Absolutely making not the mortgage payment unaffordable but the HO ins and property tax. They can’t make a fixed house payment go up, but they can raise our taxes and homeowners insurance, thereby causing homeowners, unable to afford to stay in their home.
This is especially scary for senior citizens on fixed incomes. If a senior citizen has to end up selling and renting the Rent can continue to rise while they are on a very fixed income, where will the senior citizens end up?
Even if you had children, you wouldn’t want to put them in the schools you are paying for if you have any sense. Which is to say, no one is getting a good return on that investment.
The property value of our home is rising so rapidly which is “great” for a homeowner but our property taxes change every year to reflect that. It’s a double edge sword. We are in our early and mid 30s, wanting to renovated and build this house as a legacy and family home for our children, but the amount it will cost to do this is going to keep making it harder…
I’m middle-aged widow with grown kids, on a fixed income. I’m experiencing the same thing. It's so disheartening. I love owning a home but I’m starting to wonder if it's worth it. 🫤
This is me, except for being a widow. I’m sorry. I was so excited to pay off my mortgage right before I retired. I thought I would be doing well on a fixed income. I was duped by the insurance and govt fraudsters.
It does when the taxes raise with the value. Our home is paid for but our taxes are insane on it. I worry by the time I retire, they alone will make my home un- affordable for me to live in on whatever my "fixed income" will be.
Unfortunately it does. I can't move back into the home I own because I can't afford it. The mortgage payments are so high now that I can't cover them and so I have rented it out and had to go somewhere much cheaper and smaller to afford it. I am lucky to own but its not that straight forward because I can't afford to live there anymore and. can't sell it as the market is flat here in the UK. Its one thing the value appreciating ( which it isnt right now). but it kind of makes no difference to whether I can make the payments to live there . Crazy making !
I paid off my home 2 years ago. Since then my insurance & property taxes have nearly tripled. I thought I was going to be completely debt free at retirement. Not even close.
They’re too high and how they’re spent is unfortunate but would you be willing to pay tolls to pass through every property owners land in a privatized system with no collective cooperation and management? Your taxes pay for the system that prevents someone from taking your land by violent force, ease travel between lands and regions, and provides insurance against fire and crime through public safety depts.
I think you are a tad naive. I love in a rural area where my property tax is very high. We live on a private road of 20 homes. We are currently fighting money hungry developers, who have clout with the county (pay offs?) to take over our road, plus put one straight through my yard. Paying my taxes is not preventing any of that. Nor are they protecting us.
Haha. I had to fight for the insurance company to repair my home when the electrical box caught fire. They are a scam. We pay thousands upon thousands to cover our homes for these rare events. It’s a battle when something happens. They refused to repair my roof after tornados. You must be an insurance guy looking for business.
Smart Cities are all about control. Same with COVID. They are trying to take our freedom away one small piece at a time. We should all be very worried about this and plan to take action so this does not happen.
The best way is to be vocal and of course, not vote for these evil people. And yes, it's just plain evil. Also, raising a respectful ruckus as Allie Beth Stuckey calls this. We must always be calmly and rationally exposing these things and not staying silent. Too many of us were silent for fear of being canceled. And not because we are influencers with large platforms but just the fear of our friends or family unfollowing us or being upset etc. I struggled with that during Covid. So many sensitive people etc and I didn't want to post my honest thoughts and things I was learning!
Unless people are brave enough to speak up, it will happen. I spoke up and was surrounded by lots of people giving me a thumbs up but remained silent to protect themselves. Because of that, the insanity took over, way too long. We gave a strong voice to the minority. If only all those people, telling me silently that they agreed, perhaps we never would have gone through the COVID nightmare like we did.
We should not worry about it, worry does nothing but add negative, lower energies to the issue. A good first step is declaring "I do not consent" and then taking actions, like not complying.
Thanks for the reminder. I worry too much these days and need combat that. It’s a trait I think I inherited from my mother (she’s addicted to worrying).
I think you’ve never been to Palisades if you think 15 minutes city is a bad thing.
I just lost my house in the Palisades fire , the fire started up the street from me and my husband was the 3rd person to call 911 that day.
Palisades has always been a 15 minute city. We had absolutely everything we needed and none of that was bad. It was a beautiful bubble in the middle of a failing city that held their own.
We took care of everything ourselves, city of LA doesn’t even do street cleaning there.
We had choice to get very affordable food like Vons to very expensive and healthy like Erewhon. We had high luxury stores and regular stores. Public schools and private schools galore , Jewish schools, Christian schools , Perish you name it we had it along with their churches. For me it was my dream place. My kids went to Malibu school so I drove 15 min to take them every day. None of it was bad.
If there is an agenda behind is it’s that perhaps someone wants the land. For whatever their plan is. It’s one of the most desirable areas in LA with the least amount of available properties that pop up for sale. People didn’t want to leave. There were a lot of old people that had small modest homes. If one of those sold a new massive house would be build. It’s just a human progression…
A lot of those old people will never rebuild.
The town that once had no lot less than 3 million for sale is all of a sudden up for grabs … and I don’t think it has to do with smart city agenda or 15 min.. I just simply think it’s land grab opportunity.
When we moved there 5 years ago and we build our home, our neighbors used to tell us there was a saying :
“If you are rich you live in Beverly Hills, If you are famous you live in Hollywood but if you are lucky you live in Pacific Palisades “
Agreed, we lived in Brentwood and would visit palisades often. It was was refreshing to see families and kids doing life in one compact area, when LA is typically so spread out. I’m a millennial and still find this desirable. Isn’t a safe, small town local feel what most people want?
