The '15-minute city' conspiracy spreads to Canada | CBC Radio - Action News
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The '15-minute city' conspiracy spreads to Canada

A seemingly benign idea to make daily needs in a city accessible within a 15-minute journey has been picked up by conspiracy theorists and twisted into a dystopian nightmare. Whats behind it?
A man wearing blue pants and a blue fleece pull-over rides a red and black bike through downtown Vancouver. The cyclist is in clear focus while the city landscape is blurred in the background.
A cyclist cruises through downtown Vancouver in April 2021. In the past three years, demand for bikes has skyrocketed and, this spring, shop owners say they finally have the supply they need to serve that pent up demand this spring. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

The concept of 15-minute cities where a person's daily needs in a city are accessible within a 15-minute walk, bike or transit ride from their home is a few years old. It's been picked up by many cities to guide urban planning and design. But in recent months, the 15-minute city idea has also been seized on by people who fear it's an elaborate conspiracy to limit individual freedoms, mobility, and to create barricaded sectors to keep them trapped.

In this episode, Tiffany Hsu, a reporter who covers disinformation for the New York Times, breaks down the actual idea, where it came from, and how it got twisted into a dystopian conspiracy.

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