15-minute City Pdf

[Olowookere Devost]

The15-minute city (FMC[2] or 15mC[3]) is an urban planning concept in which most daily necessities and services, such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride from any point in the city.[4] This approach aims to reduce car dependency, promote healthy and sustainable living, and improve wellbeing and quality of life for city dwellers.[5]

Implementing the 15-minute city concept requires a multi-disciplinary approach, involving transportation planning, urban design, and policymaking, to create well-designed public spaces, pedestrian-friendly streets, and mixed-use development. This change in lifestyle may include remote working which reduces daily commuting and is supported by the recent widespread availability of information and communications technology. The concept has been described as a "return to a local way of life".[6]

The concept's roots can be traced to pre-modern urban planning traditions where walkability and community living were the primary focus before the advent of street networks and automobiles. In recent times, it builds upon similar pedestrian-centered principles found in New Urbanism, transit-oriented development, and other proposals that promote walkability, mixed-use developments, and compact, livable communities.[7] Numerous models have been proposed about how the concept can be implemented, such as 15-minute cities being built from a series of smaller 5-minute neighborhoods, also known as complete communities or walkable neighborhoods.[4]

The concept gained significant traction in recent years after Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo included a plan to implement the 15-minute city concept during her 2020 re-election campaign.[1] Since then, a number of cities worldwide have adopted the same goal and many researchers have used the 15-minute model as a spatial analysis tool to evaluate accessibility levels within the urban fabric.[2][4][8]

The 15-minute city concept is derived from historical ideas about proximity and walkability, such as Clarence Perry's neighborhood unit. As an inspiration for the 15-minute city, Carlos Moreno, an advisor to Anne Hidalgo, cited Jane Jacobs's model presented in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.[13][14][15]

The ongoing climate crisis and global COVID-19 pandemic have prompted a heightened focus on the 15-minute city concept.[14] In July 2020, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group published a framework for cities to "build back better" using the 15-minute concept, referring specifically to plans implemented in Milan, Madrid, Edinburgh, and Seattle after COVID-19 outbreaks.[16] Their report highlights the importance of inclusive community engagement through mechanisms like participatory budgeting and adjusting city plans and infrastructure to encourage dense, complete, overall communities.[16]

A manifesto published in Barcelona in April 2020 proposed radical change in the organization of cities in the wake of COVID-19, and was signed by 160 academics and 300 architects. The proposal has four key elements: reorganization of mobility, (re)naturalization of the city, de-commodification of housing, and de-growth.[17][18][19]

The 15-minute city is a proposal for developing a polycentric city, where density is made pleasant, one's proximity is vibrant, and social intensity (a large number of productive, intricately linked social ties) is real.[14][20][21][22] The key element of the model has been described by Carlos Moreno as "chrono-urbanism" or a refocus of interest on time value rather than time cost.[14][23]

Urbanist Carlos Moreno's 2021 article introduced the 15-minute city concept as a way to ensure that urban residents can fulfill six essential functions within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their dwellings: living, working, commerce, healthcare, education and entertainment.[14] The framework of this model has four components; density, proximity, diversity and digitalization.[14]

Moreno cites the work of Nikos Salingaros, who theorizes that an optimal density for urban development exists which would encourage local solutions to local problems.[14][24] The authors discuss proximity in terms of both space and time, arguing that a 15-minute city would reduce the space and time necessary for activity.[14] Diversity in this 15-minute city model refers to mixed-use development and multicultural neighborhoods, both of which Moreno and others argue would improve the urban experience and boost community participation in the planning process. Digitalization is a key aspect of the 15-minute city derived from smart cities. Moreno and others argue that a Fourth Industrial Revolution has reduced the need for commuting because of access to technology like virtual communication and online shopping. They conclude by stating that these four components, when implemented at scale, would form an accessible city with a high quality of life.[14]

