6/24/2023
Are 15 Minute Cities Smart?
by Thomas Buckley, former mayor of Lake Elsinore
“The Point” Substack
7/7/2023
Embedded in this article are two “smart city” videos by “Answers with Joe”. Joe discusses futuristic cities that appear to be pretty cool. However…
Will these areas be transformed from areas with free thinking owners… to controlled renters?
Will most “smart city” occupants be renting and not owning? Will the current inhabitants owning property there get displaced?
Who do you suppose actually owns many of the large apartment buildings that they’re building? Could it be institutional investors like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street? Is this a real life version of
Monopoly?
What can “company towns” from the past teach us? Did “company towns” discourage independent thinking and living? Were they predatory and debt enslaving? In these new “smart cities”, will there be top-down planning,
surveillance, and control of private life?
3/30/2023
Critics Warn of ‘a Dragnet of Surveillance’
as U.S. Pushes Ahead With Plans for More ‘Smart’ Cities
As the U.S. government, tech companies, the media and urban developers double down on the idea that future cities must be “smart,” critics warn the technology-driven urban projects will turn cities into “data farms.”
“Re-stocking security apparatus with AI-driven mass surveillance is a dangerous political project which could lead to broad violations of human rights. Every action in a public space will get sucked into a dragnet of surveillance infrastructure, undermining fundamental civic freedoms.
Officials who control the designations of ‘abnormal or suspicious’ activities in societies also have the power to exacerbate a chilling effect on dissent and protest, and to supercharge discrimination against communities already targeted.”
Agnes Callamard, secretary general
Amnesty International
the Defender
CHILDREN’S HEALTH DEFENSE
NEWS & VIEWS
8/17/2023
Housing plans in Oceanside
spark community debate about state and local policies
“We make important decisions and we need to be held accountable for them. … When I have the discretion to make a decision, I obviously take ownership of it whether I’m right or wrong. But the fact that we don’t have that discretion anymore is extremely frustrating.”
Ryan Keim
Oceanside Deputy Mayor
North Coast Current
More discussion at
Wake Up Oceanside
1/21/2024
This is centralized decision making at the state level. Local communities will have a say in these policies that affect their own communities when these policies are being decided by local elected officials.
Do the citizens of Oceanside want developers to tear down their Regal Cinemas in Mission Marketplace? Is the community down with this?
And, did SANDAG punt
mileage tax
and toll roads decisions to the
California Air Resources Board? Will it require action from our
California legislators to save us from the kinds of laws? It would mean giving up power at the state level, however. Don’t most politicians hate to give up power once they have it?
Related:
Crowded Housing
11/18/2023
EU Parliamentarian
15-Minute Cities Will Be “Complete impoverishment”
“Enslavement Of All The People”
NoTricksZone