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 have most of this (not hospital, swimming pool or access to mainline rail) in a non-descript (not naice) suburb of Bristol and I have to say it is brilliant for quality of life and community cohesion. I'm a fan.

(fuel taxes are already very low because they have not kept up with inflation)

@user1477391263 yes, despite the Daily Mail whinging about a "war on motorists", fuel duty has been frozen for years now. Regulated rail fares (i.e. controlled by the government) however have just gone up and up - in one year under George Osborne the rate was as high as RPI+3.

Regarding your point about the space taken up for parking, I attach two photos of the US city of Denver. One from the 1920s, the other from 1976. The city displaced its poor people (naturally), kicking them out just to build car parks.

Nobody has in any way addressed the issue of the people that work in the GP surgery, dentist, library, small shops and cafes.
We've established they can't live in the 15 minute neighbourhood (unless there's some random chance they did anyway - it will either be a neighbourhood where the doctor will live or be a neighbourhood where the checkout staff live). So they have to commute in. Hence increasing traffic at the times they commute i.e. rush hour.
I'd love for there to be excellent public transport and maybe planning these zones will include this but if it's Oxford style, there's no provision for people who live in surrounding villages, none of which are big enough to have their own set of 15 minute neighbourhoods. So the doctors can live in Oxford but the baristas can't, and can't get to work.

Of course, good medical care means specialist doctors who do tend to end up in specialist centres (it's not very helpful having a really great heart surgeon in one cottage hospital in one village and a really great obstetrician in another cottage hospital in another village, they do kind of need to be in the same higher level hospital) so they will live in one of Oxford's 15 minute neighbourhoods but all the nurses and hospital porters won't be able to afford to live in them.

Nobody has in any way addressed the issue of the people that work in the GP surgery, dentist, library, small shops and cafes.
That's because it's an "issue" that mostly exists in your imagination. 15 minute neighbourhoods are about having the opportunity to access basic services within walking distance of one's home. That's all.

We've established they can't live in the 15 minute neighbourhood
Have you? On what basis do you make that claim? Have you never met anyone who lives around the corner from their workplace?

it willeitherbe a neighbourhood where the doctor will liveorbe a neighbourhood where the checkout staff live).
Why? Has someone set up ghettos so that GPs don't have to live next door to lowly supermarket workers?

So they have to commute in. Hence increasing traffic at the times they commute i.e. rush hour.
Like they did already? Except that those who do travel in to work will have less traffic to deal with because those who live close enough to their destination to walk or cycle can now do so. So even if you do continue to drive to work you benefit.

Are you saying that it would be a bad thing if say 75% of the population were within walking distance of a GP/primary school/shop/bus stop?

You surely cant be suggesting that its likely that people on minimum wage are living in the city centre. Its too expensive.

Examples in the UK on this thread that people have named are Oxford and Harrogate, hugely expensive and chichi areas, what property can someone afford on a supermarket wage in the city centre?

Someone asked me that question up-thread. I mentioned that I live within 10 minutes walk of a council estate, and that housing around here is a mix of houses and flats, social and private rented and mortgaged.

I know it’s more unusual outside London, but not all of us live in suburban ghettoes surrounded by acres of identical houses, and that’s certainly not what 15 minute neighbourhoods look like.

Has someone set up ghettos so that GPs don't have to live next door to lowly supermarket workers?
Have you met UK housing markets?
I mean, I guess some GPs will live in social housing one bedroom flats, or with their parents, but generally they don't want to (and given our British love of gardens, and the way the housing stock is in UK cities, they will probably be living in a more sprawling area).
Whereas if you are on minimum wage you can't afford a detached house in a Home Counties suburb.

