Everyone who questions 15-minute cities is not a conspiracy theorist

Healthy skepticism about urban planning shouldn’t be dismissed as paranoia.

If my life in Manhattan was confined to a 15-minute walk, I would have been forced to shop at this supermarket, which a Google user summed up perfectly: “I live right down the block from this abomination of a grocery store. Unless I absolutely need something in a pinch I avoid this store at all costs.”

Manhattan is one of the world’s most walkable cities. It isn’t a true 15-minute city, by design, but it naturally functions as one. I spent more than two decades living there, yet I would have been hard pressed to live my life within a 15-minute walk without making some serious compromises.

There was a D’Agostino grocery store across the street from my apartment, for example, but it was expensive and the product selection was dismal. So I chose to shop in other neighborhoods for better prices and selection. My doctor was more than a 15-minute walk away, as were most of the places where I worked. The restaurants near my apartment were fine, but most often I opted for small, hole-in-the-wall eateries that were in funkier parts of town where I could not afford to live.

On the surface, the 15-minute city concept is innocuous, even downright desirable. Who wouldn’t want to live in a place where work, school, quality healthcare, decent food, and leisure are all within a short walk or bike ride? Cities, in essence, have always been built around this kind of accessibility, by virtue of their density.

Yet my experience living in Manhattan suggests that human behavior doesn’t conform neatly to the vision of those who push 15-minute cities. During the pandemic, when New York City residents were wary of being in public spaces and no one wanted to use mass transit if they could at all avoid it. Guess what? Private car ownership soared. In Manhattan alone, the Department of Motor Vehicles reported that new car registrations rose 76%, and in Brooklyn registrations climbed 45% between August and October of 2020. Turns out, walkability is nice until the shit hits the fan.

A recent report on Deutsche Welle (DW), biasly entitled ‘Who’s Afraid of 15-Minute Cities?’, tried to suggest “conspiracy theorists” oppose 15-minute cities because ultimately, they don’t want to give up the option of car ownership.

In DW’s piece, Dan Luscher, a San Francisco native, environmentalist and urban planning enthusiast who promotes walkable cities, refutes this as an unfounded claim driven by misinformation.

“Cars play a valuable role. I own a car. I love cars,” Dan says. “And that's really what the 15-minute city is about. Not eliminating cars, but making sure that people have choices on how they can get around."

Yet, policies like the congestion pricing recently implemented in Manhattan suggest otherwise. According to Zero Hedge, New York’s new congestion toll is not just a traffic reduction measure but a beta test for the implementation of 15-minute city restrictions.

The scheme charges drivers $9 every time they enter the Central Business District below 60th Street in Manhattan. Governor Kathy Hochul says this is necessary to reduce traffic, lower carbon emissions, and raise revenue for mass transit. The World Economic Forum frequently pushes congestion pricing as a solution to make cities safer, healthier and more sustainable. But Zero Hedge argues — and we agree — the ulterior motive is to discourage car ownership and restrict travel under the guise of ‘sustainability.’

A recent piece in the Financial Times characterizes this kind of healthy skepticism as a right-wing attack on equity and urbanity.

“Elements of the political right see evidence of a sinister plot to corral people, strip them of their liberty and, most importantly, the use of their cars” the author, Edwin Heathcote, writes.

Heathcote’s op-ed acknowledges, almost in passing, that the backlash stems in part from real concerns over personal liberty — particularly following actual COVID lockdowns that restricted movement. But instead of engaging with the legitimate anxieties of those who feel their freedom is being threatened, the article frames the opposition as hysteria and part of a broader “culture war” against ‘progress.’

Are these fears really so irrational? My own experience suggests otherwise. After Manhattan, I moved to a rural seaside village in Nova Scotia, where nothing was walkable. There was no public transit, and access to essential services required a car. Over time, as it became more expensive for the government to maintain services in sparsely populated areas, things began shutting down, starting first with the local school. Soon the post office was no longer delivering to every house and even the emergency room that was a half-hour’s drive away would routinely shut down due to a lack of staffing. It felt as though policymakers wanted to push people into cities rather than support rural life.

People who choose to live in rural areas do so for their own reasons. They value space, self-sufficiency, and independence. They grow their own food, repair their own homes, and aren’t looking for a trendy coffee shop on every corner. Yet urban planners and media outlets advocating for 15-minute cities rarely acknowledge that not everyone wants this lifestyle. When people are told they are being selfish for wanting a car, when policies like congestion pricing and parking eliminations make driving more expensive, it’s not surprising they feel coerced rather than empowered.

The media’s failure to engage with these realities makes the backlash worse. The FT article asks whether the term “15-minute city” needs rebranding because it has become too politically charged. But maybe the real issue isn’t the name — it’s the top-down approach that disregards the concerns of those who don’t fit neatly into the urbanist vision.

The 15-minute city is not inherently a bad idea for those who choose to live that way. But imposing this model as a universal solution without acknowledging its trade-offs, and labeling its critics as ring-wing conspiracy theorists without promoting good faith debates simply fuels the very resistance the media seeks to dismiss.

Until that changes, expect the skepticism of 15-minute cities to persist.

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