Who would’ve believed that ? Few things, ultimately, will have been enough to trigger crazy conspiracy theories around a concept… of town planning. A confusion – real or alleged – between two plans, the agitation of certain personalities rooted in the extreme right, the virality of social networks and voila. At the center of the hysteria: the quarter-hour city, an approach to the organization of the territory which recommends the reduction of travel and the concentration of essential needs (school, work, care, leisure, etc.) in an accessible radius on foot or by bike.
Popularized by the Franco-Colombian urban planner Carlos Moreno, the concept is not new and has already been declined under different labels around the world: 20-minute neighborhoods (quarters 20 minutes), complete community (complete communities), etc. Paris (where Carlos Moreno advises Anne Hidalgo), Barcelona, Portland, Milan and many others have been seduced, the Covid-19 pandemic having often acted as an accelerator of the need to rethink the organization of cities to fight against the crisis climatic. Like any concept, the quarter-hour city has its detractors. But their arguments, constructed, could be heard and the debate existed. Until the emergence, in recent weeks in England, of conspiracy theories denouncing a “dystopian plan” whose objective would be to lock the inhabitants in their neighborhoods and take away their freedom.
“So Crazy, So Big”
The fuse was lit in the opulent University of Oxford. Last year, the city’s city council approved a 20-year urban development plan based on Carlos Moreno’s concept, without generating any outcry at the time. But the approach of a local election and a plan by the county of Oxfordshire – including Oxford – to reduce traffic in the city center prompted nearly 2,000 people to demonstrate on February 18. Some of the opponents seemed to confuse the two measures, the vagueness being amplified by the remarks of commentators or personalities often classified on the far right. The quarter-hour towns then became “‘socialist’, ‘deeply illiberal’, ‘French’, ‘imposition by tyrannical bureaucrats'”, lists urban planning specialist Nicholas Boys Smith, in a post where he lists the most recurring criticisms.
“It’s so crazy, so big, completely crazy. It’s the first time I’ve seen an urban planning theory trigger all this madness”, notes Carlos Moreno, scientific director of the ETI Chair at IAE Paris-Sorbonne, personally threatened by protesters. His idea, developed in 2010 and adopted little by little by mayors of all political persuasions around the world, “found itself overnight in the hands of conspiracy theorists with all their delusions mixed up”.
“Arousing indignation at little cost”
Disinformation has mainly circulated in English-speaking, Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking networks, without managing – for the time being – to find its way into France. Perhaps because behind “the stupidity of the basic plot” there is also a hint “of french bashing, anti-Parisianism”, observes Hélène Chartier, director of urban planning and architecture of C40 Cities, a global network of metropolises, 35 of which have chosen to go to the quarter-hour city. “There is had a social media effect, but no buzz in reality. None of the cities gave negative feedback,” she said.
There is nothing revolutionary about the conspiratorial mechanics that have taken hold of this concept. These actors took advantage of a windfall effect in Oxford (by-elections and traffic reduction plan) to “develop an anti-system, anti-elite, anti-globalism discourse, that of a two-speed society. They are in constant search of a point of attachment in the news to feed their audiences”, explains Rudy Reichstadt, member of the Observatory of political radicalities of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. “There was a fuss at the beginning of the year around the insects that we should soon all be eating, now the quarter-hour city, and there will be a next one… On climate policies, as soon as ‘They tend towards an evolution in our uses, they are immediately used to arouse indignation at little cost,’ adds the founder of the ConspiracyWatch site.
“The reality is that we will have to make changes in our lifestyles. And many people are ready to do so,” says Hélène Chartier, citing a recent survey in which the majority of the British (conservatives included) say they are in favor of a quarter-hour city. The disinformation operation therefore, according to her, failed. “It has made it possible to accelerate the necessary discussion on the need to transform our conception of town planning developed in the 20th century. It is now up to us to be better in the narrative.”