I’m so sorry for the loss of your home and community. From what I’ve heard, Altadena sounds magical in a similar way, far removed from what some consider typical LA. I agree greedy speculators will swoop in, but that is greed and capitalism for you.
I’m truly sorry to hear about your loss. Being just down the road in MB, it’s been heart-wrenching to see the impact of this tragedy. Please know that my thoughts are with you during this incredibly difficult time, and I wish you strength and comfort in the days ahead.🙏🏼
I follow a girl that is American and she married a Chinese man and lives in China. This is literally their entire culture. While they have amenities, healthcare that is decent, food, energy, retail, entertainment, it's all right there in their vicinity. (15 min) You can look and think, "well this doesn't seem so bad." But that's because you are at their mercy. Sure, they give you everything you want to feel comfortable but they also don't have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, fair and honest elections, choices on how you live and by which you live, and I could go on. People in larger cities like where she lives (Wuhan ironically) are living in smaller apartments, everything is very accessible etc but their healthcare system is based differently, you don't pick your own physicians, there are a LOT of laws we would deem insane, and you definitely aren't going to protest or just "move" because you don't like that particular state like we can here. So much of what we have we don't realize until it's gone. So we must be proactive rather than reactive and we must be willing to put up a "fight" to see to it that these politicians and governments don't receive unchallenged power.
Exactly. Well said. This is not your past 15 minutes city or your so-called present. It’s about AI and new control with surveillance every and anywhere they will control what you do, say, and see. I guess people also forgot that the WHO stated (you will own nothing and be happy). I don’t remember hearing that in the past so..
It’s easy to use China as an example here because of the monoparty control they have. However this concept of having to not hop in a car to get what you need exists everywhere and does not result in some easily controlled culture. Meanwhile people in the suburbs are happily bouncing around in a cybertruck that Tesla could disable and shut down with a mouse click, use phones and apps that track your every movement yet none of you speak much on that. It’s almost as if your attention is being directed AWAY from something and towards a red herring.
Graham are you a real estate developer? All your points sound very much like the ones in our county focusing on city growth and high density housing. Trying to sell us a dream but instead we are getting more crime and an infrastructure that can't handle the fast growth. Most are strictly selling a product to line their pockets.
First off - you are a really gifted writer. But your logic makes no sense. Who is the “they” that want to control everyone by doing city planning that makes everything convenient? When they rebuild after the fires what criteria should be used instead to rebuild? Should city planners purposely make it inconvenient just so that people have the freedom to drive further to do all the everyday things they need to do like go to the gym, take their kids to school, etc? No global elitist caused 100-mile per hour winds during a drought year. And someone, somewhere - not a global elitist but likely a civil engineer or a mid-level city planner - has to make a plan of what to do to rebuild.
Your friend in Georgia who lives in a “15 minute city”’s main complaints are that her life seems to have no purpose, everyone spends too much time on Facebook and there’s not high quality food (she lives in the South… I’m sure there’s lots of less convenient towns that also have crappy food all around her. Every time I visit anywhere in the South I have to take GasX for a week when I get back to California).
It’s normal after a disaster for real estate speculators to offer pennies on the dollar to people who’ve lost their homes, hoping they were under-insured. This isn’t just done by “global elites” but by bottom-feeder real estate agents like your friend who espouses this global conspiracy theory. I highly doubt he’s not on the lookout to pick up some high value property at a discount in the aftermath of this disaster.
That’s because in America we vote for winner-take-all capitalism instead of “socialists” who think there should be a safety net because, by definition, not everyone can be the winner. In that sense I agree with your sentiment that we - not just GenZ but all of America - are woefully delusional that we are going to be the winners in every scenario.
At bottom of every conspiracy theory is the childish insistence that everything bad that happens is someone else’s fault. That there’s an evil cabal somewhere plotting your destruction. It’s not. It’s self-inflicted. Or bad luck. Or both. The fires are a natural disaster (although also man-made -not by global elites but by all of us - from climate change that caused a normal Santa Ana wind to become hurricane strength). But what happens after - whether our society takes care of people or exploits them (us, if it’s your home that burned) is a choice that we continually make, as a society. And typically we vote to sabotage ourselves - because of our delusion that we’ll always be the winner in every winner-take-all scenario. And we just elected a whole bunch of people who firmly believe that people who need help are just sheep waiting to be shorn.
15 minute cities sound great to me, but you’re right that they won’t cure the feeling of powerlessness, isolation, estrangement and screen addiction that many people feel. But let’s stop making up silly stories about what causes those things. And stop blaming everything on fictitious “elites” when we have the ultimate power to elect whomever we want to use our tax dollars to either help us or not in our time of need.
We all need to grow up. This idea that someone who’s a billionaire is so bored they have nothing to do but try to control you is ridiculous… is that what you’d do with a billion dollars? Obsess over the cell ohone calls and browser history of some random person working a normal job somewhere? The stark reality is that they don’t think about you at all. It’s narcissistic to assume otherwise. You probably feel powerless because you keep insisting someone else has control over your happiness. But no one cares. No one’s controlling you. You just need to take responsibility for your own happiness and stop blaming unknown evil actors for it.
For anyone who believes conspiracy theories like this I’d strongly recommend Cognitive Behavior Therapy (there’s some great courses on the WakingUp app). You’re feeling powerless or hopeless and looking for stories to explain it… and are willing to believe almost anything which makes you easily manipulated. Do yourself a favor and learn how your mind works so you can begin to own your own fate instead of looking for who seems to be controlling it.
And yes, property and insurance costs will continue to rise because climate change, the slowest-moving train-wreck in history, will keep causing more and increasingly severe natural disasters that our current cities weren’t built to withstand.
Despite my (very) long critical comment above I enjoy your writing - keep doing it!
nice comment Dave. I’m the friend from GA. Just wanted to state I completely have a purpose in life.
