The Real Problem With 15-Minute Cities

We promised ourselves never to make another video about 15-minute cities. The conspiracy theories about people being locked inside their homes and unable to travel are just so far out of left field that it’s hard to engage with them like any normal disagreement. But this video
is going to be different. Rather than tackling the conspiracy theories, we want to actually talk about the problems or at least the limitations of the 15-minute city concept itself.

Keep Urbanity rolling:

References:

[ThrvidTheViking]

Your basic needs within 15 minutes, your specialized needs within 30 minutes to an hour...I mean, that just sounds like what cities used to be.

[Sythemn]

That's way more literal than I'd imagined.

Figured 15 minutes meant to the generalized needs like groceries, a job, mandatory schools, public transit stations, and a park / greenspace of some kind.

Not 15 minutes to literally everything.

[nathang]

I honestly didn't realize that it was so literal. I assumed that 15 min cities was just an illustrative rule of thumb to encourage density and mixed use

[cookiedawg]

I kind of always assumed that 15-minute cities only really include the essentials. If you need to go to a specific place in a city for work or school, you should be able to live nearby and have that 15 minute city in that area. So you can get a home near, say, the hospital if you work as a nurse, and then have close access to schools, groceries, restaurants, gyms etc. The basics should be accessible within 15 minutes from anywhere, not big specialized features

[Filly]

The fact that walking and cycling get lumped together bothers me. Cycling is on average around 3 times faster than walking (varies alot obvs), and because the area of a circle increases by radius squared. The area of a neighborhood that's within a 15 minute cycle is about 9 times larger than a neighborhood that's a 15 minute walk. That a huge, qualitative difference in the goal we're taking about, and it's not a fair discussion to lump them together.

[ramiro]

Saying "legalize grocery stores" makes you sound like a crazy person and gives you a real sence of the insanity of american urban planning

[dirtywaterpj_dj]

Call me dumb, or maybe not a conspiracy theorist, but when I first heard of the 15-minute concept, I assumed that it meant most things should be available within a close proximity of your home, not absolutely everything. Here in London, England, I consider most of the city to qualify. I have shopping, bars and cinemas nearby. But my workplace (when I have to go there) is a bit further. And I frequently travel further for some cultural events. Decreasing the need to travel unnecessarily is the thing. This is what I assumed. It puzzles me that people invent these crazy ideas about “ghettoes”. What’s happening here is that some local councils are improving infrastructure for cyclists, discouraging unnecessary driving, making the streets more attractive in which to be a pedestrian. Too many car drivers have a mindset very similar to American gun owners though.

[Skyfire-x]

The name 15 minute city is a misnomer. 15 minute neighborhood is more apt. What can you do in a 15 minute walk from your front door?

[RMTransit]

This is a great video, I really think urban planning too often falls into orienting itself around trends or too simple "rules". A bit part of the benefit of a big city is literally at the margin when the number of something available goes from zero to one!

For example, it's great that a big city can support many cafes so people can find a cafe in their local neighborhood (15 mins), or many hospitals so there is one in their local borough (30 mins), but I think people probably appreciate the super niche even more - like say a cool urbanism social group that there is only one of in a whole metro area - even if you need to travel very far to access it!

Cities being able to support increasingly niche amenities because of raw numbers is super underrated!

[Lildizzle]

if you need to go to university, you should be living near the university, that doesn't mean we build a university on every block, it means we build housing around the university so people can move where they need to be the most.

[scpatlnow]

I think the problem with "15min cities" is people try to take the definitions as rigid and absolute. Great places to live (for me) have always been the ones where you can walk over to a small market to pick up a couple of things for dinner, or where places for casual dining are a short walk. Other things like a small hardware store or similar are nice too. No place will be able to supply the employment of everyone and considering how expensive some of these areas are to live in, they certainly wont provide everyone with the high paying job within 15 mins they need to live there.

[udishomer]

It was always clear to me that a "15 minutes by walk/bicycle" rule does not cover Commute to work, Hospitals, Universities, Sports Stadiums, etc.

The 15 minutes area should include:
Grocery shopping, pharmacy, elementary school, high school, clinic/doctors offices, park, cafes/restaurants, playground and very basic sports facilities (basketball/futsal/whatever)

[LaustinSpayce]

I think the spirit of the 15 minute city is what’s most important. That you can have access to most of your needs within a 15 min walk or bike.

Like for myself, if I were to walk or bike from my home in Singapore, in 15 minutes I can access supermarkets, hair salon, a couple shopping malls, a nice waterfront park, swimming pool, a few restaurants, my local GP, local library, a couple of nice bars, local poly clinic (not quite a hospital but a health centre), community centre, two mcDonald’s, a cinema, and so on and so on.

