AIBU to think 15-minute cities are a good thing?

[ForthegracegoI]

I live in a 15-minute city location and it's absolutely brilliant.

Within 15 minutes walk I have easy access to:

Multiple cafes, bars, pubs, restaurants.
Multiple hairdressers, salons, barbers etc.
Many, many shops.
Several gyms.
Cinema.
Two swimming pools.
My oldest's high school is literally across the road. My youngest's school is slightly further, probably 12 minutes walk.
My GP, gynaecologist, dentist, optician - all within 10 minutes walk.
Trauma centre: when my youngest fell and broke his arm on the way home from school, he was in the trauma centre and being treated straight away. We walked there, and walked home afterwards.
Hospital - DH is having an operation in a couple of weeks: he'll walk there, and probably walk home a few days later
Veterinary surgery.
Small supermarket and two different fresh produce markets, and loads of bakers / grocers / 'metro' type supermarkets.
Huge park, including a zoo and botanical garden.
Four smaller parks with play equipment and outdoor gyms - one literally across the road.
Bus stops, underground stops and the main city railway station is (just) within 15 minutes walk.

The 'price' I pay for this:
We live in an apartment, not a house.
We don't have off street parking (we do still have a car for holidays / weekend trips / trips to IKEA for big items) but we do have resident parking - it's never been a problem to get parked.

For work, DH and I both cycle - 25 minutes each way. It's a great way to build exercise into the daily routine. Our apartment building has a secure bike storage room in it.

So as not to drip feed; we don't live in the UK, we live in France. We aren't huge earners - DH is a teacher, I work in administration in a school. We are definitely in a 'naice' area, but it's not super-wealthy at all.

I can't understand why Rishi Sunak would actively campaign against making essential services easily accessible to people living in cities.

I can't understand why Rishi Sunak would actively campaign against making essential services easily accessible to people living in cities.

Because his party have been systematically destroying any and all services available that aren't in the pockets of his cronies

I grew up with shops, doctors, school, pharmacy, public transport, library, ludo,and forests within 15 min walk.
So did my mum but in big city.
It's great.
As adult lived in city centre as you do. Suffered a bit outside of city centre after... Got a car

I can't understand why Rishi Sunak would actively campaign against making essential services easily accessible to people living in cities.
I am assuming it's to appease the "it's a conspiracy to lock us in our areas" crowd.
Plus you know. Money spent

I can't understand why Rishi Sunak would actively campaign against making essential services easily accessible to people living in cities.

Isn't that why you moved to France!!??

My daughter has just been accepted into a SEN school and it's 45 minutes away by car. Plenty of children with additional needs have to travel even further than that to get to a suitable school.

How would it work for families like ours?

Also, I don't like being surrounded by lots of other people. I wish to be a hermit in peace.

There aren't many places expect central London eg z1 that you would get all that within 15 min walk. I live in z3 & am 17 mins walk to the high street which doesn't have a cinema & the swimming pool is more like 20 mins walk. Hospital would be 40 mins plus walk & only 1 park within 15 mins. Lots of food shops, restaurants & transport though although not really useful clothes shops.

I have a car but no off street parking.

Because he knows he’d need to invest in the infrastructure needed to make it work. Enough school places for children in a 15 minute radius, enough GP services, smaller local hospitals/minor injury units, enough dentists etc etc. services have been absolutely decimated under the Tories, centralised and inaccessible in the best of circumstances. He knows that trying 15 minute cities will highlight the utter lack of infrastructure in many areas.

I think in the U.K., the cities have developed through suburbs and they are surrounded by green belts cutting off the rural areas. There’s far less city centre apartment living, and even were there is, schools don’t tend to be near by. Even where there are local shops, they tend to close before get end of the working day (in some continental cities, small shops open up after closing for lunch) to get early evening trade. I just don’t think we are set up fully for 15 minutes cities here and not when families need to be dual income.

My dcs secondary school will not be a 15min walk away & mine in z3 wasn't either, my primary wasn't even within a 15 min walk. I use the car a lot for dcs activities as very little is within 15 mins

My DD14 has SEN so we have to travel into Oxford to her school.

Traffics around there is now just bloody dreadful because of LTNs etc

Some of us have no choice because SEN provision in a lot of schools are crap and we have to travel for work etc too

@ForthegracegoI I have French family & think it's pretty different lifestyle wise.

OP do you pay to drive outside your zone? If not, great.

This exactly. The Tories are desperate and courting the conspiracy theorists and the people who don't care about the environment. I'm guessing there are more of those types of people than we think (my own mother has bought unto the 15 minute cities conspiracy for example, and she's not an extremist - got her covid vaccine, for example).

Live abroad and we live in a similar place

Most of the stuff you could ever need is only 15 mins away

just looked this up

https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-attacks-hare-brained-traffic-schemes-and-vows-to-slam-brakes-on-the-war-on-motorists-12972941

if this is true, he will have my vote. I'm so sick of being on a bus at night with no traffic doing 20mph!

i'm lucky to have most things in easy reach, but for certain work assignments and meeting friends, obviously have to venture further.

I have all of this in my area of London, it’s great. Hard to see how it’s practical for most of the country though- without high population density how can you sustain all this?

Because the facilities around the country are not equal. I live in one of the most deprived areas of the country and just to get to the hospital it's a 45 minute drive, if travelling on public transport you are looking at 1.5 hours minimum and numerous bus changes.

We have no trains at all and have to travel down the valley by bus to catch one if we don't drive.

If you live in a city then it's great for you but for the rest of us it's miserable.

It would work exactly as it does now 🤨
You would take your child. Just children not needing specialist education would have it nearby.
You haven5 bought the conspiracy nonsense that you wouldn’t be able to leave have you? Have you? Surely nobody is that gullible?

All that within a 15 minute walk, except employment. It still takes 25 minutes each way to cycle to work.

I'm going to be brutally honest with you OP and say 'bully for you.'

The vast majority of us who live in ordinary land don't have such splendid access to all that you have described.

It's a great idea and yes, we should be less reliant on cars but for most of us , this idyll just doesn't or cannot exist.

Me... a completely rundown town, poor facilities, very poor bus service which is also very expensive, doctors about three miles away and not easily accessible other than by car, no NHS dentist, poor cinema, a recently condemned leisure centre, schools that aren't great, very reduced library services and so much more.

We have a monthly farmers' market on the village green which sells vastly overpriced 'artisan' bread and a shit ton of olives as well as shitty candles and ruinously expensive charcuterie. So that's good!

Why the fuck do you think she would?
How gullible are you?

Fine for London and other cities, we live in a country village, small shop and pub within walking distance, unless you are disabled. Poor bus service, no employment, doctor, schools, etc. you need a car.

Imagine 2 children and no garden. Where would you keep the trikes when kids are young?
One child at nursery in one direction, other in opposite direction, your place of work somewhere else. It is pissing with rain and the temperature around freezing.
Houses with gardens in suburbs were not imposed on us, they are the result of evolution and compromise. We prefer it, we choose it whenever it is available to us.
These new towns need planning from the start imposing them on existing towns is impossible.
Take your anti-car nonsense back to Oxford. Where we see it is a failure.

We pretty much have that, and house but it is London

Are you referencing U.K. due to the car thing op?

You know he’s lying, yes?
15 minute cities dint restrict driving. LTN do, a bit, by directing traffic by the shortest route to a main road. Nobody is locking anyone in.
Honestly, I despair. How can people be so gullible/easily manipulated?