I have a beautiful family that I wake up to daily & take care of. My children give me SO many reasons to be happy & love. I work tirelessly so they can have a better life than I ever imagined. That’s why I also stated I’m working to move them to a much better environment. I don’t blame anyone but myself for where I am and what I go through. That’s common sense (although I know, common sense isn’t so common) I’m not one of those you’re describing in the comments. One who believes everything is out to get them and life is just so terrible. What does anyone get out of blaming anyone else but themselves, anyways?
Also, I did state majority of south GA is like that (which is common sense for anyone who knows GA’s history). Also wanted to point out, I could care less about politics or elites, I just do what anyone else does — scroll and see a buzzing topic every now and then. I’m not waiting on the messiah, the president or the elites and trust and believe many know they don’t care about ANYONE. Lol
It's not my logic. The "THEY" is what people online reference when exploring this theory and many others. I included the "DO WE EVEN KNOW WHO WE ARE FIGHTING FOR? ARE THEY DRONES? ELON? MERMAIDS ARE MERMAIDS REAL" part. I don't think anyone buying into any theory online really knows who "they" are- or it changes depending on who the influencer is confessing the theory- and that UNKNOWN was the mood I was trying to convey. Thanks for reading and the thoughtful reply :)
So what you're saying Lacey, is not to come onto Jessica's Substack if we're not going to buy into every conspiracy theory that comes up? Give me a break. Debate and critical thinking are key to an open and free society and I can pretty much guarantee that Jessica didn't start writing here in order for it to be an echo chamber. Dave makes some excellent points that perhaps hit a little too close to home for you.
The government needs to be taken down a notch or two, and stop enabling corruption, and step out of the way: from those who want to homestead in the middle of nowhere and off the grid, to those who want a single family home in the suburbs with a public school, to those who want city-living without the "15-min-city AI surveillance". Any neighborhood in Manhattan, today, is a 15-min-city, but, currently, without the surveillance, kinda... and, cash is still being accepted at the neighborhood diners and bodegas... It's criminal that those who lost everything in the fire are being exploited by corrupt government...
I have so many things running through my head. First, I lost everything in a California wildfire in 2020. What I learned is that since the 80s, California has been anti-development. Pre-15 minute city concept. Back then it was about restoring the wild back to it's original state, at least that's what those in charge tell themselves. Preserving water sheds, the redwoods, the redtail, etc. Really it's about increasing the value of their homes. Californians are all "liberals" until they own a home, then they use liberal buzzwords like environmentalism and safety to prevent building. So many of the issues I ran into when trying to rebuild my home up in the Santa Cruz mountains were anti-development codes and policies created decades ago and even in an emergency situation, they clung to them. Why? During the year after the fire, real estate in Santa Cruz went insane (we also had the tech bros coming to the beach since they no longer had to go into their SF offices). People offering $500K OVER ASKING in order to get a home. The people who own real estate LOVE THIS. This happened because it was too expensive to rebuild and also a terrible hassle. Anyway, I don't believe our fire or any of these fires are set by globalists to burn us out, rather that California politicians long ago decided to underfund all our fire services and let nature drive us out to meet their ideal human-free eco-friendly (and very good for those who survive it) anti-development policies. They absolutely let 900+ homes burn in our fire, in some cases CalFire pulled up and watched. They let the fire do what it could to reduce the number of us living up there. That was 2020 and not even 200 people have returned home.
Second, as someone who then decided to return to my hometown of Chicago after the fire rather than spend $1.5 million to rebuild a small, 1800 sf home on burnt land that I wouldn't be able to insure, I now live in a 15 minute city. Chicago has always been that way. I have excellent food, entertainment, even nature (I live right across from access to the 18 mile biking trail and park district gem along Lake Michigan). I only use my car to visit my mom in the burbs but even then I can take a bus to a train where they can pick me up and get this, it's only a 15 minute drive to their house. Regardless, I'm not controlled. I haven't given up anything and during the warmer months, everyone is outside. There are TONS of fit people around here. This is the result of good urban planning done long ago, like the 1900s, and it's great.
Third, I find it interesting that in the 15-minute city picture you share, there isn't a church. I do have to go more than 15 minutes to get to my church. But there's a great bus I hop on to do so. I often just hop on a bus line and take it as far as I have time to go so I can see the city neighborhoods. There is no restriction on travel in such a place.
I agree with this. 15 min cities have not been a limitation for us. We’ve enjoy raising our kids in a small town on the CA coast. It’s not new development or new builds, but we moved her bc we didn’t want to be driving out of town for culture and coffee shops and beaches. We have small kids, I don’t want to be driving them anywhere longer than 15 min anyways. It’s called LOCAL.
The 15-minute cities talked about in this article are not 15 minutes of drive time. You won’t have a car. It’s 15-minutes that is walkable, which is a big difference. You won’t own anything- land, home or car. Watch the WEF video Emilie posted.
It's devastating, heartbreaking, and frightening what's happened and is happening in California. Thanks for lifting the veil just a bit. Also, a bit bemused that you know people with names like Stencil and Spirit lol
The entire fear about 15 minute cities is built around the concept of vehicle ownership and the agency it provides. There’s no difference between the perceived “control” a 15 minute city has and the agency of people stuffed into a congested suburb that could never escape in an emergency due to gridlock. There’s also zero evidence of a coordinated land grab in Lahaina or NC just a lot of online chatter.
Being a productive conspiracist is about skepticism and investigation, but also to a connection to results, findings, and verifiable facts, not endlessly parroting emotionally based fears that haven’t proven to be verified by any means. Do we have valid concerns about govt overreach into our agency after seeing what happened during lockdown? Absolutely. Does that mean that every idea that well meaning people were able to convince politicians to adopt are evil? No.