But if I want to catch a specific band playing in town, go to my client’s office in the business park across town, eat Lebanese food in the Arab quarter… I’d have to travel further out with public transit (or Drive) - and Singapore is currently (slowly) transitioning into a ‘Car Lite City’ - so far the improvements and things they’ve done so far have been underwhelming, but cautiously optimistic for the future.

[GLitchesHaxandBadAudio]

TL:DR for my comment below, a “15 minute neighborhood” is a better idea than a “15 minute city, ” but there should be layers to the classification system to reflect how cities function.

There definitely is an optics problem, so changing it from “15 minute cities” to “15 minute neighborhoods” where one can access most to all (it’s a sliding scale for some) of those generalized amenities, would probably be of benefit to the movement, and it is important we shift zoning, land use regulation, and urban planning to reflect this shift. It also would probably be harder for conspiracy nuts to say a pleasant, 15 minute neighborhood is a totalitarian nightmare designed to trap you forever in squalor.

However, I would content that it should be a layered system. While it’s good to have a bunch of 15 minute neighborhoods, it is important to create larger overarching “30- or 45 minute regions/territories” to reflect the integration of transit and connecting those neighborhoods with larger, more specialized built up regions in a city. It’s good to have those 15 minute neighborhoods clustered and built up with a core around larger transit stops, and it’s probably good to zone most of the commercial and office space around those larger higher order transit stops (metro, LRT, regional rail).

Alternatively, for smaller cities and larger towns, the idea of a “30 minute city” which incorporates transit into the time mix and mixing the generalized and specialized amenities would probably be good too, as they are organically and technically distinct from larger cities and built up areas.

[m.charron]

Anyone who thinks this is some kind of big conspiracy has never travelled - never seen, let alone considered, other ways of living, and urban planning that facilitates quality living.
I didn't like the way the cities and towns in my area were developed, then I went to live in Spain. Now that I've returned, it's utterly depressing. Urbanised zones that are dead. Zero life, zero culture, zero community, zero interest, nothing unique. In any given area, there's zero reason to be there other than to either 1) consume, 2) work, 3) sleep, but not any combination of the 3. Go somewhere where people can live, work, shop, gather, all in the same neighbourhood - it's revelatory. Then add on high quality public transit that quickly takes you anywhere in the city - amazing.

[AlRoderick]

I think a lot of people are missing the point. The idea is that everything you *need to have on a daily basis* is in a 15-minute radius. Like access to some kind of food, the post office, the pharmacy. If every place has that, then everyone is free to relocate close to their job and get that within 15 minutes as well if they can. Once that's happened, a person's daily needs generate zero vehicle trips, with their wants or their less frequent needs generating some trips sometimes. And of course some people living in a given neighborhood are going to have longer commutes, but the people actually providing the services within that neighborhood can live there and not.

The point is that under the current system, people's daily needs generate multiple vehicle trips per day, and even if you're solving that with transit, that's a lot of waste if you can eliminate those trips. It's more achievable to meet everyone's wants if you can reduce the cost of meeting their needs.

[lakrids-pibe]

This video is too short.

It isn't 15 minutes long.


That's my only complaint.

[LoneHowler]

I work at the airport. That's not something you can plunk in a neighborhood.

However it should have more transit options. Right now all it has is two bus routes. It should have multiple bus routes, at least one light rail (connection for two is planned. The first is soon, but the second is in limbo)
It should have a connection to regional rail so smaller towns and cities have access to it for people who don't drive, or don't want to pay expensive parking fees

[elizabethdavis]

Please consider doing a video on what levels of density is required to support small business like coffee shops, burger places, doctors offices and so on!

[vaska]

The biggest flaw with the concept is around housing costs.

You could live within 15 minutes of your work, but if your work is in a downtown/central office job, then you could be looking at rents/mortgage rates that are far too high for your own wages.

This is something that's notorious in some cities like London or Dublin, where housing is so very expensive, that many people who work in the city are forced to commute 1-2 hours to even get to housing they can afford. No doubt the same is likely true for the likes of D.C. or New York, with commuters even living just out of state/territory.

Desirable places to live are going to drive up demand, and prices along with it. Sure, rent controls of various flavours do exist, but even then, living centrally to everything, and living remotely to everything is going to have significant differences in cost.

Transit Oriented Development is certainly the best solution to this kind of issue. I'd argue that you could live in a suburban town that has regular train service to the city centre can be just as great to live in, but of course, that still depends on factors like how late the trains run to, or their reliability.