Why We Can’t Build Better Cities (ft.Not Just Bikes)

Twitter: @PhilosophyTube

Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, BlueSky: @theabigailthorn

MUSIC:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Esther Addley, “‘This is political expediency’: how the Tories turned on 15-minute cities,” in The Guardian
Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion
Bernadette Atuahene, “Predatory Cities,” in California Law Review
Bernadette Atuahene, “The Scandal of the Predatory City,” in The Washington Post
David Banks, The City Authentic
Adam Barnett, Michaele Herrmann, and Christopher Deane, “Revealed: the Science Denial Network Behind Oxford’s ‘Climate Lockdown’ Backlash,” in DeSmog
BBC News, ‘How 15 Minutes Cities Became a Lockdown Conspiracy’
Judith Butler, Who’s Afraid of Gender?
Alice Capelle, “The Anti 15 Minute City Conspiracy is Ridiculous”
Alice Capelle, “The manosphere meets the climate movement”
Lisa Chamberlain, “The Surprising Stickiness of the “15 Minute City”,” in World Economic Forum
Steven Conn, The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is (And Isn’t)
Samuel R. Delaney, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
Gareth Fearn et al., “Planning For the Public: Why Labour Should Support A Public Planning System”
Hannah Fry, “A ‘failure to launch’: Why young people are having less sex,” in Los Angeles Times
Edward Glaeser, “The 15-minute city is a dead end - cities must be places of opportunity for everyone”
David Harvey, “The Art of Rent”
David Harvey, “The Political Economy of Public Spaces”
David Harvey, “The Right to the City”
Tiffany Hsu, “He Wanted to Unclog Cities. Now He’s ‘Public Enemy No. 1.’,” in The New York Times
Frank Laundry, “The USA Will Never Build Walkable Cities”
David Lawler, “A World of Boomtowns,” in Axios
Eisha Maharasingham-Shah and Pierre Vaux, “‘Climate Lockdown’ and the Culture Wars: How COVID-19 Sparked A New Narrative Against Climate Action,” in Institute for Strategic Dialogue
Michael Naas, “Comme si, comme ca” in Derrida From Now On
NotJustBikes, Designing Urban Places that Don’t Suck (A Sense of Place)
NotJustBikes, How Suburban Development Makes American Cities Poorer
NotJustBikes, Suburbia is Subsidized: Here’s the Math
NotJustBikes, The Great Places Erased by Suburbia (the Third Place)
Oh the Urbanity! “15-Minute City Conspiracies Have It Backwards”
Feargus O’Sullivan, “Where the ‘15-Minute City’ Falls Short,” in Bloomberg
Feargus O’Sullivan and Daniel Zuidijk, “The 15 Minute City Freakout is A Case Study in Conspiracy Paranoia,” in Bloomberg
QAnon Anonymous, “Attending the 15 Minute Cities Oxford Protest with Annie Kelly”
Elliot Sang, “Nowhere To Go: the Loss of the Third Place”
Chris Stanford, “The 15-Minute City: Where Urban Planning Meets Conspiracy Theories,” in The New York Times
Darin Tenev, “La Déconstruction en enfant: the Concept of Phantasm in the Work of Derrida”
Trashfuture, “Cell Block IPA”
Trashfuture, Honk if You’re Honu ft. Dr Gareth Fearn
Joy White, Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City
Kim Willsher, “Paris Mayor Unveils ‘15-minute city’ plan in re-election campaign,” in The Guardian

#philosophy #education

[PhilosophyTube]

Literally premiering this video in between rehearsals for the movie I'm shooting hahaha what is my life

[NotJustBikes]

Thank you so much for bringing me along on your urbanist adventure, Abi! I'm glad I could get you through the suburbs.

I really like how you covered the 15 minute cities conspiracy theory.

When this first appeared in Oxford, I researched it quite deeply, and I was really disappointed to find that it had literally nothing to do with urban planning; it was formed entirely out of climate change denialism from the start.

In the end, I decided not to make a video about it, because my channel is not about climate change denialism, and I felt that covering the topic at all would just give legitimacy to the false idea that it has anything to do with city or transportation planning. It doesn't.

Your philosophical analysis of the broader mechanisms behind these beliefs did the topic much more justice than I would be capable of doing anyway.

[OdinsSage]

Love how people are like "walkable cities take away your freedom" of course equating car ownership to freedom, meanwhile im like "my guy... no one said you couldnt keep your car. It just gives more people FREEDOM OF CHOICE in their mode of transportation."

[Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

As someone who went legally blind and near fully blind in 2016, i wish you had added one thing about how car dependency effectively makes anyone who cannot drive disabled. I live in north Texas about half an hour outside dallas and my former home was in a city that was part of a 13 city wide paratransit network (well, I joined around the same time they were adding in a paratransit service that basically just outsourced to lyft but either way) and that paratransit network allowed me to go anywhere within it, no questions asked, for three dollars per trip, all I had to do was call at least 2 hours in advance and give an id number. Despite what people say about cars, i have never felt more free or received more freedom from a government program than i did from that service.