The irony is rich when I see people - who travel to Tokyo on holiday, marvel at the size, ease of movement, cultural and consumptive richness, efficiency and cost of living - return back to their exurban community in the states and rail against any ounce of interconnectivity in an urban setting as a plot to subjugate the population. The same could be said for Norway.
The plot has been lost. You can build urban areas to be more dense, and more efficient for THOSE areas and THOSE that choose to live there, while those who want 3 acres and a faux hobby farm can live elsewhere, and all the while we can have engaged conversations about the balance between coordinated living and independent agency, keeping the gov in check.
Meanwhile progress will be distracted by those who instead of looking at legitimate problems, create Machiavellian fantasies to scare people back into the forest, so they can be less crowded in the meadow.
The problem is that the govt is making it harder and harder for those of us who want the hobby farm. They don’t want balance. If you don’t think this is about control- you’re wrong
I would love to hear how you have experienced friction from the government on your path towards the tax breaks of a barely productive agricultural hobby farm? Between USDA grants, below market interest rate loans for land and home, tax breaks, ample cheap land in the southwest, midwest and rust belt, starlink internet access to learn anything and connect with others to share resources, modern commerce flying equipment to your doorstep in days, it really seems like it’s easier and easier. What’s stopping you exactly?
I live in Idaho. I have yet to personally experience issues because my state actively fights back these initiatives. But I have second hand experience from friends in several areas of California that have experienced government overreach - including prohibition of rain collection and the like.
Exactly. Complaining about gridlock whilst sitting in an F150 and then freaking out about efforts to create areas that actually enhance community and give back time by cut down on drive times does not make sense. Being able to walk/bike/short drive to the corner store, local restaurants, church, school…it’s awesome—NYC area, Boston, Chicago, train stations towns in the subs…Japan and so many other countries have this. CA is great but this resistance to transportation and openness to conspiracy is holding CA and its people back. We need planning to support community and sensible taxing and regulation of big businesses and billionaires to ensure safe living to allow space for all people to dream and thrive.
In LA, you only take public transportation if it's absolutely necessary, and honestly, I wouldn't choose that option—I’d rather stay home. Having been born and raised in Southern California, I haven't used public transportation in 47 years, and even then it wasn't often.
I’ve been thinking more about this since reading it a few days ago. It seems to me like a 15-minute city brings lots of convenience and plenty of entertainment/distraction. Once people are used to this, they don’t want to give it up. People with dishwashers don’t have them removed and go back to hand-washing. I’m wondering how this plays into the why for the push for these 15-minute cities. To keep people living a life of perceived ease so they don’t want to buck the system? Making the population comfortable, lazy robots?
As a long time LA resident this was an emotional read. It’s hard to listen to everyone on social media arguing the possible conspiracies behind it when so many friends and family and businesses close to the heart have been affected in a serious way. This is real however, it’s been talked about for a long time, and the plans behind it are well established and cannot be ignored. It also makes you wonder, isn’t one of the main reasons people like to live in big cities already to be close to everything? Perhaps this is a bit like an open office being reduced to cubicles. I worry about overcrowded residential buildings that contain everything within them, 30k citizens that never leave their box. Every box with schools and doctors and grocery stores in them, no cars, no real “need” to leave. In any case the idea behind it is certain: the majority will own nothing.
Your reference to your boyfriend's 11 parcel property in the Metaverse, I was reminded that I must still have land on Facebook's Farmville, on which I developed a modest farm without having to purchase any Farm Cash.
They are doing this in every major city. Here in Vancouver they put up signs ages ago that say "15 minute city ready". It's bizarre and dystopian and we must fight and rise up against this total control.
My father has worked closely with civil engineers and urban planners in the midwest for decades–15 minute cities are not a new concept and are connected with positive outcomes for almost every important metric when considering human, ecological, and financial aspect. Cities, as they are right now, aren’t capable in managing the influx of people that want to live in a city environment and our suburbs cannot support unlimited urban sprawl. These factors are the biggest reasons 15 minute cities were conceptualized in the 90’s. There has been a weird amount of conspiratorial focus on 15 minute cities after the WEF had a panel a few years ago and I would caution everyone from thinking “global elites” have some nefarious plan focused around 15 minute cities. There are countless examples of 15 minute cities being built in the US with amazing outcomes. My home of Lenexa Kansas is one.
I was reading this thinking, “I guess I live in a 15 minute city!”. While not walkable, I never have to drive more then 15 minutes and coming from a city like LA where so much of it is inaccessible due to traffic and long commutes, I GET why they would want to transform it. I’m not saying I agree with the methods in doing so, but I do see the benefit of living in a unofficial 15 min city and it’s basically living in a small town right by the beach, which doesn’t seem like a bad thing. . .
Raising property taxes, homeowner's insurance, and utilities is another way "they" are driving down private home ownership.
Absolutely making not the mortgage payment unaffordable but the HO ins and property tax. They can’t make a fixed house payment go up, but they can raise our taxes and homeowners insurance, thereby causing homeowners, unable to afford to stay in their home.
This is especially scary for senior citizens on fixed incomes. If a senior citizen has to end up selling and renting the Rent can continue to rise while they are on a very fixed income, where will the senior citizens end up?
Property taxes are a crime. It means you never truly own your home and property.
100%. My husband had no idea that you still had to pay property tax even if you fully paid for the home. He was like “wtf? That’s bullshit.”
It’s even worse considering most property tax where we are pays for schools we don’t use because we are childless.
Even if you had children, you wouldn’t want to put them in the schools you are paying for if you have any sense. Which is to say, no one is getting a good return on that investment.
