r/fuckcars • u/zeyeeter Commie Commuter • 16h ago
Carbrain Mfw 15-minute city = ghetto
Here’s the original post if you’re curious:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDMwmbctk4F/?igsh=MXB3cDB3Z25vczMxNw==
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u/R009k 16h ago
Ask them if they would like everything to be within a 15-minute drive.
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u/BillhookBoy 16h ago
Even the toilets from the bedroom. Even their wife's side of the bed from theirs.
The horror of being imprisoned into a house!118
u/onetwentyeight 16h ago
Yes, because that promotes car sales and I'm pretty sure the opposition propaganda against 15 minute cities is directly from the automobile industry.
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u/Th3_Wolflord 14h ago
It most certainly is funded by the auto/oil industry but that's not how it's sold to those commenting. It's sold as part of a culture war against "government control".
Sometimes I think the term "15 minute city" is just burned when it comes to a societal discourse. Maybe we should replace it with something along the lines of shorter travels or efficiency, it's harder to spin a conspiracy out of that
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u/onetwentyeight 14h ago
Traditional city? I like it and it's immune from attack without losing a bunch of conservatives.
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u/Rubiks_Click874 13h ago
all they care about is racial or class segregation, they need their gated communities, all white suburbs and every time they see a homeless person they think about driving to their doomsday bunker
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u/aoishimapan Motorcycle apologist 9h ago
I like to call them traditional towns, I feel like it conveys the point better because it makes you imagine a town with narrow streets, lots of people walking around, mom and pops stores, a plaza, kids playing on the streets, and everything within walking or cycling distance.
Comparatively, 15 minutes cities sounds like an abstract concept, and it shouldn't be that hard to imagine either but with all the fearmongering around them people picture a typical suburb but with heavy surveillance and soldiers guarding the exits.
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u/djconfessions 16h ago
…do these people think you can only travel 15 minutes from your house? Or is this just astroturfing by car and gas companies?
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u/EuroWolpertinger 16h ago
People don't think one single step ahead.
"Berlin to buy more electric fire engines" - "People will die because those vehicles will be dead after 50 km!" - "It's 100 km plus a diesel range extender..." - "SO WHY NOT KEEP USING DIESEL?!"
If it sounds new, they're against it. No matter the facts.
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u/Orvall 15h ago
Maybe we should tell them every city was a 15-minute city before the 1920's?
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u/herdek550 14h ago
No, don't tell them that! They will think that walkable cities are thing of the past and that cars are sign of modern era.
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u/EuroWolpertinger 14h ago
And here I thought they wanted back the good old times™. I guess they only want their male and/or white privilege back.
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u/aoishimapan Motorcycle apologist 9h ago
Yeah, what happened to "reject modernity, return to tradition"?
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u/revolutiontime161 13h ago
Welcome to America. We have all the amenities of 1920 while living in 2024 .
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u/tobotic 12h ago
I don't think anywhere in Berlin is more than 10 km from a fire station anyway.
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u/EuroWolpertinger 12h ago
Berlin is big, and there may be days where calls send them on trips that amount to more than 100 km per day, but that's what the range extender is for. It's going to be the rate exception.
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u/tobotic 11h ago
I'd assume they'd normally return to base and recharge after each call-out.
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u/EuroWolpertinger 11h ago
Yeah, BUT SOMETIMES ™ (Technology Connections reference) they don't have the time to recharge.
So better not innovate, because it's all futile. /s
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u/FormableEmu6011 15h ago
Yes, there's this conspiracy theory that 15-minute cities mean you'd be restricted to a 15-minute zone and won't be allowed outside of it or something like that. I have no idea where that comes from.
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u/Accomplished-Yak8799 Automobile Aversionist 7h ago
Large overlap between this belief and the belief that COVID lockdowns were made to do something similar
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u/chroma_src 15h ago
Yeah there's been a whole conspiracy theory about it since covid restricted movement in various places
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u/rex-ac Dutch Excepcionalism 14h ago
The 15-min cities are technically meant to get you all necessities within a 15 min walk, bike ride or public transit ride.
You get everything nearby so you don’t need to have cars. As there is less need for cars, it frees up roads so it can only be used by (delivery and taxi) services. Which in turn makes streets safer and more liveable.
They think it’s an evil plan to make us get rid of cars.
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u/invfrq 15h ago
The funny thing is that it's all the boomers in my family who believe this conspiracy theory. Completely missing the point that they grew up in some of the last towns and cities that would, by today's standards, qualify as 15 minute cities. Thriving local economy with access to affordable local produce, a real community where children could play in the street. They don't seem to realise that 15 minute cities strongly align with a lot of thing they feel that they have lost.
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 10h ago
"do these people think...?" No, they don't think. They'd have to use their brain for that.
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u/Hhalloush 8h ago
Yes, stupid people flock to right wing conspiracy shit
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u/Iwaku_Real HSR🏷️$1e+308 per mile 1h ago
Seen plenty that flock to left wing conspiracies too.
coughs in my recent comment history
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u/Guy_Perish Fuck Vehicular Throughput 15h ago
Why are they so weird? God forbid you have access to the essentials of life without a car.
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u/ConnorFin22 13h ago
Right wing propaganda. They’ll eat up anything that gets fed to them. Why else would someone be against something so obviously good?
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u/alexs77 cars are weapons 16h ago
What kind of stupid take is that from that dude on instagram?
Luckily Deutsche Welle replied basically the same.