I used to work in very central London, in an area that was inside the old congestion charge zone. It was a very walkable area near my work, which was nice, but most of the service workers didn't live locally, nobody who worked in my office lived locally, and neither did the HCPs etc.
I went to a sandwich shop most days, and one of the owners did live round the corner, and the other one lived in Kent. The one that lived round the corner could have a car without paying the full congestion charge, and they really needed the car to get their supplies, they had off-street parking next to the shop. The one who lived in Kent I think had a partner with a job in Kent.
The street market was staffed by workers who came from outside London - including coming weekly from France. Most of the ones who lived in England preferred to live further out so they could have more space around their homes (either just a more leafy area, or a garden, or both). Same for the HCPs, teachers, retail managers etc.

As well as doing very poorly for public transport in the UK, we don't do very well for "mixed" housing neighbourhoods. London actually does quite a bit better than some areas because, ironically, of the bomb damage - large houses that have remained intact including with small gardens, are side by side with post-war blocks of flats, providing houses with mixed income and size levels near each other. Where I live now is all large Victorian houses (like a PP, many are HMOs), a mile away is all 30s semis, and a mile in the other direction is the city centre which is actually pretty walkable but has little housing, except for a few "modern" blocks of studio flats.

No one of these neighbourhoods can house everyone that would work in a 15 minute neighbourhood, because the housing is so homogeneous. A single barista isn't going to live in a 30s semi on their own. A GP isn't going to live in a converted bus station studio flat where all the other residents are students.

Bellac, the idea is that people living throughout the city should have more hubs of local services near them.

I already talked about this, but the model in European and Japanese cities that are already like this, is that you have good public transit (rail or trams) with stops/stations through the city and its suburbs, and these stops/stations become clusters of services which spring up naturally because the people now using these services will naturally find it convenient to pick up shopping and use services as they enter and exit stations.

This ends up creating a situation where you are probably within a 15 minute or so walk of most things you need frequently, which reduces the need to grind through slow traffic and then grind around looking for parking spaces for everything you have to do. Sometimes the things you want to do or need to are further afield, so you might drive there or use your public transport links to go to that part of town or to another town. That’s fine too.

It’s really very easy and there is nothing weird or hard about it.

Well, to be fair, I have most of those things within walking distance (probably more like 20-30 minutes for some things). Except for the dentist (no NHS ones in my town) and the zoo! But plenty of wide open spaces, on the edge of the countryside, parks, shops, cafes/restaurants, pubs, bars, theatre/cinema, supermarkets, doctors, hospitals with minor injuries (A&E a 15 minute drive), gyms, swimming pool etc. But I live in a fairly small town on the edge of the countryside. In a house with off-road parking.

drspuse "Nobody has in any way addressed the issue of the people that work in the GP surgery, dentist, library, small shops and cafes."

I asked OP if the workers were living in the 15 min zone but no reply.

Who said anything about city centres? The whole point of 15 minute neighbourhoods is that everyone (within reason) should have access to basic facilities within walking distance of their home.

I've got that. I don't live in a city. I live in a village on the edge of a small (<5k) town. Within a 15 minute walk I can get to a Co-Op, GP, bus stop, pharmacy, primary school, cafés and takeaways. I've measured on Google Maps and there isn't anyone in that town more than 20 minutes' walk from those amenities.

Wouldn't it be nice if every town had the same facilities?

@drspouse as I've pointed out, the idea is that everywhere should be 'walkable'. Yeah, some people will continue to travel to get to work. I cycle 3.5 miles to work. Maybe a GP might drive to their surgery in the middle of a council estate. But at least they won't have to negotiate everyone else driving to get to centralised amenities.

In general we're not actually as ghettoised as the picture you paint. Try visiting certain American cities where the freeway makes a very clear division between rich areas and poor areas.

Do you think it is a good or a bad thing for more people to be able to walk to basic amenities?

The discussion is about 15 minute cities, its in the title, but ok, neighbourhoods too.

I can only refer back to what another poster said 'have you met the UK housing market?'

It would be fantastic if every town/village/city had these facilitites but the reality is that most people cant afford to live on basic wages near amenities, housing is far more expensive for those near those amenities, which is the point that people keep side stepping

I cant even afford to live near those amenities within that distance and Im on a good wage

Oh God, do I really have to keep saying it?