The property value of our home is rising so rapidly which is “great” for a homeowner but our property taxes change every year to reflect that. It’s a double edge sword. We are in our early and mid 30s, wanting to renovated and build this house as a legacy and family home for our children, but the amount it will cost to do this is going to keep making it harder…
I’m middle-aged widow with grown kids, on a fixed income. I’m experiencing the same thing. It's so disheartening. I love owning a home but I’m starting to wonder if it's worth it. 🫤
This is me, except for being a widow. I’m sorry. I was so excited to pay off my mortgage right before I retired. I thought I would be doing well on a fixed income. I was duped by the insurance and govt fraudsters.
Your home value appreciating shouldn’t put a crimp in your affordability to live there.
It does when the taxes raise with the value. Our home is paid for but our taxes are insane on it. I worry by the time I retire, they alone will make my home un- affordable for me to live in on whatever my "fixed income" will be.
Unfortunately it does. I can't move back into the home I own because I can't afford it. The mortgage payments are so high now that I can't cover them and so I have rented it out and had to go somewhere much cheaper and smaller to afford it. I am lucky to own but its not that straight forward because I can't afford to live there anymore and. can't sell it as the market is flat here in the UK. Its one thing the value appreciating ( which it isnt right now). but it kind of makes no difference to whether I can make the payments to live there . Crazy making !
I paid off my home 2 years ago. Since then my insurance & property taxes have nearly tripled. I thought I was going to be completely debt free at retirement. Not even close.
Disaster Capitalism is something we are only beginning to observe & the cruelty of greed.
Money talks louder than ever now.
They’re too high and how they’re spent is unfortunate but would you be willing to pay tolls to pass through every property owners land in a privatized system with no collective cooperation and management? Your taxes pay for the system that prevents someone from taking your land by violent force, ease travel between lands and regions, and provides insurance against fire and crime through public safety depts.
I think you are a tad naive. I love in a rural area where my property tax is very high. We live on a private road of 20 homes. We are currently fighting money hungry developers, who have clout with the county (pay offs?) to take over our road, plus put one straight through my yard. Paying my taxes is not preventing any of that. Nor are they protecting us.
Haha. I had to fight for the insurance company to repair my home when the electrical box caught fire. They are a scam. We pay thousands upon thousands to cover our homes for these rare events. It’s a battle when something happens. They refused to repair my roof after tornados. You must be an insurance guy looking for business.
"It’s hard not to feel cynical during this tragedy."
Also see: Maui.
Smart Cities are all about control. Same with COVID. They are trying to take our freedom away one small piece at a time. We should all be very worried about this and plan to take action so this does not happen.
Exactly. Covid was a test and most of society passed and that’s not good.👎 This gave them the momentum to do what they’re doing.😡😡
The best way is to be vocal and of course, not vote for these evil people. And yes, it's just plain evil. Also, raising a respectful ruckus as Allie Beth Stuckey calls this. We must always be calmly and rationally exposing these things and not staying silent. Too many of us were silent for fear of being canceled. And not because we are influencers with large platforms but just the fear of our friends or family unfollowing us or being upset etc. I struggled with that during Covid. So many sensitive people etc and I didn't want to post my honest thoughts and things I was learning!
Unless people are brave enough to speak up, it will happen. I spoke up and was surrounded by lots of people giving me a thumbs up but remained silent to protect themselves. Because of that, the insanity took over, way too long. We gave a strong voice to the minority. If only all those people, telling me silently that they agreed, perhaps we never would have gone through the COVID nightmare like we did.
We should not worry about it, worry does nothing but add negative, lower energies to the issue. A good first step is declaring "I do not consent" and then taking actions, like not complying.
Thanks for the reminder. I worry too much these days and need combat that. It’s a trait I think I inherited from my mother (she’s addicted to worrying).
I can understand this, lol. We're taught by our parents and it isn't always easy unlearning these habits.
Once AI (and its controllers) take over, there will be no escape. See movies like Logan's Run and Demolition Man.
I think you’ve never been to Palisades if you think 15 minutes city is a bad thing.
I just lost my house in the Palisades fire , the fire started up the street from me and my husband was the 3rd person to call 911 that day.
Palisades has always been a 15 minute city. We had absolutely everything we needed and none of that was bad. It was a beautiful bubble in the middle of a failing city that held their own.
We took care of everything ourselves, city of LA doesn’t even do street cleaning there.
We had choice to get very affordable food like Vons to very expensive and healthy like Erewhon. We had high luxury stores and regular stores. Public schools and private schools galore , Jewish schools, Christian schools , Perish you name it we had it along with their churches. For me it was my dream place. My kids went to Malibu school so I drove 15 min to take them every day. None of it was bad.
If there is an agenda behind is it’s that perhaps someone wants the land. For whatever their plan is. It’s one of the most desirable areas in LA with the least amount of available properties that pop up for sale. People didn’t want to leave. There were a lot of old people that had small modest homes. If one of those sold a new massive house would be build. It’s just a human progression…
A lot of those old people will never rebuild.
The town that once had no lot less than 3 million for sale is all of a sudden up for grabs … and I don’t think it has to do with smart city agenda or 15 min.. I just simply think it’s land grab opportunity.
When we moved there 5 years ago and we build our home, our neighbors used to tell us there was a saying :
“If you are rich you live in Beverly Hills, If you are famous you live in Hollywood but if you are lucky you live in Pacific Palisades “
Maybe someone decided to take our luck out….
Agreed, we lived in Brentwood and would visit palisades often. It was was refreshing to see families and kids doing life in one compact area, when LA is typically so spread out. I’m a millennial and still find this desirable. Isn’t a safe, small town local feel what most people want?
