address that problem. One is restricting their interaction and movement. Another would be to create artificial work just to keep them quiet. As for the other possibilities, they are pretty dark.