When you have cities centered around public transit (rather than lots of car use) with rail/tram stops, most people use these daily, and shops and services will inevitably spring up and develop around these points because those are now natural and convenient places for people to do shopping or use services.

This model works just fine in many, many other countries already.

Sorry, everyone, if I am starting to sound like a stuck record, but some people in this forum seem to have huge issues with comprehending a really quite simple idea?

As long as we are on the subject of housing: it is easier to develop new housing in areas where public transport, walking and cycling is the norm, because these things are easier to scale up than cars.

More walkers and cyclists don’t cause congestion levels unless you get to serious crowding levels, and more users of public transport generate monies in the form of fares which can then be ploughed back into the transportation system and used to create more frequent services.

Cars do not work this way, because the extra roads and the very large amounts of land required for parking them (not just overnight but in every location where the car is likely to be throughout the whole day) are harder to create if the number of users goes up.

So every time a housing development is proposed, in car dependent cities, there is an immediate flurry of panic about “But…. Cars! Where will all the cars go? They will be parked all over the roads, we will be blocked in, the roads will be clogged, I won’t be able to get to work on time…” and the development gets blocked by angry residents.

When public transport, walking and cycling make up more journeys, it’s easier to say yes to new housing developments in the area.

Have you missed the entire point? Which is that where gaps in service provision exist, those gaps should be filled. Build a GP surgery and primary school in the middle of that council estate, rather than forcing the poor families to travel to access amenities. If everywhere had access to these facilities then there wouldn't be a housing cost differential between the places that have and the places that have not.

If everywhere had access to these facilities then there wouldn't be a housing cost differential between the places that have and the places that have not.
Yes there would - people pay more to live in places that have nice coffee shops, are near the GPs and a family butcher's, but they also pay more for a garden, a four bedroom detached house, and period properties and, because as we have established people DO have to commute to work in these 15 minute neighbourhoods, people will pay more to live in an area that has working districts all around it so they can cycle/walk/get a shorter bus ride.

Blackbird Leys houses won't command the same prices as Summertown even if there are coffee roasters, an integrated health centre, and lots of rhyme time sessions at the library (in fact, it does have these things, but house prices are not as high as Summertown, strangely enough - Have you met the British public?)

No I havent missed any points but there is some myopia here from you and other posters

As many posters have pointed out, there is no aim for every where to have access to these facilities, posters have said 'this isnt about your area or that less townie/city area' wtte

So the areas which are further out and which wouldnt be part of this are naturally going to be cheaper to live in, hence people on lower incomes living there, just like right now

And yes, I'll shout about the need for a gp surgery and primary school in the middle of an estate, any estate and I vote in the ways that should enable that, but that isnt what occurs as you must surely know. The surgery and primary school have long shut, the library shut, the bus route ended, the local shop costs a fortune to shop in and really only sells vapes and booze, no leisure centre, or if there is a leisure centre it is unaffordable, no park because it was built on for housing

Haven't yet RTFT, but I think what you're missing, OP, is that the problem isn't with 15-minute cities but with the traffic controls that have been proposed under that deceptive title in places like Oxford.

Let's look at Oxford, for instance. The city decided to prevent people from driving from neighbourhood to neighbourhood -- not to impose a congestion charge, by the way, but literally to close off roads and to impose heavy automatic penalties.

The city did not decide to make sure that every neighbourhood had all the elements of a 15-minute city. The city did not open more post office branches or schools. Or museums and bookshops, which perhaps many of you don't consider part of the 15-minute concept. The city certainly didn't and can't open more private shops such as supermarkets and hair salons. Doctors' surgeries tend not to be that close together in the outskirts of Oxford, and let's not even go into NHS dentists. There was no exemption from the rules, by the way, for the disabled who might have to go further for schools and medical appointments and be less able to use public transport.

I think we'd all love living in a city where all essentials are 15 minutes' walk away, but that isn't what Oxford did or what Canterbury proposed.

