by Nathan Allonby
This new 15 minute city policy rips up all previous planning methodology. This is a major upheaval. One wonders whether they have had time to go through all the necessary stages to change the policy in a legal way, that is, to observe all of the required steps, with consultation about each of the new planning assumptions, at different levels of the system, that appear to have been introduced.
Delay is the name of the game here, to interrupt the momentum of the process, to pause the machinery, just for long enough to give the opposition to get their act together.
Several key planning policies appear to have been reversed here – this has to be justified. Major business interests seem likely to lose a lot of money – a significant financial impact on major investments, worth many billions, and a financial impact of corresponding magnitude on millions of small people. They have invested in homes, factories, office buildings, shopping centres, etc. – and were encouraged to do so – on the basis of previous planning policy. Thus, changing policy carries huge responsibilities, including duties to consult, etc., which have to be justified. The processes to do this are quite time-consuming and one suspects these may have been side-stepped. If they have, this is where we can cry “foul” and call for a halt (or at least pause).
So, what are these assumptions?
A fundamental assumption is more transport, more movement of people, goods and services (eg on roads) produces economic growth. This is also part of the whole basis of globalisation, another fundamental policy. It is impossible to have globalisation without more and more transport.
The fundamental assumption is that on which capitalism is based – economies of scale – more transport enables supply-chains which enable businesses to grow, so there are the largest possible businesses with the greatest possible economies of scale. That is the main basis of the policy of mobility, building new transport connections, roads, etc..
In this, transport, development (land-use) and economic policy are all linked together.
The 15 Minute Cities policy says let’s restrict mobility. Thus, it rips up previous economic, housing and development policy. If you restrict mobility, then you have to come up with a credible new economic policy, which has to be thought-through from first principles.
They should be required to demonstrate the new economic policy, how that flows through into transport, development and housing policies. Each of those is successive planning stages, each of which should have consultations, etc..
For example, the government has been forcing local authorities to allow the construction of massive new housing estates, whole new suburbs, of 10-20,000 homes. These have been built on the assumption of mobility. Now, are they going to leave all those homes high and dry?
For many years, the government has been encouraging industry to relocate to out of town industrial estates – part of a planning policy of “zoning” or functional separation- are they now going to make it difficult for workers to get there?
There is a reason why car-use has been increasing, year on year – this was encouraged, as part of a policy of increasing mobility, to provide industry with access to a large pool of different skills. This was presented at a major public inquiry I attended, 20 years ago – the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority presented an economic case that (am not saying I agree with any of these assumptions)
Economic growth and employment could only be provided by inward investment, by large multinationals – attempts to provide economic growth via “organic growth”of small businesses had failed
Inward investment could only be attracted with the right conditions, which included access to skilled labour, which required a large pool of mobile labour, which could only be provided by car mobility
Mobility by public transport provided a much smaller pool of labour, restricting the directions and distances workers could travel (And this is from the body responsible for planning and providing public transport! No wonder public transport was in decline!)
Accordingly, development had been planned in a way that would encourage the maximum amount of workers to travel by car, even where it would have been easy to encourage a much greater number of workers to use public transport.
Once they have done this, we are stuck with this for the life of those buildings. For example, the design life of a new house / dwelling is 60 years. Many of these new homes are less than a decade old. Owners have decades left to pay on their mortgages. And supposing one was able to throw out all of the inhabitants, what would happen to acres of abandoned housing estates.
In general, the financialisation of the economy under globalisation has led to rising house-prices, leading workers to travel increasingly greater distances, to find affordable housing, with the poorest workers travelling the greatest distances (ie they have become the most marginalised, economically and geographically). Thus they become the ones to lose the most in a policy of abruptly reducing mobility – those who have the least lose the most.
Winston Churchill made a great quote – “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us”
These points illustrate why all policy changes, but particularly changes as profound as these are supposed to go through impact assessment and consultation – it’s a necessity, not merely a formality.
Fundamentally, this is why people are protesting – their lives are being upended, without any warning or justification.
Actions you can Take
At present, we simply have no information about the foundations of this policy and we should take steps to find out about this and the justifications for it.
I suspect the basis of it all will be the Net Zero Carbon Act 2019, one of the last acts of Theresa May’s government, which has created a climate emergency, and a drastically short timescale for decarbonising our economy – in my guts, I feel this has to be the legislative justification for short-circuiting and side-stepping all the normal steps of policy evolution, because it requires a compressed timescale for achieving (unachievable) goals.
What you can do is approach the planning authorities, local and national (in Scotland) to find the economic and development policies underlying the 15 Minute Cities proposals. They must have a name. Talk to the officers – be super-friendly, absolutely not aggressive or confrontational, and they are quite likely to be helpful. You just want to understand. It might be difficult for them – they might not know themselves, and it might take some work to find out for you.
You could also try an internet search (inevitably, it will come down to that, in the end, for some of it). You might also ask the library for help – they keep local government policy documents, and often have more time than government officers to show you.