Why has the ‘15-minute city’ taken off in Paris but become a controversial idea in the UK?
Why has the ‘15-minute city’ taken off in Paris but become a controversial idea in the UK?
Urbanist Carlos Moreno on how his concept is transforming French life and what is hindering change across the Channel
It's because the British like to imagine everything is a conspiracy. The irony is when our freedom is actually constricted most of these people say nothing.
35Or complain about the people being scapegoated as an excuse to restrict those freedoms.
7
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The French are stereotyped for their love of protest, so the lack of uproar around the redesign of their capital is in stark contrast to the frenzied response in Oxford.
Carlos Moreno, a jovial and owlish professor at the Sorbonne University, came up with the phrase “15-minute cities” and has been quietly getting on setting them up in Paris.
He has a bemused air when asked about how his modest proposal for a more enjoyable urban life has caused such vile conspiracy theories, and takes it all in good humour despite the death threats and other abuse he has received.
He also wants to bring schools and children’s areas closer to work and home, so caregivers can more easily travel around and participate in society.
Stroll down the banks of the Seine today in the new protected parks and outdoor bars, and it is hard to imagine that it was recently a traffic-choked highway.
Moreno says this is happening with or without him; after the Covid crisis many offices are selling up their large spaces in the financial district and moving closer to residential areas.
The original article contains 1,323 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 86%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
7The original article includes some very poetic quotes from Moreno, I recommend reading it for that alone.
6
Because France clearly doesn't have their own versions of Lee Anderson, and Jonathan Gullis. Two Individuals who should have been drowned at birth.
They managed to spin 15-minute cities into an incoherent conspiracy theory that utter melts subscribed to.
5Big mistake here : Calling change in Paris change in France. Paris metropolitan area is basically its own small world within France, things that happened in Paris usually don't apply, or at least don't apply the same, in France.
Living outside of Paris I can tell you we see that there is fast change there and it seems to be for the better in term of city livability. Still, this is still not much spread out into parisian suburbs which always had the worst live conditions.
In other big city, change toward '15 minutes' cities are happening much slower if at all and in towns and rural France the concept non existant.3