tech n9ne songs on straight out the gate

If all of the services that you need are a short walk or cycle from your front door then you might find that some people move around the city less and metropolises become more segregated. Now, while some of this thinking borders on the bonkers, the way that these low-traffic, 15-minute zones are being created will diminish your “right” to drive a car.

There was much guffawing from his fellow MPs as he spoke but his view – one that has increasing traction – is that city planners are trying to curtail our personal freedoms by locking us into our neighbourhoods. This week, on Monocle 24’s The Briefing, I joined host Markus Hippi to talk about a story here in the UK involving a Conservative member of parliament, Nick Fletcher, who had said that the seemingly innocuous notion of the “15-minute city” would deprive people of their liberties and that it was an “international socialist concept”. But something strange is happening a shift that threatens to get ugly if civic leaders are not careful: good urbanism is getting a reputation as something a bit too left-wing and middle class for some people’s liking. Over the years we have looked at the value of green space, of creating neighbourhoods that are walkable and transport networks that move you around a metropolis with ease. How do you make a nice city to live in? It’s a simple question that has been central to Monocle since day one – it’s why we run an annual quality-of-life survey and why I get to host a weekly podcast called The Urbanist.

Tech n9ne songs on straight out the gate