I’m so sorry for the loss of your home and community. From what I’ve heard, Altadena sounds magical in a similar way, far removed from what some consider typical LA. I agree greedy speculators will swoop in, but that is greed and capitalism for you.
I’m truly sorry to hear about your loss. Being just down the road in MB, it’s been heart-wrenching to see the impact of this tragedy. Please know that my thoughts are with you during this incredibly difficult time, and I wish you strength and comfort in the days ahead.🙏🏼
It truly was a dream place 🫶 I'm sorry for your devastating loss!
I follow a girl that is American and she married a Chinese man and lives in China. This is literally their entire culture. While they have amenities, healthcare that is decent, food, energy, retail, entertainment, it's all right there in their vicinity. (15 min) You can look and think, "well this doesn't seem so bad." But that's because you are at their mercy. Sure, they give you everything you want to feel comfortable but they also don't have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, fair and honest elections, choices on how you live and by which you live, and I could go on. People in larger cities like where she lives (Wuhan ironically) are living in smaller apartments, everything is very accessible etc but their healthcare system is based differently, you don't pick your own physicians, there are a LOT of laws we would deem insane, and you definitely aren't going to protest or just "move" because you don't like that particular state like we can here. So much of what we have we don't realize until it's gone. So we must be proactive rather than reactive and we must be willing to put up a "fight" to see to it that these politicians and governments don't receive unchallenged power.
Exactly. Well said. This is not your past 15 minutes city or your so-called present. It’s about AI and new control with surveillance every and anywhere they will control what you do, say, and see. I guess people also forgot that the WHO stated (you will own nothing and be happy). I don’t remember hearing that in the past so..
It’s easy to use China as an example here because of the monoparty control they have. However this concept of having to not hop in a car to get what you need exists everywhere and does not result in some easily controlled culture. Meanwhile people in the suburbs are happily bouncing around in a cybertruck that Tesla could disable and shut down with a mouse click, use phones and apps that track your every movement yet none of you speak much on that. It’s almost as if your attention is being directed AWAY from something and towards a red herring.
Graham are you a real estate developer? All your points sound very much like the ones in our county focusing on city growth and high density housing. Trying to sell us a dream but instead we are getting more crime and an infrastructure that can't handle the fast growth. Most are strictly selling a product to line their pockets.
Maybe he’s really just Gavin Newsom with a name that sounds like Gavin Newsom
First off - you are a really gifted writer. But your logic makes no sense. Who is the “they” that want to control everyone by doing city planning that makes everything convenient? When they rebuild after the fires what criteria should be used instead to rebuild? Should city planners purposely make it inconvenient just so that people have the freedom to drive further to do all the everyday things they need to do like go to the gym, take their kids to school, etc? No global elitist caused 100-mile per hour winds during a drought year. And someone, somewhere - not a global elitist but likely a civil engineer or a mid-level city planner - has to make a plan of what to do to rebuild.
Your friend in Georgia who lives in a “15 minute city”’s main complaints are that her life seems to have no purpose, everyone spends too much time on Facebook and there’s not high quality food (she lives in the South… I’m sure there’s lots of less convenient towns that also have crappy food all around her. Every time I visit anywhere in the South I have to take GasX for a week when I get back to California).
It’s normal after a disaster for real estate speculators to offer pennies on the dollar to people who’ve lost their homes, hoping they were under-insured. This isn’t just done by “global elites” but by bottom-feeder real estate agents like your friend who espouses this global conspiracy theory. I highly doubt he’s not on the lookout to pick up some high value property at a discount in the aftermath of this disaster.
That’s because in America we vote for winner-take-all capitalism instead of “socialists” who think there should be a safety net because, by definition, not everyone can be the winner. In that sense I agree with your sentiment that we - not just GenZ but all of America - are woefully delusional that we are going to be the winners in every scenario.
At bottom of every conspiracy theory is the childish insistence that everything bad that happens is someone else’s fault. That there’s an evil cabal somewhere plotting your destruction. It’s not. It’s self-inflicted. Or bad luck. Or both. The fires are a natural disaster (although also man-made -not by global elites but by all of us - from climate change that caused a normal Santa Ana wind to become hurricane strength). But what happens after - whether our society takes care of people or exploits them (us, if it’s your home that burned) is a choice that we continually make, as a society. And typically we vote to sabotage ourselves - because of our delusion that we’ll always be the winner in every winner-take-all scenario. And we just elected a whole bunch of people who firmly believe that people who need help are just sheep waiting to be shorn.
15 minute cities sound great to me, but you’re right that they won’t cure the feeling of powerlessness, isolation, estrangement and screen addiction that many people feel. But let’s stop making up silly stories about what causes those things. And stop blaming everything on fictitious “elites” when we have the ultimate power to elect whomever we want to use our tax dollars to either help us or not in our time of need.
We all need to grow up. This idea that someone who’s a billionaire is so bored they have nothing to do but try to control you is ridiculous… is that what you’d do with a billion dollars? Obsess over the cell ohone calls and browser history of some random person working a normal job somewhere? The stark reality is that they don’t think about you at all. It’s narcissistic to assume otherwise. You probably feel powerless because you keep insisting someone else has control over your happiness. But no one cares. No one’s controlling you. You just need to take responsibility for your own happiness and stop blaming unknown evil actors for it.
For anyone who believes conspiracy theories like this I’d strongly recommend Cognitive Behavior Therapy (there’s some great courses on the WakingUp app). You’re feeling powerless or hopeless and looking for stories to explain it… and are willing to believe almost anything which makes you easily manipulated. Do yourself a favor and learn how your mind works so you can begin to own your own fate instead of looking for who seems to be controlling it.
