Urbanism’s Newest Controversy - Why the “15-minute city” has sparked protests

City Journal ^ | Spring, 2023 | Steven Malanga

[flaglady47]

P.S.: Google “Pullman State Historic Site” that pulls up its History as a Utopian planned workers community south of Chicago. Lots of pics and turn of the century (1880) history info at site. Most interesting (see my post on Pullman District above).

[pierrem15]

It's also worth noting that the post-WW2 period was an anomaly in that the U.S. was the only major industrial power in the world to emerge from the war with its industrial assets and infrastructure unscathed.

People keep repeating that as if it were some kind of universal explanation.

The fact is that by WWI the US was already the world's largest industrial power and in the 1920s American workers were already enjoying the fruits of mass production and high wages, something interrupted by the Great Depression and WWII. The comparative US position externally improved after WWII, and that comparative position declined over time. But by the late sixties American workers had reached an unparalleled standard of living.

The combination of going off the gold standard (which opened the flood gates to unlimited unfair imports) and regulatory and tax strangulation via the EPA and other agencies annihilated American heavy industry. For example, American steel was pilloried as old fashioned even as the billions needed for capital improvement were instead spent on meeting EPA requirements, burdens foreign competitors didn't need to meet. Shipbuilding collapsed as most seaborne trade converted to imports using foreign-built ships and container cargo. American car companies were pilloried for not building smaller, fuel efficient compact cars when the high gas prices due to stupid government policies (the oil embargoes are what you get switching from paying exporters in gold to paying in fiat dollars) are what created the market conditions for such vehicles. And then in the nineties we opened up the US market to the utterly rapacious mercantilism of China, losing even more industry.

The fiat money importers and financial speculators got the gold mine. Everyone else got the shaft.

[spacewarp]

It removes choices in employer, choices in association with other people, and elimination of your ability to retain your relationships with family. The state becomes your family. Your friends are decided for you by your government. Your employer, your shopping choices, your ability to start your own small or even large business.

[T.B. Yoits]

There are too many industries that cannot fit or function within a city.

Mining, logging, agriculture, trucking, manufacturing, computer server farms, shipbuilding, port operations, vehicle repair, commercial aviation, etc. are only a few major examples.

The bigger question is what can fit and function in a city? They're hostile to families, too expensive for higher level education, and too expensive for professional services.

Outside of entertainment, food, and health services, what else works? Government/ Law? The Grievance Industry? Urban Reservations?

[AZJeep]

Yes, of course. Just let me know where will you be then.

[x]

You’re supposed to be able to get food in the 15 minute city, so I don’t think the Ghetto quite qualified.

[x]

It won’t work. If you want variety, or low prices, or anything big, you either have to do without, or drive to a superstore, or have a van deliver it. Like so many of history’s utopian plans, it offers less than we already have now. But maybe that’s the whole point.

[eartick]

Don’t think so my FRiend. They will die trying to force me off