Absurd ‘Hunger Games’ conspiracy theory Aussies are falling for
It’s getting out of hand. Scores of Aussies are getting very angry about a plan to make getting a coffee easier which is, apparently, a “Stalinist-style” plot.
OPINION
Most people would welcome a coffee shop opening within an easy stroll of their home.
But to some Australians, such an utterly uncontroversial measure is merely the beginning a “Stalinist-style, closed city” plot to lock people in their neighbourhoods, never to be allowed out.
Be warned because, apparently, accessible flat whites are all part of an evil Orwellian plan.
Welcome to 2023’s dumbest conspiracy theory.
Spread by the manipulative, consumed by the gullible and making no sense at all.
We’ve had 5G, the “great reset” and sovereign citizens. Now “15 minute cities,” also known as “20 minute neighbourhoods,” are in the conspiracy theory firing line.
Even British MPs have swallowed this conspiracy claptrap with the Conservatives’ Nick Fletcher calling 15 minute cities an “international socialist concept” that will cost people their “personal freedom”.
We’re all doomed, it seems
But the mundane reality is 15 minute cities is merely the new brand for an old idea: having most of the everyday essentials near to home. Shops, schools, nice places to eat and drink.
Indeed for many, getting a coffee, some milk, taking the kids to school and going to a park just involves a short walk. That’s a 15 minute city.
If you want to travel further afield of course you can – you just aren’t forced to for the necessities.
The concept is making a comeback because somewhere along the line, new suburbs lost this ideal.
The outer environs of Australian cities, like many around the world, are peppered with large suburbs, much of which are almost entirely given over to homes.
Sure, there might be a Woolies and a Coffee Club in some small faceless plaza. But even getting to this modest collection of retail outlets for most involves a drive.
The idea is to make these ‘burbs more buzzy by mixing residential, retail and business. And lessen the amount of time we’re all stuck in jams.
The Victorian Government says “20-minute neighbourhoods is all about ‘living locally’ and enabling people to meet most of their daily needs within a 20-minute return walk from home”.
Sydney’s Greater Cities Commission wants “great jobs (to be) 30 minutes by public transport from great homes,” and “our daily needs met within a 15 minute walk,” leading to “vibrant local centres and neighbourhoods”.
Charles’ 15 minute city
King Charles was onto 15 minute cities before the name was even dreamt up. In the early 1990s, he championed the building of a new suburb on the edge of Dorchester in southern England.
Poundbury is less cul-de-sacs and car parks and more bikes and bistros.
It has a town centre, called – slightly cloyingly – Queen Mother Square, around which shops and services are located. A cute little pub is never more than an amble away. It feels like a town of old.
But what Poundbury doesn’t do is lock people in the suburb and refuse to let them out without permission.
And yet bizarrely this is what some believe 15 minute cities are really about.
In January, staff at Yarra Ranges Council, on the fringes of Melbourne, called the police after a meeting was overrun by angry people subsumed by the theory.
One woman at the meeting told the Yarra Star Mail that residents were already being locked in their homes overseas where 15 minute cities were in place. No, they’re not.
“You’ll only be allowed within 20 minutes of your home,” she said. “It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a real thing.”
No, it is 100 per cent a conspiracy.
Recently, a motorist in nearby Narre Warren uploaded a video to Twitter claiming a road widening scheme was actually the building of a new “Checkpoint Charlie” with U-turn bays so you can turn back before you get a fine for leaving your “20 minute district”.
All utter nonsense. It’s a busy road that needed fixing.
City where the misinformation began
Much of the frothing over 15 minute cities seem to stem from one city and some confusion over a traffic calming scheme.
Earlier this year, 2000 protesters descended on the usually benign English university city of Oxford. One placard read “Say no to 15 min prison cities,” protesters claimed the concept was about “tyrannical control” and was a real life “Hunger Games”.
Oxford is compact enough that for most locals what they need is already within walking distance. But the city council wants more services, particularly on the isolated public housing estates on the edge of the city.
Separately, Oxfordshire County Council has proposed installing number plate readers to discourage private car travel on six congested streets in the historic city centre and inner suburbs.
Fewer cars should mean faster buses, safer bike journeys and less pollution, council says.
There will be no actual physical impediment to any car, bike or person moving in and around the CBD, but a fine of around $60 will be levied if people drive past one of the readers during daytime hours. Locals will be able to drive within and out of Oxford all the time for free by avoiding one of the six targeted roads. And even if they do pass a reader, they can do so 100 times annually before they’re charged.
Not all motorists love this idea – it may make some city journeys longer – but there’s nothing new or extraordinary about it. They’re essentially toll roads.
However, some have married Oxford’s traffic scheme to the 15 minute city concept, added in a healthy dollop of conspiracy theory bunkum – and hey presto – it’s one big evil plan to track people and lock them down in Hunger Games-esque zones.
‘Fearmongering’
The person often credited with dreaming up 15 minute cities is urbanism academic Carlos Moreno.
Talking to website Politico, he said the wailing showed “the levels of insanity we’ve reached in this world”.
“This kind of fearmongering is, to me, something very fascist.”
He added that the people fearful of 15 minute cities were “were terribly gullible, in line with flat-earthers”.
Harsh maybe. But it is the case that the Covid lockdowns angered, and likely semi-traumatised, many people. There are some who believe that governments are itching to do the same again, pandemic or no pandemic. Despite, in democracies like Australia, there being no actual proof of this.
Yet that fear has led a few to truly believe that an urban planning ideal, that you should able to wander down the road to get some milk, is a sign of authoritarian rule.
Walkable suburbs aren’t an evil plot. The conspiracy theory about them is absurd though.
Now excuse me as I go and grab a coffee. I’ll be back in 15.
Originally published as Absurd ‘Hunger Games’ conspiracy theory Aussies are falling for
