ICLEI (International
Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) is now Local Governments for
Sustainability. Environmental ‘Sustainability’ is the lynchpin of U.N. Agenda
21/2030 and ICLEI is the non-governmental organization (NGO) that promotes it
to local governments around the world.
ICLEI, an NGO headquartered
initially in Germany (now has 20 offices around the world, including New York),
sent activists to board meetings and presented regional plans and local plans
with new designs for communities, without the input of the local communities
affected.
People were busy, so they
thought other community members voted for the mixed-use development plans to fight
the imaginary global warming and therefore it had to be good. Who would not
want green spaces, bike lanes, and endless parks?
NGOs vilified the developed
way of life, fossil fuels, use of cars, and our mobility. But the goal turned out
to be a lot more than just the greening of the planet, reducing pollution, and undependable
green energy, it was about total control of every facet of human activity, the carbon
footprint taxation, and the CO2 capture. The climate change industry was born
when the global warming narrative proved to be just a scam.
U.N. and its affiliated
green NGOs introduced five-minute walk or bike to work/school, commuting by
train, mixed-use high raise tiny apartments without parking garages and businesses
on the first floor to save the planet from global warming Armageddon.
Young and gentrified urban
neighborhoods welcomed the plan, bike lanes were introduced everywhere with
very few users. But the rest of America was not so sold on the idea because
Americans live in a vast country, and they love the freedom of the road.
The World Economic Forum’s
Great Reset pushed the idea of living in an expanded 15-minute neighborhood with
amenities to satisfy most urbanites. They won’t call it a climate lockdown, or
an expensive concentration of apartment dwellers who cannot leave their area
and intrude on other areas without a penalty. Those are details that are not
specifically addressed. If they did, few would love the idea.
The WEF is introducing it
as the “biggest urban ideas to emerge from the pandemic, the 15-minute city or
15-minute neighborhood,” imagined by the Colombian-French urbanist Carlos
Moreno, the son of a Colombian farmer, now a professor in France. Moreno was a
member of the left-wing M-19 movement when he fled Colombia at the age of 20. He
is an advisor to the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, a Spanish-French politician
who is a member of the Socialist Party.
In 2020 Moreno published two
articles “Urban life and proximity at the time of Covid-19” in Editions de l’Observatoire,
and “Droit de Cite, de la ville-monde a la ville du quart d’heure” (Freedom of
the city, from the world city to the city of the quarter of an hour), in Editions
de l’Observatoire.
Moreno’s idea is that
everything you need to live, i.e., shops, schools, work, doctor’s offices,
parks, libraries, restaurants, and everything else that makes life worth living
is located within “a short 15-minute walk or bike ride from home.” The neighborhood
zone becomes an ‘isochrone.’
What is an isochrone
(iso=same, chrone=time)? Isochrones are maps that
show the areas you can reach within a travel time limit. The only difference between
a forced camp and these zones is the fact that camps had tall walls and locked
gates, but the 15-minute neighborhood zone has electronic gates and cameras
that take your picture and fine you later.
Having lived under
communism for twenty years, I understand the limitations of city travel, of
village travel, and the limited travel radius within and without the city or
village that we were allowed by the government and by our own facility to
travel, given the limited modes of transportation at our disposal, walking,
bike, train, or buses vis-à-vis our limited means to buy ticket prices or
monthly subsidized passes. Permission had to be sought to move from place to
place if a person stayed more than a week in a relative’s home. And nobody
could move from any village to the nearest city without government permission.
One must parcel the
15-minute city into small spaces. Who needs so much space? Who needs a car and
parking spaces? You can’t find what you need in the 15-minute neighborhood? Too
bad, you can only leave your zone so many times a year without having to pay a
fine. There will be e-gates that will monitor your cars if you leave and there
will be facial recognition software taking your picture as you drive away to
see your sister who happens to live in the next parceled zone, both controlled
by e-gates.
Fifteen-minute cities or
neighborhoods to save the planet from climate change Armageddon? It is a
climate lockdown and the excuse is CO2, the gas of plant life. Ask Katie Hopkins.
The city of Oxford, she
said, will be divided into six parts. “You will only have the freedom to operate
in the part that you live in.” If you want to go out of your zone, you will
have to go out on an approved route on the outside of the city to re-enter another
section of the city.” You will not be allowed to cross other zones. If you do,
electronic gates and facial recognition will know that you have crossed an
unauthorized zone. You can apply for permission to visit another zone, but you
will only be allowed to do this 100 times per year. The Oxford Council passed this
monstrosity, and it will be implemented within two years. The fine for going
over the allowed visits on your pass is £100, $122.43. https://youtu.be/wkZDcVFIxRI?si=tGdddjvcYgQL5EfM
The half-baked idea of
15-minute cities was sold because cars pollute, you must hunt for a parking
space, CO2 is bad for the planet even though it is the gas of plant life and without
it, we can’t grow much food nor get oxygen from CO2-absorbing trees that
produce oxygen.
Melbourne already jumped
on the wagon with 800-meter radius communities.
Portland’s Climate Action
Plan “calls for more vibrant neighborhood in which 90% of the resident can walk
or bike to fulfill their daily needs.”
People already know what a
mess Portland is in, yet they are proposing to spend $750 million on a climate
action plan.
Paris, with its mayor Anne
Hidalgo and her advisor Carlos Moreno, has been pushing the idea since 2020 –
promote active mobility instead of cars. Car speed is 30 km/hr., cars are
banned along the Seine one Sunday each month, and bike lanes will be installed on
every street by 2024.
What a kumbaya these 15-minutes
of freedom cities/neighborhoods will be! Mixed-used developments, no parking,
no cars, residences (notice how they don’t call them apartments or
homes), schools, shops, doctors, restaurants stand side by side in “diverse
neighborhoods.” The new model for the larger city has “devolved into small,
repeating parts.”
But America is a “suburban
nation” and WEF recognizes that the concept is not a good fit. Perhaps
Manhattan or Brooklyn, parts of Boston and Cambridge, but the rest of America
can only have the 15-minute city by car.
The
15-minute city meets human needs but leaves desires wanting | World Economic
Forum (weforum.org)
What about the non-affluent
neighborhoods where theft and crime are rampant, where businesses are closing shops
and leaving? Where do they fit in the new grand scheme of reengineering
humanity?
What about small towns spread
out and villages? How are they going to parcel them out? And who is policing
the comings and goings of residents and administering fines? And how is every ‘climate
lockdown zone’ going to acquire doctors, hospitals, clinics, cinemas, museums,
theaters, operas, universities, schools?
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