And yes, property and insurance costs will continue to rise because climate change, the slowest-moving train-wreck in history, will keep causing more and increasingly severe natural disasters that our current cities weren’t built to withstand.
Despite my (very) long critical comment above I enjoy your writing - keep doing it!
nice comment Dave. I’m the friend from GA. Just wanted to state I completely have a purpose in life.
I have a beautiful family that I wake up to daily & take care of. My children give me SO many reasons to be happy & love. I work tirelessly so they can have a better life than I ever imagined. That’s why I also stated I’m working to move them to a much better environment. I don’t blame anyone but myself for where I am and what I go through. That’s common sense (although I know, common sense isn’t so common) I’m not one of those you’re describing in the comments. One who believes everything is out to get them and life is just so terrible. What does anyone get out of blaming anyone else but themselves, anyways?
Also, I did state majority of south GA is like that (which is common sense for anyone who knows GA’s history). Also wanted to point out, I could care less about politics or elites, I just do what anyone else does — scroll and see a buzzing topic every now and then. I’m not waiting on the messiah, the president or the elites and trust and believe many know they don’t care about ANYONE. Lol
Thanks for contributing to the piece
It's not my logic. The "THEY" is what people online reference when exploring this theory and many others. I included the "DO WE EVEN KNOW WHO WE ARE FIGHTING FOR? ARE THEY DRONES? ELON? MERMAIDS ARE MERMAIDS REAL" part. I don't think anyone buying into any theory online really knows who "they" are- or it changes depending on who the influencer is confessing the theory- and that UNKNOWN was the mood I was trying to convey. Thanks for reading and the thoughtful reply :)
Bump
Just don’t read the articles on Jessica’s Substack anymore.
So what you're saying Lacey, is not to come onto Jessica's Substack if we're not going to buy into every conspiracy theory that comes up? Give me a break. Debate and critical thinking are key to an open and free society and I can pretty much guarantee that Jessica didn't start writing here in order for it to be an echo chamber. Dave makes some excellent points that perhaps hit a little too close to home for you.
^^this^^
The government needs to be taken down a notch or two, and stop enabling corruption, and step out of the way: from those who want to homestead in the middle of nowhere and off the grid, to those who want a single family home in the suburbs with a public school, to those who want city-living without the "15-min-city AI surveillance". Any neighborhood in Manhattan, today, is a 15-min-city, but, currently, without the surveillance, kinda... and, cash is still being accepted at the neighborhood diners and bodegas... It's criminal that those who lost everything in the fire are being exploited by corrupt government...
Correct. This is all a collaboration with the one world order and 15 minutes cities.😡
Agreed. This is also how China has become.
I have so many things running through my head. First, I lost everything in a California wildfire in 2020. What I learned is that since the 80s, California has been anti-development. Pre-15 minute city concept. Back then it was about restoring the wild back to it's original state, at least that's what those in charge tell themselves. Preserving water sheds, the redwoods, the redtail, etc. Really it's about increasing the value of their homes. Californians are all "liberals" until they own a home, then they use liberal buzzwords like environmentalism and safety to prevent building. So many of the issues I ran into when trying to rebuild my home up in the Santa Cruz mountains were anti-development codes and policies created decades ago and even in an emergency situation, they clung to them. Why? During the year after the fire, real estate in Santa Cruz went insane (we also had the tech bros coming to the beach since they no longer had to go into their SF offices). People offering $500K OVER ASKING in order to get a home. The people who own real estate LOVE THIS. This happened because it was too expensive to rebuild and also a terrible hassle. Anyway, I don't believe our fire or any of these fires are set by globalists to burn us out, rather that California politicians long ago decided to underfund all our fire services and let nature drive us out to meet their ideal human-free eco-friendly (and very good for those who survive it) anti-development policies. They absolutely let 900+ homes burn in our fire, in some cases CalFire pulled up and watched. They let the fire do what it could to reduce the number of us living up there. That was 2020 and not even 200 people have returned home.
Second, as someone who then decided to return to my hometown of Chicago after the fire rather than spend $1.5 million to rebuild a small, 1800 sf home on burnt land that I wouldn't be able to insure, I now live in a 15 minute city. Chicago has always been that way. I have excellent food, entertainment, even nature (I live right across from access to the 18 mile biking trail and park district gem along Lake Michigan). I only use my car to visit my mom in the burbs but even then I can take a bus to a train where they can pick me up and get this, it's only a 15 minute drive to their house. Regardless, I'm not controlled. I haven't given up anything and during the warmer months, everyone is outside. There are TONS of fit people around here. This is the result of good urban planning done long ago, like the 1900s, and it's great.
Third, I find it interesting that in the 15-minute city picture you share, there isn't a church. I do have to go more than 15 minutes to get to my church. But there's a great bus I hop on to do so. I often just hop on a bus line and take it as far as I have time to go so I can see the city neighborhoods. There is no restriction on travel in such a place.
I agree with this. 15 min cities have not been a limitation for us. We’ve enjoy raising our kids in a small town on the CA coast. It’s not new development or new builds, but we moved her bc we didn’t want to be driving out of town for culture and coffee shops and beaches. We have small kids, I don’t want to be driving them anywhere longer than 15 min anyways. It’s called LOCAL.
We wanted all of these things accessible to us in a short distance. We lived in LA before, THAT was dystopian, THAT was isolating.
The 15-minute cities talked about in this article are not 15 minutes of drive time. You won’t have a car. It’s 15-minutes that is walkable, which is a big difference. You won’t own anything- land, home or car. Watch the WEF video Emilie posted.