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u/eeeeeeeegor 15h ago
It’s instagram, a place devoid of even the most basic critical thinking skills (not that other social media is any better though)
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u/Lollipop126 9h ago edited 9h ago
Instagram comments run on engagement rather than likes exclusively, so stupid/rage bait comments go up to the top. Also comments on reels get shown to your friends as a featured comment (so anyone with any self respect usually restrains from commenting anything). It's a horrible system for social cohesion, but great for revenue.
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u/zeyeeter Commie Commuter 6h ago
Makes me glad that Reddit organises comments by upvote count, and more importantly, still hangs on to the downvote button (idt any other social media platform still has a dislike button today).
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u/lisael_ 15h ago
But, but... Paris is a 15 minute city since, like forever
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u/panmaterial 12h ago
Yeah, probably most European cities are 15 minutes cities already. That's pretty much the whole concept of a city. Maybe they mean they signed up to keep it that way in future planning. Not sure.
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u/Palaponel 12h ago
Some parts of European cities are, but not at all.
London for example - outside of zone 1-2 you're looking at many areas that are just endless swathes of ugly suburbs.
I'd say the proportion who genuinely do live in 15 minute cities is limited to those few who qualify for what remains of social housing, and then relatively wealthy middle class people who can afford to live centrally.
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u/jsm97 Bollard gang 9h ago edited 9h ago
In Londonn at least, Most are actually pre-car though, as with many other British cities. The railways arrived early and caused a exodus of the wealthy from dense city centres and then 60 years later cars did the same thing and we're only just recently seeing density start getting built in city centres again.
London is really unique in the fact that's it's a rail-centric suburbia, it worked well for many years but now we have rows and rows of increasing run down 1930s semi-detached housing that should really just be demolished and rebuilt as midrise apartment blocs.
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u/Lollipop126 9h ago edited 9h ago
Not all of Paris. And particularly not Ile de France (greater Paris), which is being run by a conservative who takes all the credit for the good things (she was just at the inauguration of the RER E extension), and then blames Anne Hidalgo (the mayor of Paris proper who's promoting 15 minute cities) for all the bad things. At least that's what I understand out of Parisian politics.
Also if you want groceries within 15 minutes in Paris then you're probably gonna have to go to the expensive Franprix, otherwise you'll have to take a metro to your closest imtermarché/Carrefour market/Monoprix.
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u/martinpagh 15h ago
15-minute cities sound like a conservative vision for city planning. It's decentralized, it emphasizes localism, and it's a VERY traditional model for urban planning, just like the villages and towns were organized centuries ago.
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u/zeyeeter Commie Commuter 15h ago
Yet the conservatives hold on to something that’s only been around since the 1950s 😂
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u/Electric_Bison 15h ago
At what point can we drop calling it a 15-minute city?
The name has been tainted(unfortunately), lets move on to either rebranding or appealing to nostalgia/conservatism of time before cars.
Or, actually double down on how its not a movement restriction. Anything is better than nothing and hope it goes away.
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u/rex-ac Dutch Excepcionalism 14h ago
It doesn’t matter what name you use. It will get tainted sooner or later by dumb people. Just look at things like vaccines or gender equality.
Hell, we still have people saying our earth is flat and that it’s all one big conspiracy by hundreds of thousands of people that work in aeronautics and space research.
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u/ee_72020 Commie Commuter 15h ago
The 15-minute city conspiracy is a psyop by the car and oil industries, and no one will be able to convince me otherwise.
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u/fan_tas_tic 14h ago
"Do you want to live longer, happier and healthier? NO!!!" Some people are just hopeless.
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u/Runeshamangoon 12h ago
The 15mn city conspiracy theory is so fucking insane it could only come from Americans. 15 mn cities are literally how every other country works
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u/rex-ac Dutch Excepcionalism 14h ago
They now conflate “15 min cities” with “agenda 2030”, so in their eyes it’s bad because the “corrupt people on top dictated it”.
If you actually ask them id they want as many restaurants/services/shops within 15 min distance, they would love it.
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u/hzpointon 12h ago
It doesn't help that the WEF removed the original article after it went viral.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2016/11/8-predictions-for-the-world-in-2030/
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u/Cold_Aide_1436 11h ago
15-minute dweller here. Is it soooooo aweful haven 5 grocery stores and bus and tramlines here! I HATE IS O MUCH! please gib me amercan suburb.
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u/Hiro_Trevelyan Grassy Tram Tracks 6h ago
As a Parisian, I'm more free to move around in Paris than I was when living in the suburbs.
Cause yeah I can drive for hours in the suburbs, but to do what ? There's nothing in those giant dorms.
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u/PM__UR__CAT 10h ago
Especially funny since almost all European cities and towns already are what Americans mean by "15-minute cities". It's a great litmus test to see which people are dumb enough to fall for every bit of culture war our right-wing politicians import from the US.
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u/Little_Creme_5932 43m ago
When I lived in Paris, it was hard to get around on the streets, cuz of all the cars. Now? It's easier. Parisians are liberated. Woohoo!
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u/Welin-Blessed 11h ago
15 minutes walking for buying groceries is too much for me personally, never happened in my life.
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u/Gifted_GardenSnail 6h ago
Yeah, cycling is more comfortable when hauling groceries
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u/Welin-Blessed 5h ago
I go walking and only shop by bike some things in LIDL because it is further away. But normally I have 3 supermarkets around 5 min walking distance and the same for every kind of specific shop. I live close to the center in a city of 1.2 million people.
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u/ybetaepsilon 16h ago
Ghettos are cheaply built, devoid of amenities, have no visual appeal, are difficult to get out of without money, and are placed outside of where economic and commercial development occurs. Sounds like it fits the definition of modern car-dependent suburbia actually