Incidentally, I live right on the edge of Zone 1 in London and my neighbourhood isn't within 15 minutes' walk of some of these basics. We do have a branch post office inside a small shop, but we don't have a full supermarket. Nor a tube station, and the bus frequencies (while obviously much better than in most of the country) have been systematically cut since Covid because TfL is bankrupt.

If government want to reduce driving, they have to FIRST provide alternatives. And no, cycling doesn't count, given the number of hills, disabled and elderly people, and rainy days we have.

I didn't say that prices wouldn't vary. I said that access to amenities would no longer be the cause of it.

No more "I can't afford to live somewhere close to a GP" because nigh-on everywhere would be close to a GP.

@EmmaEmerald my local council charges for bike parking in (semi) secure lockers.

It is £48 per year plus £28.50 for each key, or discounted rate of 34 quid on council estates.

A residents parking permit for a car is £200 a year. Each bike hanger takes seven bikes and takes up one car parking space so earns the council £336 a year, more then the car permit.

Regular Sheffield stands cost peanuts to put in and maintain so not worth charging for. You can fit 6-10bikes in one car space so if you really wanted to charge, it would be a very small amount and not worth it to administer.

If you want to tax by wear on tear on roads rathe than emissions (which I agree with the rise of EVs is inevitable as they damage the roads just as much or even more as heavier) then cycles don't cause much wear.

The standard figure is that damage to roads is proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight. A car, which weighs about ten times as much as a cyclist plus bike (say 1000kg versus 100kg for an large adult male and bike) should pay 10x10x10x10, or 10,000 times as much in ‘road tax’.That could mean if a car pays £100, a bike should pay 1p.

The idea behind these planning policies is that these decisions to cut services would be reversed.

No, not every last dwelling can possibly be within 15 minutes of everything, but it's not unreasonable to think that it should be possible for all settlements of >10k people to have these facilities in easy reach of the inhabitants. That's nearly 85% of the population covered. It's certainly not unreasonable to include this into council planning policy.

Your point about housing prices is often untrue too. Small villages often have higher property prices than nearby towns because rural living is seen as desirable, whether that means middle class retirees, second home owners, or holiday lets push up prices relative to wages.

This- plus, it’s not just the facilities that are crap it’s the pavements. I’m a wheelchair user and I can’t get 15 minutes from my home without extreme difficulty and some danger because the pavements are uneven/have rivets/don’t have dropped curbs etc. Round here they would have to build the facilities and replace the pavement before it could work.

Oxford's traffic controls have nothing to do with 15 minute neighbourhoods though.

A 15 minute city is a lovely idea in theory, but it will require huge amounts of investment to make it practical, even in London. I can't see that level of investment happening. Councils are cash strapped, and the austerity mantra means all the services we do have are stripped back to the bare bones. I can't see there being a police station within a 15 minute walk of everyone living in a city, for example.

My bigger concern is with LTNs, and how these will interact with 15 minute cities. LTNs have caused no end of trouble in my part of London. All the traffic is now concentrated on a few roads, whilst other roads are completely deserted, to the extent I would not walk down them alone at night. Buses are caught up in the congestion, as are cyclists and pedestrians, who also have to breathe in the excess fumes generated by standing traffic on roads that simply are not equipped to manage the volumes.

The pro LTN brigade simply do not seem to recognise that people also live on boundary roads, and that those who do live on them are literally breathing in excess pollution so that others may benefit. It is utterly shocking to me that these policies are being held up as some sort of success by publications with egalitarian credentials, such as the Guardian. They literally treat people as either being worthy of clear air or unworthy of clean air, based solely on the street on which they happen to live. We have seen no evidence of any 'traffic evaporation' either. I find it laughable that people think anyone would choose to drive in London. It's not a pleasant experience at the best of times.

I applaud the intention, but it is difficult to escape the feeling that these are ultimately about revenue generation for cash strapped councils, and have very little to do with meaningfully improving air quality for anyone but those living in the middle of an LTN.