My family decided to move out to a smaller town that is about a full hour outside dallas and got rid of it's public transportation system because (actual quote) "not enough people were using it". I have never felt more like I've been under house arrest. My grocery bill alone would be double if my mom didn't take me grocery shopping. My vision is at this point probably ok to legally drive but it still feels extremely unsafe. I am disabled, in effect, because of my city's refusal to fund paratransit.

Just so it is clear that I am not alone here, tbe ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is cited as the reason why my old city established the paratransit service in the first place. It is literally created because a lack of transportation is effectively recognized as a disability. A 15 minute city would be literally life changing for me in a way that i cannot put into words.

[daraghegan]

Abby's Grindr Profile Names:
Serving Country 5:25
Exposed Brick 16:12
Mental Trap 47:50

[SachaRommane]

I don't think I ever considered how priviledged I was to grow up in a 15 minute town. I walked and biked to primary and secondary school, walked to the supermarket, doctors, literally everything I could ever need. I was a 5 minute walk away from the train station (and bus station) which had a high speed rail to London and Birmingham. I could travel almost anywhere I wanted to without a car. Now living in America, the suburbs have hit me like a ten tonne truck, I've never felt so displaced.

[mrswhiddleberry]

"Is the countryside cleaner?"
well i vividly remember my aunt telling us to stay away from the nearby creek bc it was full of dead cows again. the rural fantasy some ppl have is wild to me tbh

[DianaAmericaRivero]

Believing that poverty and homelessness are moral failings allows people to continue engaging in the exploitative practices that cause things like poverty and homelessness.

[AegixDrakan]

"You and I are not immune to phantasms" gave me chills, and made me go "oh yeah...I remember more than once realizing I was holding an irrational belief and needing unspool a lot of it... It wasn't fun". It'll likely happen again someday.

The part that scares me is, how does one rescue someone from a phantasm, when they under no circumstance want to be rescued, and in fact think you're the one who's in one...? :s

[MrDragon]

I live in a 15 minute city. I'm no more than 10 minutes walk away from 3 convenience stories, a liquor store, two cafes, a gym, a park, two nature reserves for walking, a pharmacy, a medical centre, a dentist, an optometrist and a physio. There are two supermarkets, multiple restaurants, a library and a school within 15 minutes bike ride.

Can confirm it fucking rules.

[carlostorres]

Re: Rural misconceptions

I remember reading a book called “The Fifth Risk” wherein the author dropped the line, “The more rural the American, the more dependent that American is on the federal government to maintain their way of life.”

[WildDragon]

"How do you educate people who refuse to learn?" Dang Abigail out here threatening me with the best time of my life

[MorganEdgy]

Those people who say that "facts don't care about your feelings" end up talking less about facts and more about their feelings.

[MrDragon]

As someone from Sydney, I should probably explain. When it rains the eels like to climb out of the harbour and crawl around all over the place looking for new creeks/ponds/flooded drainage ditches to inhabit. "My pantaloons are full of eels" is just our way of saying it's been raining a lot.

[Snapdragon]

If I had a nickel for every time affordable housing wasn’t affordable I still couldn’t afford affordable housing.

[Max_Ivanov_Pro]

Growing up in rural America, I can confirm it's not the fantasy people imagine. Ambulance 45 minutes away, groceries half an hour drive. It's tough.

[ancientromerefocused]

I took a geography class in the U.S. I thought I was going to be bored, but the teacher taught how location affected music trends. The entire class was him covering regions in the U.S. and how location influenced the music of the regions. It was great.

[hypno__..zzzZZz]

I grew up in the rural United States, when I was 19 and living above someone’s garage in a mountain suburb/golf course my car broke down. I started commuting on my skateboard and the amount of harassment I got from drivers was Insane, not to mention the commute into the nearest (tourist) town was thirty minutes downhill and an hour uphill when it had been five minutes via car. The amount of times I got kicked out of a parking lot that was empty (and that I paid county taxes for) because I was “causing trouble” for practicing tricks and playing music from a quiet speaker nearby were aggravating and often (this was 2021-22 btw). Rural suburban areas suck so much when you’re poor and the people’s hostility toward you does not help in the slightest.

[SincerelyFromStephen]

I’m from western Pennsylvania and there’s a place called Cranberry Township, and my dad always tells me that just 20ish years ago, it was all woods and untouched nature. Now it’s highways and strip malls with sprawling low density housing that has destroyed all of the untouched nature. And it keeps expanding and eating up more of the woods

[SLAUGHTERAMA]

I currently live in rural TN. With no car or bicycle I need to use public transit, which in my town means calling the local branch of Human Resources to schedule a pick up time and a pick up time to return home.

Last week I needed to go to the DMV to get a state license for my job. That meant waking up early, waiting for them to arrive, getting in the bus, doing my thing and then waiting TWO HOURS for them to cycle back and pick me up again to return home. Also it cost eight dollars.

It’s incredibly inconvenient and when I mention urban planning to people in my town, their response is invariably to ‘just get a car’, as if buying a car isn’t a pipe dream for someone who makes $11 an hour with student loans, rent and utilities to consider.