Kent Larson described the concept of a 20-minute city in a 2012 TED talk,[25] and his City Science Group at the MIT Media Lab has developed a neighborhood simulation platform[26] to integrate the necessary design, technology, and policy interventions into "compact urban cells". In his "On Cities" masterclass for the Norman Foster Foundation,[27] Larson proposed that the planet is becoming a network of cities, and that successful cities in the future will evolve into a network of high-performance, resilient, entrepreneurial communities.[28][time needed]

In 2013, Luca D'Acci (Associate Professor in Urban Studies at the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy) proposed a city model "where each point can reach continuous natural areas, job locations, centralities, shops, amenities (recreational, medical, cultural), usual daily activities by 15/30 minute walking or within 15 minute biking".[29][30] He called it a "one-mile green city", or "Isobenefit Urbanism".[31][32][33] (The term "isobenefit" is a portmanteau word from "iso" meaning equal, and "benefit", which he defines as advantageous amenities, services, workplaces and green space.)

In a 2019 article using Shanghai as a case study, Weng and his colleagues proposed the 15-minute walkable neighborhood with a focus on health, and specifically non-communicable diseases.[4] The authors suggest that the 15-minute walkable neighborhood is a way to improve the health of residents, and they document existing disparities in walkability within Shanghai. They found that rural areas, on average, are significantly less walkable, and areas with low walkability tend to have a higher proportion of children.[4] Compared to Moreno et al., the authors focused more on the health benefits of walking and differences in walkability and usage across age groups.[14][4]

In their 2019 article, Da Silva et al. cite Tempe, Arizona, as a case study of an urban space where all needs could be met within 20 minutes by walking, biking, or transit. The authors found that Tempe is highly accessible, especially by bike, but that accessibility varies with geographic area. Compared to Moreno et al., the authors focused more on accessibility within the built environment.[34]

Israel has embraced the concept of a 15-minute city in new residential developments. According to Orli Ronen, the head of the Urban Innovation and Sustainability Lab at the Porter School for Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba, and central Jerusalem have been effective in delivering on the concept at least in part in new developments, but only Tel Aviv has been relatively successful.[36]

Dubai launched the 20-minute city project in 2022, where residents are able to access daily needs & destinations within 20 minutes by foot or bicycle.[37] The plan involves placing 55% of the residents within 800 meters of mass transit stations, allowing them to reach 80% of their daily needs and destinations.[38]

In the Philippine's largest city, the government of Quezon City announced in 2023 its plans to implement the 15-minute city concept to establish a walkable, people-friendly, and sustainable community for its residents. Influenced by the city of Paris, the government aims to make urban development people-centered and to further reach the city's goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.[39][40]

The 2016 Master Plan for Shanghai called for "15-minute community life circles", where residents could complete all of their daily activities within 15 minutes of walking. The community life circle has been implemented in other Chinese cities, like Baoding and Guangzhou.[41] Xiong'an is also being developed under the 15-minute life circle concept.[42]

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, introduced the 15-minute city concept in her 2020 re-election campaign and began implementing it during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, school playgrounds were converted to parks after school hours, while the Place de la Bastille and other squares have been revamped with trees and bicycle lanes.[6]

Cagliari, a city on the Italian island of Sardinia, began a strategic plan to revitalize the city and improve walkability.[44] The city actively solicited public feedback through a participatory planning process, as described in the Moreno model. A unique aspect of the plan calls for re-purposing public spaces and buildings that were no longer being used, relating to the general model of urban intensification.[44]

In Utrecht, the fourth-largest city in the Netherlands, 100 percent of residents can reach all city necessities in a 15-minute bike ride, and 94% in a 10-minute bike ride.[45] The local municipality has plans to improve this further by 2040.[46]

In September 2023, the UK Government announced plans to "protect drivers from over-zealous traffic enforcement", in what it says is "part of a long-term plan to back drivers". These included plans "to stop councils implementing so called '15-minute cities', by consulting on ways to prevent schemes which aggressively restrict where people can drive".[47][48]

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