Residents are already calling it a "15 minute prison".
The London Borough of Newham has announced that they are collaborating with Tech company VivaCity to realise their 15-Minute Neighbourhood agenda. Vivacity have cornered the market in dystopian tech with the company blanketing the area with a network of Artificial Intelligence equipped cameras that track resident's every movement.
Newham Council have declared their intention to implement 15 Minute Neighbourhoods, but details of which have been redacted, continuing the trend of Councils to obfuscate their 15 minute city agenda behind vague claims and hollow slogans.
If you believe the hype, a 15 minute city is all about convenience, sold under the pretence that everything should be near to where you live. But the lie is becoming more obvious every day. The only aspect of a 15 minute neighbourhood 'Smart City' they've deployed is the camera network.
They're not building any new shops, cafes, restaurants, leisure centres, theatres or gyms in any 15 minute neighbourhood, but they are erecting AI Cameras on every street corner.
The plan appears a copy-and-paste from Oxford's 15 Minute City plans, the only difference being that Newham has openly called it a 15 minute neighbourhood programme.
However, in the entire plan there is not a single mention of the huge network of Smart Cameras that are being installed to control the 15 minute neighbourhood. For that we have to go to tech trade websites where the Newham Borough Council boast about the deployment of the dystopian tech.
PolisNetwork.eu they carry an article entitled: 'London Borough and VivaCity join forces for 15-Minute Neighbourhood'. the article states: "VivaCity - with whom we had worked in the past, aims at making cities smarter, safer, and more sustainable cities by supporting decision-making via their sensors and signal controls that gather detailed and anonymous data 24/7 on transport modes, traffic flow and travel patterns."
"The collaboration between these VivaCity and the London Borough should help Newham in their pursue of their 15-Minute Neighbourhood Programme, which has been developed to foster better, healthier and happier street communities where residents can get all of their basic, daily requirements within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their homes."
"15-minute city and data"
"While the 15-minute city concept is at times (rightfully) debated - remember: there is no such thing as a perfect idea, the creation of an urban environment that is built for people rather than for cars is a great head start."
An investigation into exactly what a VivaCity network really is revealed an altogether different picture of the 15 minute agenda. VivaCity cameras record everyone, including pedestrians and children, using an Artificial Intelligence programme so sophisticated it can identify a person just by the way they walk. The cameras record in 3D and high definition every person simultaneously within a zone. An individual is tracked from the moment they first enter a 15 minute zone to the moment they leave. All in real time, without the resident's knowledge, or consent.
Remember, no new shops, cinemas, theatres, gyms, cafes or restaurants, just cameras, lots and lots of cameras.
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