Urban life, culture wars and conspiracy theories

I have an apartment on the Upper West Side of New York.

It is a very densely populated area:

according to census data, in a radius of 1.5 km around my house there are about 100 inhabitants per hectare, that is more than 60,000 per square kilometre.

This dense (and admittedly affluent) population supports a huge variety of activities:

restaurants, grocery stores, hardware stores, specialty stores of all kinds.

Most things to do or buy are within walking distance.

In fact, I live in what some Europeans are most famous for Anna Hidalgo, mayor of Paris – calls “a city of 15 minutes”.

It’s a catchy, if somewhat misleading, name for a concept that city planners have long defended: walkable cities that take advantage of possibility of density.

But modern politics being what it is, it’s also a concept that has been embroiled in culture wars and the subject of conspiracy theories.

And, as usual, the ones who cry out the most for “freedom” are actually the ones who want to practice coercion, preventing other Americans from living in ways they disapprove of.

Before we get to the politics, a few words about what it’s really like to live in a 15-minute city, and NYC in general.

What people who haven’t experienced a true urban lifestyle often don’t realize is how easy life is.

Running errands is a breeze; Since almost everywhere is within walking distance, there is no need to worry about traffic jams or parking.

One might think that the price of this comfort is that of having to endure continuous noise and gatherings of strangers.

But while the main thoroughfares from north to south, in my case Broadway, Amsterdam and Columbus, are quite noisy and have a lot of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, the side streets are much quieter than you probably imagine.

And the crime?

There is a widespread perception that New York is a dangerous place.

In his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, Donald Trump he stated that “the murders are happening at a rate no one has ever seen, right in Manhattan.”

However, the reality is that New York is one of the safest places in the United States.

No doubt New Yorkers themselves have been very upset by the increase in the crime rate during the pandemic, but this increase could decrease, as the murders notably falling to its lowest level since 2019.

And the safety demonstrated by the statistics is also the experience lived in many areas of the city where New Yorkers do not behave as if they were terrified of crime.

A couple of nights ago I got home from an event at 12:30; there were people on the street and no threat was perceived.

Am I proselytizing?

Well … yes.

Most Americans — even those who have visited New York but have seen little beyond the crowds of Times Square — have a distorted idea of ​​what urban life can be like.

But very few developers in the 15-minute city would support the imposition of such a lifestyle on the general population.

It’s more about making it possible for people to live that way if they want to.

And this is where the culture wars and conspiracy theories come into play.

I have already pointed out that there is an unwritten rule in American politics that it is okay for politicians to denigrate big cities and their inhabitants in a way that would be considered unforgivable if someone did the same to rural areas.

Trump’s false claims about the crime weren’t that unusual.

There seems to be a general feeling that only people who live a car- or truck-centric lifestyle are true Americans.

And this, in turn, fuels the conspiracy theory.

To make pedestrian cities possible, restrictions on urban development need to be made more flexible and rigid:

Municipalities should allow for the construction of more multi-family homes and high-rise buildings while limiting automobile traffic in some areas.

Surprisingly, the right can see both looser and tighter regulation as leftist plots.

The big budget document currently popular with House Republicans takes the time to support local bans on multifamily housing, saying the bans help preserve our “nice suburb”.

(Today, even dry tax documents sound like Trump speeches.)

As for traffic restrictions, at least some people on the right have managed to convince themselves that they are a plot to lock people up in their neighborhoods, not allowing them out.

Slightly less crazy commentators, such as pop philosopher Jordan Peterson, call the plan’s traffic restrictions “tyrannical bureaucrats” to dictate where you can drive.

For what it’s worth, there are many places where everyone agrees that you shouldn’t drive, for example across farmland, because it would cost others.

The costs you impose on others by driving through an urban area and thereby making congestion worse are just as real, but somehow setting limits on urban driving is tyranny.

But of course this is not a rational argument.

I don’t know how many Americans would choose the walkable urban lifestyle if it were available to everyone, but certainly many more than do now.

Unfortunately, urban planning – as cities are always planned in one way or another – is another victim of the politics of denunciation and paranoia.

c.2023 The New York Times Society