Many cities grappling with post-COVID-19 economic recovery have seized on the concept of the “15-minute city,” a city with “complete” and connected neighborhoods where people are able to meet most, if not all, of their needs within a short walk or bike ride from home.
In urban areas around the world, the tenets of the 15-minute city (or the 10-minute or 20-minute city in other locales) have been embedded in policies to create transit-oriented communities, develop public realm and greenspace enhancements, and implement traffic reduction methods. In the aftermath of the pandemic, more cities are looking to these tenets to support an equitable economic recovery in the form of resilient, healthy, and prosperous communities composed of mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods. In pursuit of more self-sufficient neighborhoods, cities are striving to regenerate urban centers, enhance social cohesion, improve health outcomes, and increase housing density.
Paris Envisions 15-Minute Neighborhoods
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For cities like San José with sprawling footprints and office-centric downtowns, these goals might sound lofty. Yet San José embraced very similar principles back in 2011, when it proposed “urban villages” as one of the pillars of , the city’s ambitious general plan. Urban villages were conceived as higher-density, mixed-use districts that could accommodate job and housing growth while reducing the impact of that growth by promoting transit use and walkability. Based on extensive community outreach, the plan proposed 60 urban villages across the city. But progress has been slow, and only 14 of the villages have been planned and approved. As San José plans the remaining 46 proposed villages, ϴbelieves the city can find inspiration in the 15-minute city concept. Indeed, this concept could guide San José’s land use strategy, as well as development and implementation of policies and investments, to more effectively and equitably plan for connected and complete neighborhoods.
ϴhas assembled a cross-sector working group, conducted interviews, and consulted with stakeholders to better understand the utility of the 15-minute city concept for San José. How can the city’s planning system and policies — along with public-private collaborations — apply this framework to transform neighborhoods into places that support health and advance inclusive prosperity? This fall, we will publish a policy brief and a kit of tools that San José can use to apply 15-minute-city principles to equitably accommodating housing and commercial growth, improving access and mobility, and planning for amenity-rich neighborhoods. As a preview, this article explores the background of the 15-minute city concept and its relevance to San José.
Evolution of Neighborhood Planning Movements and Frameworks
The 15-minute city framework follows a century-plus city planning tradition based on walkable, mixed-use urban design principles for effectively accommodating urban growth, city services, and new patterns in mobility and access.
Beginning in the 1890s with the Garden City movement, planners started exploring the idea of self-contained communities surrounded by greenbelts. Their efforts were in response to the environmental degradation and health impacts of the industrial revolution. In the 1920s, Clarence Perry, in one of the first attempts to grapple with increases in automobile use and traffic, introduced the neighborhood unit as the basic planning unit. Perry wherein residents would be able to live near schools, parks, and commercial spaces — neighborhoods that discouraged driving.
But few listened. Around the same time, planners and architects began to create cities and neighborhoods that emphasized higher-density, high-rise buildings and that expanded parking spaces and highways to accommodate cars. In seeking to plan cities to be accessible via cars, modernist urbanism and design effectively began to separate living and work environments, while spreading out other services and amenities.
These design concepts and many others guided urban form toward decentralized living, work, and play environments for the better part of the 20th century. Eventually, the negative impacts to quality of life in the form of traffic, deepening inequality, and climate impacts led to new planning concepts. These concepts focused on bringing human-scale design to neighborhood and city planning.
In the 1990s, the Congress for New Urbanism began to posit cities with a range of housing types and mixed uses. Its benchmark was a five-minute walk among nodes of commercial activity. New Urbanism seeks to address the ills of urban sprawl and suburban development by building more walkable streets, housing, and shopping within close proximity. The approach emphasizes the value of accessible public spaces. The 15-minute city, which has emerged in the last decade, is an evolution of this idea.