An international conspiracy theory has made its way to Central Otago mailboxes, despite its central premise being easily disproved.

“Did you know that the Central Otago District Council has signed our community up to 15 Minute Smart Cities?” the anonymous flyer reads, before going on to warn of what this would mean.

“No more camping holiday wherever YOU choose”, No more freedom to travel outside YOUR zone", "No more weekends away without permission”, it warns, along with other visions of a dystopian future, with pronouns written in upper case letters and the “No” in red. 

The flyer also connects 15-minute cities with digital IDs and mandatory digital currency, neither of which is part of the 15-minutes cities design.

An email to the council received a prompt response from community vision group manager Dylan Rusbrook.

“CODC has not signed up to 15 Minute Smart Cities,” Dylan said. 

“A few members of our community have advised the flyers are really good to light the fire with, which we think is most helpful on these cold nights and is about as useful as that particular flyer can be.”  

As with most conspiracy theories, there is a grain of truth to the fear-mongering, but only a grain.

The 15-minute cities idea was formulated by Professor Carlos Moreno in 2010 to remove what he saw as the dysfunctional aspects of living in a city: long commutes, noisy streets, underutilised spaces. 

In a TED talk, the professor who teaches at the Sorbonne University in Paris, makes the case for living spaces where residents have access to all the services they need to live, learn and thrive within their immediate vicinity, “making urban areas adapt to humans, not the other way around”.

It was a simple concept for city-dwellers to have most of their needs met within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their home, and the idea was picked up by those looking for solutions to climate change. 

Here in Central Otago, without the dense population of Paris, or even Auckland, the idea of everything being in such proximity seems a dream, or for many a nightmare, as the wide open spaces and scarcity of crowds is what attracts many residents to a rural lifestyle. 

The 15-minute cities idea morphed into an idea of no freedom to travel outside of some mythical zone when Oxford, England, tested low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) - areas in which motor vehicles were prevented from taking shortcuts by posts, planters and other measures in an attempt to create quieter and safer streets for the residents.

Sounds reasonable, you might think, but many did not. The Guardian newspaper reported that one of the road blocks in the St Mary’s LTN had been named “Britain’s most hated bollard” by tabloids after CCTV captured it being repeatedly stolen, deliberately knocked down and even set on fire. 

Residents in the area, where the road was previously used as a shortcut between two of the city’s busiest streets, told the paper they felt much safer in their now quiet street. 

The LTNs were set up by the Oxfordshire county council, and the separate Oxford City Council had cited the 15-minute city as an inspiration for its city vision for 2040, the New York Times reported.



Oxford and Oxfordshire were close enough to conflate the two as one, fanned on by theorists and politicians to the extent that Professor Moreno now gets death threats, and Central Otago residents get anonymous flyers trading in fear.

“All local COUNCILS HAVE ALREADY AGREED to bringing in the Smart Cities agenda,” the flyer states, again using red to amplify the capital letters. 

“CODC has not signed up to 15 Minute Smart Cities,” Dylan said, and a quick look at the vast area the council covers makes the idea laughable - not least the need locals have to travel elsewhere to access many medical or bureaucratic needs.