All that to say, I don’t think we would rebuild our 1100sq ft single family home if it burned in a fire either…
Welcome to disaster capitalism
It's devastating, heartbreaking, and frightening what's happened and is happening in California. Thanks for lifting the veil just a bit. Also, a bit bemused that you know people with names like Stencil and Spirit lol
my fave comment LOL
The entire fear about 15 minute cities is built around the concept of vehicle ownership and the agency it provides. There’s no difference between the perceived “control” a 15 minute city has and the agency of people stuffed into a congested suburb that could never escape in an emergency due to gridlock. There’s also zero evidence of a coordinated land grab in Lahaina or NC just a lot of online chatter.
Being a productive conspiracist is about skepticism and investigation, but also to a connection to results, findings, and verifiable facts, not endlessly parroting emotionally based fears that haven’t proven to be verified by any means. Do we have valid concerns about govt overreach into our agency after seeing what happened during lockdown? Absolutely. Does that mean that every idea that well meaning people were able to convince politicians to adopt are evil? No.
The irony is rich when I see people - who travel to Tokyo on holiday, marvel at the size, ease of movement, cultural and consumptive richness, efficiency and cost of living - return back to their exurban community in the states and rail against any ounce of interconnectivity in an urban setting as a plot to subjugate the population. The same could be said for Norway.
The plot has been lost. You can build urban areas to be more dense, and more efficient for THOSE areas and THOSE that choose to live there, while those who want 3 acres and a faux hobby farm can live elsewhere, and all the while we can have engaged conversations about the balance between coordinated living and independent agency, keeping the gov in check.
Meanwhile progress will be distracted by those who instead of looking at legitimate problems, create Machiavellian fantasies to scare people back into the forest, so they can be less crowded in the meadow.
The problem is that the govt is making it harder and harder for those of us who want the hobby farm. They don’t want balance. If you don’t think this is about control- you’re wrong
I would love to hear how you have experienced friction from the government on your path towards the tax breaks of a barely productive agricultural hobby farm? Between USDA grants, below market interest rate loans for land and home, tax breaks, ample cheap land in the southwest, midwest and rust belt, starlink internet access to learn anything and connect with others to share resources, modern commerce flying equipment to your doorstep in days, it really seems like it’s easier and easier. What’s stopping you exactly?
I live in Idaho. I have yet to personally experience issues because my state actively fights back these initiatives. But I have second hand experience from friends in several areas of California that have experienced government overreach - including prohibition of rain collection and the like.
Exactly. Complaining about gridlock whilst sitting in an F150 and then freaking out about efforts to create areas that actually enhance community and give back time by cut down on drive times does not make sense. Being able to walk/bike/short drive to the corner store, local restaurants, church, school…it’s awesome—NYC area, Boston, Chicago, train stations towns in the subs…Japan and so many other countries have this. CA is great but this resistance to transportation and openness to conspiracy is holding CA and its people back. We need planning to support community and sensible taxing and regulation of big businesses and billionaires to ensure safe living to allow space for all people to dream and thrive.
In LA, you only take public transportation if it's absolutely necessary, and honestly, I wouldn't choose that option—I’d rather stay home. Having been born and raised in Southern California, I haven't used public transportation in 47 years, and even then it wasn't often.
I’ve been thinking more about this since reading it a few days ago. It seems to me like a 15-minute city brings lots of convenience and plenty of entertainment/distraction. Once people are used to this, they don’t want to give it up. People with dishwashers don’t have them removed and go back to hand-washing. I’m wondering how this plays into the why for the push for these 15-minute cities. To keep people living a life of perceived ease so they don’t want to buck the system? Making the population comfortable, lazy robots?
As a long time LA resident this was an emotional read. It’s hard to listen to everyone on social media arguing the possible conspiracies behind it when so many friends and family and businesses close to the heart have been affected in a serious way. This is real however, it’s been talked about for a long time, and the plans behind it are well established and cannot be ignored. It also makes you wonder, isn’t one of the main reasons people like to live in big cities already to be close to everything? Perhaps this is a bit like an open office being reduced to cubicles. I worry about overcrowded residential buildings that contain everything within them, 30k citizens that never leave their box. Every box with schools and doctors and grocery stores in them, no cars, no real “need” to leave. In any case the idea behind it is certain: the majority will own nothing.
Your reference to your boyfriend's 11 parcel property in the Metaverse, I was reminded that I must still have land on Facebook's Farmville, on which I developed a modest farm without having to purchase any Farm Cash.
GO CASH OUT BABY!
They are doing this in every major city. Here in Vancouver they put up signs ages ago that say "15 minute city ready". It's bizarre and dystopian and we must fight and rise up against this total control.
My father has worked closely with civil engineers and urban planners in the midwest for decades–15 minute cities are not a new concept and are connected with positive outcomes for almost every important metric when considering human, ecological, and financial aspect. Cities, as they are right now, aren’t capable in managing the influx of people that want to live in a city environment and our suburbs cannot support unlimited urban sprawl. These factors are the biggest reasons 15 minute cities were conceptualized in the 90’s. There has been a weird amount of conspiratorial focus on 15 minute cities after the WEF had a panel a few years ago and I would caution everyone from thinking “global elites” have some nefarious plan focused around 15 minute cities. There are countless examples of 15 minute cities being built in the US with amazing outcomes. My home of Lenexa Kansas is one.
Lenexa is very desirable in KS / MO!
I was reading this thinking, “I guess I live in a 15 minute city!”. While not walkable, I never have to drive more then 15 minutes and coming from a city like LA where so much of it is inaccessible due to traffic and long commutes, I GET why they would want to transform it. I’m not saying I agree with the methods in doing so, but I do see the benefit of living in a unofficial 15 min city and it’s basically living in a small town right by the beach, which doesn’t seem like a bad thing. . .