Carlos Moreno of Pantheon Sorbonne University in Paris draws our attention to “the 15-minute city”. Due to Moreno, this concept of cities goes in the opposite direction of modern urbanism, it attempts to provide a human-scale urban life experience. The 15-minute city can provide its citizens a walkable or bikeable access to meet their needs within a 15-minute distance. Hence, Moreno calls for rethinking our cities around four guiding principles, seen as key building blocks to this concept: Ecology, Proximity, Solidarity, and Participation. Furthermore, Moreno illustrates three key features of the 15-minute city as the following: “First, the rhythm of the city should follow humans, not cars. Second, each square meter should serve many different purposes. Finally, neighborhoods should be designed so that we can live, work and thrive in them without having to constantly commute elsewhere”.
Figure 1. A scene from the “15-minute city” by Carlos Moreno during his TED talk. He mentions that the first city to adapt the 15-minute city idea is Paris, France. Its mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has suggested a big bang of proximity which includes a massive decentralization via development of new services for each of the districts. This leads to a reduction in traffic by increasing bike lanes between spaces of leisure, encouraging local shops, and building more green spaces, etc. Image source: https://www.ted.com/talks/carlos_moreno_the_15_minute_city?language=en, retrieved on August 15, 2021.
Figure 2. The quarter-hour city of Paris. Illustration by: Micaël Dessin / for Paris-en-commun. Image source: https://www.citiesforum.org/news/15-minute-city/, retrieved on 15 August 2021.
Furthermore, Andres Duany and Robert Steuteville in their article on “defining the 15-minute city”, draw attention to incorporating transit into the 15-minute city. They explain the necessity of a walkable urban fabric, considering the quality of the pedestrian experience, to make the 15-minute city work. In terms of transit services, they consider two kinds of stations that need to be incorporated: community and commuter transit stops. The former is accessed through “human-powered mobility” or active transportation (walking and biking), and the latter by cars. They illustrate that the community and commuter transit stops should be located at the center and the edge of the 15-minute city successively to allow access to distant locations.
Figure 3. Incorporating community and commuter transit stops into the 15-minute city. Image source: https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2021/02/08/defining-15-minute-city, retrieved on 15 August 2021.
Moving towards post pandemic recovery, the 15-minutes city concept is relevant. It delivers wellbeing, boosts local economies, encourages community building, provids climate benefits, etc. Hence, by promoting self-sufficient communities, the 15-minutes city ensures a sustainable and liveable urban future.