Co-Author: Smriti Lahoti, Dimple Amarnani
February 10, 2022
Before the lockdown around the world, our lives were suffering from long commutes, leaving us with little time for ourselves, our families, and our friends. Traffic polluted our air and smog blanketed our skylines. The switch to “working from home” made us question the futility of multi-hour commutes.
There is a concept that can help us reclaim our time, health, well-being and our communities better, this idea/concept is a 15-minute city – a way to make urban living less stressful and more sustainable. The “15-minute city” is an approach to urban design that aims to enhance the quality of life by creating cities where everything a resident needs is often reached within a few minutes by foot, bike or public transit. This concept puts an emphasis on careful planning at the neighborhood level, giving each district features it needs to support a full life – including jobs, food, recreation, green space, housing, medical offices, small businesses and more. Many major cities like Paris, Melbourne, Detroit, Portland and Ottawa are performing on similar concepts.
The “15-minute city” is an approach to urban design that aims to improve quality of life by creating cities where everything a resident needs can be reached within 15 minutes by foot, bike, or public transit. This concept puts stress on careful planning at the neighborhood level, giving each district features it must support a full life – including jobs, food, recreation, green space, housing, medical offices, small businesses, and more.
Case Study:
In fact, growing food locally could well become another key component of the 15-minute city. A US grocery chain has begun growing vegetables hydroponically during a shipping container in its parking zone, and similar concepts might be wont to grow food hyper-locally. A planned housing affordable development includes an on-site greenhouse, and new ideas are allowing people to grow vertical gardens on balconies and even indoors. From India, Chennai is the first city that is moving towards this concept.
Advantages:
- A boost to the local economy
A 15-minute city intends to procure more footfall for local high streets, diverse employment opportunities, and efficient use of buildings and street space. The economic benefits of better streetscapes can be profound as people-centered streets in Oklahoma helped to elevate the city’s economic fortunes and cater to its obesity problem, yielding results in just five years.
2. Better health and wellbeing
The physical and mental health benefits of active travel, cleaner air, easy access to healthy food options, quality green space, and stronger community ties that reduce loneliness are vast and well documented. The urban heat island effect will be reduced if more trees, vegetation, and green space are provided and improve biodiversity, delivering further health and economic benefits.
3. Inclusive and equitable city with a stronger sense of community
Equity and inclusivity are the primary essences of any successful 15-minute city approach, from prioritizing the most underdeveloped areas to designing streets and active transport schemes for vulnerable users. A 15-minute city strategy paves the way to, in close collaboration with local people, more public spaces for people to play and socialize while supporting neighborhood businesses.
4. Lower transport emissions and better air quality
A 15-minute strategy will reduce unnecessary and unwanted travel and promote a modal shift away from private vehicles, delivering all the rewards of green and healthy transport and cleaner air.
Conclusion:
The concept of a 15-Minute City touches upon various problems faced by a city and its citizens. In a general sense, people today are inviting human-scaled built structures and pedestrian-friendly cities along with lots of services and amenities accessible to them. In addition, climatic changes are also a major concern to be taken into consideration by the policy- makers. Overall, all these parameters fall under the larger umbrella of the 15- Minute City and work as a module on the whole.
References:
15-Minute City. (n.d.). 15-Minute City. [online] Available at: https://www.15minutecity.com/.
the Charette. (n.d.). 15-minute city | Urban Design Competition. [online] Available at:
https://thecharette.org/15-minute-city/embed/#?secret=tV8SwPuEPG#?secret=CzGcVJDq9J
[Accessed 9 Feb. 2022].
mrsc.org. (n.d.). MRSC – What Is a 15-Minute City? (And Why You Should Care). [online] Available at:
[Accessed 9 Feb. 2022].
Architectural Trends & Theories 
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