Fifteen minutes but not one minute more
"Do you think I want to be watched every second of the day?"
It would be kind of cool, if you’re a city dweller, to take a leisurely stroll down to the corner grocery store and pick up a couple of things for dinner; or to walk to your dentist appointment; or to stumble back home from your favorite watering hole; or to bike to work; or whatever you need or want to be just a fifteen minute walk at the furthest. You’ll know your neighbors and the kids down the street and your doctor, who lives next door, and everything is just peachy. It’s a bubble.
And that’s just it: you live in a bubble, all the conveniences laid out in a pretty row, but what about that 16th minute? Sorry, you can’t cross over that white line that demarcates one fifteen-minute city from the next. What if you want to visit grandma who lives five fifteen-minute cities away? You’ll have to get permission for that. Want to take a Sunday drive out into the country? Verboten without special permission. You can’t even drive your EV car around the block unless you gain a permit. You will own nothing and you’ll be happy.
Somewhere, in the back of your mind you hear Orwell say, I told you so.
Of course, the usual suspect for implementing this scheme is the World Economic Forum (WEF). However, there doesn’t seem to be a direct link between the WEF and this highly invasive concept—WEFers are more interested in smart cities though the inevitable climate lockdowns within these smart cities will utilize this 15-minute city concept (as London did during their brutal covid lockdown). There are a multitude of articles appearing on the WEF website that argue the advantages of the 15-minute city; most are very supportive but lack the conviction that Herr Doktor Klaus Schwab usually promotes.
Support for the concept comes from the Covid-19 pandemic paranoia of urban planners, especially those from overcrowded European and North American cities. The concept was reportedly developed in 2016 by Sorbonne university professor Carlos Moreno (learn more about Moreno and his vision). It caught the ear of Paris mayoral candidate Anne Hidalgo and she won based upon promotion of many of the concept’s tenets. She has declared goals for Paris and plans to have the entire city accessible by bicycles within the next few years.
Ultimately, smart cities and/or 15-minute cities are all met with that sparkle-eyed, Christmas morning glee by the planners of our incarceration under the guise of the Climate Change! conspiracy theory. Bugs are still on the menu, digital currencies are still going to be in our electronic wallet, and a total ban of freedom of movement will continue to be the goals of these misanthropes.
Build it and they will come
There are a multitude of the Über-rich lining up to build these smart cities. Bill Gates wants to use some of the vast acreage he has purchased in the U.S. to build a city in Arizona—selling beach-front property to future residents, no doubt. Then there is tech-billionaire Marc Lore, a partner with and contributor to the WEF, who wants to build Telosa.
The City of Telosa will be designed on the 15-minute city concept. It will start with wicked-looking skyscrapers as the central nervous system with grids of 15-minute cities built around the feudal-lord’s castle.
Both Lore’s and Gates’ cities will be built on cheap desert land in the American West—Gates on the outskirts of Phoenix with Lore still trying to find his desert oasis where water is scarce and sand is plentiful.
Then there’s the Saudi’s efforts to create a green utopia called NOEM, again on cheap desert land. This is the same kingdom that would be as backward as Afghanistan if it weren't for that evil black substance that sloshes around below their feet—the cause of Climate Change!, ironically.
His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Chairman of the NEOM Company Board of Directors will lead the efforts to build the luxury city concept that looks like a playground for the elite. Where the former middle-class servants will be housed is yet-to-be-determined.
Oxford isn’t just for smart people anymore
The Oxfordshire City Council, run by socialist utopians, has voted to create six 15-minute districts within Oxford in order to reduce vehicle congestion. The goal is to establish essential services within these six districts so they can ban cars and citizen movement. Oxford’s citizens aren’t buying into the sham.
(If you don’t like clicking on links within articles, the above video is definitely one I would recommend to do so anyway. This 12-year-old kid lays out, in under three minutes, the dystopia heading our way that counters Greta “How dare you!” Thunberg.)
The below YouTube video contains a good discussion/exposé on what Oxford is attempting.
In the Grand Scheme of things…
When I was in college I spent a summer in a study-abroad program in Europe. It was the first time, as an adult (if you count a 21-year-old goofy kid an adult) in which I could move around a big city (London and Paris) with a comprehensive mass transit system. I fell in love with that ability and after returning home to Houston—with a rudimentary mass transit system at best—I decided I was going to move to one of these urban paradises as soon as I could. Not much later I visited New York for the first time and wanted to try that out for a while. Life intervened and I never got that opportunity.
At this point in my life, my wife and I could make the move but we no longer have that desire. We’re still in Houston with an eye on the rural lifestyle once we’re ready. The big cities in the U.S. seem to be in a death spiral. I have no idea if these cities can recover nor do I have a lot of faith in the voters’ ability to make the necessary changes to bring their cities back from the brink. They voted for the mess they got themselves into. Instead of staying and fighting, many are throwing up their hands, in frustration and fear, and escaping to Red States. I don’t blame them one bit though I pray they learned their lesson when it comes time to vote.
Urban planning for these despots originated in Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030, the United Nations goals set out for “sustainability” and “equity” and other buzzwords that always make my stomach sour when heard.
It is my belief—one that a growing number of sensible people share—that there are forces outside of our control that are trying to dictate how the rest of us will live. Fifteen-minute cities is one of a multitude of schemes developed to herd the sheep to more desirable pens where the “flock” can be better tended. I don’t plan on being herded anywhere.
And maybe that’s the plan: make the cities such hellholes that those that are left will give up their freedoms in order to buy a bit of security which, as we know, will deliver neither.
Conspiracy theories like Climate Change! are being used as the means to some diabolical end. These elites believe themselves to be übergods and that we are but hinderances to their desire for a pristine playground. They believe that population control is necessary to deliver that playground. Depopulation is the means and mass urbanization of the leftover “useless eaters” is the end. If it comes down to 15-minute cities as an end result then we, as a civilization, as a free nation, will be beaten.