Rethinking city time by rethinking priorities

The 15-minute / quick access city is about providing people's core needs for general living within 15 minutes (or an alternate sensible timeframe, hence the term "quick access") of active mobility. It links into all seven factors of the model described in the Overview page of this website. The goal is to obtain the essentials you need for living by foot or bike, or a mobility-assisted trip if you have mobility restrictions. Your work is probably outside of the 15-minute radius, unless you are lucky. Whilst acknowledging that many people will own cars, using a car is not part of this design for daily life - except for people who genuinely need one. Click on "The ideal 15 min zone" image, or click here, to watch a 5-minute video by the BBC about the concept. A short insightful book about the 15-minute city has been written by Natalie Whittle.

The 15-minute / quick access city or town means designing for time and designing for people. Consider where you live today - do your regular life needs fit within a 15-minute radius of walking or cycling? How close are core services and facilities to where you live? If you have children, can they get to school easily and safely, without needing a school run by car? In a 15-minute design, shops (selling local produce, and sourced from providers further away in a "local to local" arrangement) and services, bars and cafés, shared gardens, high-quality and secure bike-parking and/or sharing, energy microgrids, and all core aspects of community engagement are close by, they are designed well, and they work for you in a cost-effective way. 

The “15-minute” time reference is tweaked by some cities. Some call it their “20-minute city”, others their “10-minute city”. Cities in Sweden are linking in a hyper-local “one-minute city” micro-strategy to the 15-minute / quick access city (see below for details). 

Key to this concept working successfully and to it delivering meaningful benefits is to ensure everyone is part of a welcoming and inclusive community. It's about ensuring strong friendships and bonds with neighbours and local businesses. Scientific studies show the benefits and life-sustaining value of good social connections. Whilst strong social ties can be aided by technology (it's great that we can link up with friends and family who live apart from us on video calls), in-person interaction is important. This is best achieved when we live in a welcoming, friendly, well designed and safe environment. A good urban design can lead to market-led initiatives with imaginative and interesting local amenities and shops, and novel applications of greenery (trees, movable planters, natural grasslands) and blue spaces (lakes, ponds, fountains) through urban parks and gardens, communal places such as neighbourhood libraries, cinemas and theatres, and important social infrastructure such as healthcare and education - all of which should be accessible without needing a car.

To be clear, it is not possible for everything to be available within a 15-minute car-free radius. In a large city it can easily take an hour (or more) to travel from one area to another using public or private motorised transport – for example, going to a national sports stadium or a major cultural venue, or visiting people in another borough or district. Sometimes this is unavoidable, and for our non-core living needs this is fine, and to be expected. It is not the intention of the 15-minute / quick access concept to reduce the scale and size of cities or to stop people exploring.  

15-minute / quick access principles should ensure urban infrastructure serves citizens, workers and visitors in the most efficient way - and the concept of designing for time is key to this. With the right design, the core services we need can be in neighbourhoods that are joyous to live and work in, not spread out in bubbles and cul-de-sacs that drive isolation and are governed by the need for a car. Some key governance principles for urban environments in developing economies need to be in place for it to work. Fundamental rights to land ownership need to be in place, and core amenities and utility services readily and reliably available for everyone to use.

According to one approach, a neighbourhood should fulfil six social functions: living, working, supplying, caring, learning and enjoying. The 15-minute concept can be overlaid on a city or town plan to see what infrastructure is required for all core services to be within 15 minutes' reach by all citizens in all areas, by foot, bike, scooter, or mobility assistance solutions for those who need them. The approach should provide good active travel options to and from our houses, offices, restaurants, parks, hospitals and sports and cultural venues and high quality and green public transit (e.g. extensive trams, perhaps trackless trams or light rail networks). It is in this way that urban planners can maximise the value of their work - giving citizens and businesses the plumbing to connect themselves up in the way that they determine best fits their specific needs. AI tools might be useful as ideas and options are assessed for how to achieve this vision.

Changing our consumption habits is an important part of how the 15-minute concept works. The growth in demand for online shopping is changing what a high street represents. As well as driving (no pun intended) an increase in warehouse space outside urban environments to facilitate deliveries into the urban areas for doorstep delivery, in some places it is leading to a revival of small, local stores. Reviewing current and future citizen consumption patterns, and working with businesses on this, could help urban planners in their design of 15-minute / quick access areas. It might also help us to focus more on, and enjoy, growing and buying local seasonal produce rather than the "have access to everything, all year round" trend that has become pervasive, certainly in the developed world.

Designing for time can be linked to taking direct control of our own street. At a one-minute scale, the aim is to give citizens the power to own their streets, with the car making way for civic purposes that connect us together and to nature and the environment. See the example below for more details. 

As we do all of this, we should have the freedom to make our local urban environments visually attractive. Art helps. So does greenery. Flower baskets hang from multi-purpose lamp-posts, and greenery is planted and maintained throughout. Native and migratory birds and other animals thrive. We can hear the birds because our streets are quieter. They are less polluted with better air quality - a key factor to maintaining good health.

What risks exist to making the 15-minute / quick access city or town succeed? Lack of engagement is an obvious one. If people are not engaged and consulted, they will not feel involved and opportunities to maximise plans will be missed. Consultation does not mean sending impersonal letters to citizens and businesses, it requires much more effort on the part of city and municipal authorities, which means they need the resources and the time to dedicate to it. Given everyday pressures, many do not have the time to commit to this at the moment. Can this change? Finance for change is key, and if finances cannot be organised in a way that maintains a good economic outcome, the 15-minute concept will not succeed. Fear of restricted freedom is another. The 15-minute / quick access city or town should not be about banning cars, but ensuring we use them wisely.

The 15-minute / quick access city is not a silver bullet – it should be part of a range of initiatives to make cities and towns thriving, greener and more resilient. Some citizens in some cities have perceived the 15-minute design as a way for local government to use video surveillance (notwithstanding the fact that cameras are everywhere on the world's streets today in any case). Such concerns are valid and should be addressed by municipal authorities being proactive with citizens about their 15-minute plans. 

Neighbourhoods in cities and towns continue to be segregated by money, and the 15-minute concept only goes so far to changing this approach. Further out from urban centres, suburban areas need careful design thinking to maintain the 15-minute / quick access city concept, and the involvement of many groups of interested parties to implement the core principles. Interlinked cycle networks are an example of how to make this approach succeed. With careful thought about the future of urban and 'peri-urban' (i.e. the areas in between urban and rural) environments, masterplans can work for the people who live, study, work in and visit them.

The one-minute city is mentioned above. Some cities are working on one-minute flexible street design. They do not replace 15-minute strategies, which are important for urban (and suburban) development. Their goal is to allow flexibility in how streets are used, with citizens in control. 

Pilot schemes (which are tactical resilience measures, per the approach discussed in governance are being run in some parts of the world. It's about designing streets for purposes other than the car, such as providing greenery and meeting places, and making our built environments more convivial. 

As an example of one-minute micro-design, new street furniture has been created in Sweden using light, hard-wearing and sustainable wood designed as a ‘flexible kit of parts’. The foundation of this street furniture is an expandable wooden platform on which benches, tables and other parts can be added / moved / changed by citizens. A wooden platform can exist standalone or it can be joined with others to stretch along a street. Configurations are easily changed, including solutions for people that have physical disabilities. As parts get added and layouts adjusted, the street and the built environment can transform and change during the day. Click on this link to find out more.