https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1626603981937025025
- JamesMelville
Last month, the 15 Minute City made news as a result of debate around Oxfordshire County Council's (UK) plans to test traffic filters to lessen driving as part of the City of Oxford's 2040 growth strategy.
Residents will be permitted to drive about their area starting in 2024, but private automobiles will be fined £70 by license plate recognition cameras if they pass over a screen without a permission.
Bicycles and public transportation will be excluded from the rule. Residents who live outside the zones can apply for a permit up to 25 times per year, and those who wish to cross the filters up to 100 days per year.
Everyday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., filters will be in use. World Economic Forum on March 15, 2022.
Common Edge was the initial publication for this article.
Urban planning fads come and go, but the idea of a walkable, mixed-use metropolis that can be reached in 15 minutes is much more than just a passing trend. The historical foundations of the 15 Minute City are intricately entwined with the current period, which we will continue to experience for a very long time.
The 15 Minute City will become even more vital when shocks and stressors are brought about at quicker and more intense intervals by global war and climate change. Broadacre City, Radiant City, and EcoCity are examples of fads in urban development.
Yet, the idea of 15 minutes to town, which entails having all required services close to one's house through walking, bicycling, or public transportation, has demonstrated that it is more than just a concept and can be a potent force for action in places like Paris, Seoul, Bogotá, and Houston.
Long-time city planners believed that the 15-Minute City was merely a new version of the ancient urban development pattern, which included walkable, mixed-use districts. Yet there must be more happening for a new framework to inspire a global urbanization movement. The epidemic is the simple but unfinished solution.
Without this context, would Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris have pushed for innovative urban planning?
Undoubtedly. But, 15 Minute Town has changed from being a pleasant to have to a rallying cry as COVID-19 and its variations have kept everyone at home.
It became urgently important to meet all of her demands within a short distance on foot, by bike, or by public transportation. Arguments about bike lanes and other amenities that have divided neighborhoods for years have been put on hold as a result of the pandemic's emergency-driven focus on fair urban design.
Carlos Moreno, a professor at the Sorbonne who invented the phrase in 2016, was awarded the Obel Prize in 2021 for his work on the concept. Few urban designers would have given the notion that the house should become the main organizing principle of all urban planning considerable consideration prior to the epidemic.
Even though more people were expected to telecommute, working from home has remained an exception.
Indeed, from the post-agrarian to the industrial and technological revolutions, labour and commerce have always played a key role in the organization of urban planning.
Most cities have historically sprung up around business, which later transformed into more permanent centers of commerce.
Cities have lowered transportation costs by putting people and products closer together.
Cities have emerged as multipliers of culture and innovation by increasing productivity and lowering these expenses.
Yet more than a century after the vehicle became the primary source of transportation, lengthier commutes still dominate urban layout.
Without the presence of an economic metropolitan engine nearby, the suburbs—the complete opposite of the metropolis located 15 minutes away—could not exist.
The 15 Minute City concept is catching on in a manner it wouldn't have before the outbreak because COVID-19 may be making things better.
The house is in the epicenter of urban spatial interactions thanks to the 15-minute city.
It is not necessary to fulfill every cultural comfort and human need just outside your door.
There can only be one Broadway theatrical district in New York.
Yet there is little question that Midtown Manhattan will need to pursue a diversification-based recovery strategy, similar to Lower Manhattan's after the 9/11 terrorist assault.
It also applies to suburbs, and not just to the degree that they have already diversified.
You will be confined to your "half" of the city and further divided by walls.
