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.

Sorry, this is not true. My boundary road has seen an increase of 1800 vehicles per day as a result of the implementation of LTNs here. These are the council's own figures.

Sustrans is not an objective organisation and I would be wary of them because of that.

In any event, do people living on boundary roads matter less than those living within LTNs? Why are they less worthy of clean air than those who live within LTNs?

Unfortunately, inequality is baked into the premise of LTNs, which to my mind renders them indefensible. If you want to reduce car usage or improve air quality, there are other ways to go about it. It is not right that any benefits which do accrue as a result of LTNs do so at the direct and disproportionate expense of others who see no benefits at all.

Likewise there'd be insane costs of design, manufacture, production, maintenance, supervision, administration, etc of a driverless car system, plus building the infrastructure, i.e. parking/charging/maintenance depots, re-designing road layouts, improving satellite/internet communications, etc., plus costs of unemployment benefits to pay people not to work.

the council just refuse to do the simplest, cheapest tweaks that would make a difference to the area. They turned down the street lights to save money, so now it’s darker and unsafer to walk from the bus /station; they refuse to cut back trees overhanging residential roads making walking at night even more difficult…. these are simple, cheap hacks

I totally agree with this - the one really decent cycle path we have locally is overgrown - and so narrower than it should be.

We also have really stupid parking restrictions which are clearly designed to force people into car parks. You have to be about 10 minutes walk away from the station before you can find a road without restrictions, and it's the same around the town centre. I can't see the difference between 4 cars parking somewhere for 2 hours each and one car parking there all day - it's clearly about money making. Things have changed post covid and the restrictions need to be reviewed. But they won't be, because they used to be administered by the local council and now, for some reason, they come under the county council, so no local decision making.

Councils actively do things to achieve the opposite. We had a very popular/busy shopping street in one part of the town near us. It was very well know, and people would go there from all over the town and wider area for the independent shops, mostly drivers, but also people who walked from the local area. Council pedestrianised it! Now it's basically derelict, with just a couple of charity shops and bookies! Not only did they pedestrianise it, which was bad enough, it also took them a whopping year to do it, i.e. a year of roadworks, disruptions, pavements dug up, barriers, etc., which even turned off the local people who walked there. Well done council!

At the other end of town, there's another busy street, which hasn't been pedestrianised, no traffic calming, etc. Guess what, it's still busy, still has a butcher, baker, newsagents, post office and small convenience store. Luckily, the insane council hasn't yet decided to pedestrianise it - perhaps they've learned something from the cock up at the other end of town? Let's hope so!

We don't technically need 15 min cities. We just need able bodied people who live in cities and towns to start using their legs more. I'm always the weirdo who carts an ikea bag to the supermarket and lugs it back in all weathers. My neighbours drive to the shops and queue to park which takes just as long.

We had an award winning high street near us. The council brought in a series of LTNs, which effectively made it impossible to drive to. It's essentially derelict now, lots of independent businesses all closed down. I find it all so short sighted to be honest, and it must be devastating for those business owners concerned.

I kind of have this where I live in the suburbs at the edge of a county town. Primary school, high school, GP surgery, medium sized Co-Op, post office, hairdresser, pharmacy, cafe, library and a few other shops are all within 15 minutes' walk. It takes about 15 minutes to cycle into the town centre (which is declining and full of boarded-up shops).

plus costs of unemployment benefits to pay people not to work. I've spent all my life hearing tales of how jobs are disappearing and vast numbers of people will be permanently unemployed, and it hasn't happened. I can't see taxis and delivery vans being replaced by autonomous vehicles being any different.

You have to be about 10 minutes walk away from the station before you can find a road without restrictions, and it's the same around the town centre. I can't see the difference between 4 cars parking somewhere for 2 hours each and one car parking there all day - it's clearly about money making You would see the difference if you lived in or used the town centre - not being able to park at the supermarket because the car park is full of commuters's cars, never being able to park remotely near your house because of the all-day parking. 4 cars parking for two hours each are quite likely using the local shops and contributing to the local economy, one car parking there all day almost certainly isn't.

@MereDintofPandiculation

You would see the difference if you lived in or used the town centre - not being able to park at the supermarket because the car park is full of commuters's cars

Very easy fix for the supermarket to introduce parking time restrictions, i.e. first 2 hours free then pay by app for longer (camera enforced), or get a voucher from the cashier which gives you a free hour (or two) depending on how much you spend. If the supermarket hasn't done it, it tends to suggest they don't see it as a problem for them.

When travelling to other towns/cities or for football matches, etc., I tend to use the parking apps to find supermarkets or retail parks/DIY store car parks, where you can pay to park if not shopping there (there are lots of them). Eg, in York, you can park all day at Morrisons just outside the city walls for £4.70 compared with council city centre car parks that cost around £16. (First two hours at that Morrisons are free whether you shop there or not).

Assume all your amenities are a 15 minute walk away. The average adult can walk 4 miles in an hour. So 15 mins = 1 mile. A 2 mile round trip on foot , make it 3 adding in the schlepp around the shops. Quite a large area. But small enough for older ppl , children and non drivers in general to navigate.
What's not to like frankly? One of my bros is a conspiracy nut , bless him , and this is his latest hobby horse.

Apparently we are all being penned into open air prisons. We must demand the right to drive 60 miles to our out of town shopping cathedrals. Pfft. Nobody is stopping you.I imagine there are quite a few Tory voters who like being able to shop local.

I'd be surprised if 15 minute cities happened mind , no matter who is in power.

Of course, 15 min cities is a nice aspiration. But can the taxpayer really afford to build so many new schools, GP surgeries, libraries, hospitals, etc? How is it affordable for a town with one library to have to build 2 more so that all the residents are within 15 minutes of one? Who will pay for that. Same with schools, hospitals, etc. Who will pay for all the villages and small towns who used to have a library (many of which were closed under Labour like ours), to have their libraries reinstated and staffed?

It's just another "big city-centric" idea that will benefit the few at the cost paid by all taxpayers throughout the country, many of whom won't see any benefit at all!

I live in a town - it insists on being called - of 1600 ppl. Everything is within a 15 minute walk. Including dentist, 2 pharmacies , 2 doctors surgeries , 2 small shops one of which is a filling station , a medium sized supermarket, 2 hardware stores, 2 caffs and 3 takeaways. In addition to 2 primary schools and one secondary. A church and a library. Oh and I've lost count of barbers / hairdressers. 6 pubs - only 3 open in daytime however.

Having said that , this place serves a rural hinterland and naturally these people still drive in. There's a Lidl 13 miles away in a larger town and of course it is cheaper to shop there. But not insanely so? I quite like dandering about in shopping malls actually. Wouldn't fancy it every week though.

How can I break this down?

No. One. Is. Forcing. Anyone. To. Live. Anywhere. They. Don't. Want. To. Live.

I think people are taking the whole notion MUCH too literally. There’s never going to be a perfect distribution of libraries 15mins walking distance of each other.

It’s really just about a rebalancing from the centralisation of retail and services which has happened over the last few decades and led to car-centric cultures and less local community cohesion. We’ve managed to create loads of big box out of town retail estates and close lots of local services. Shifting planning policy away from this and towards more local retail and services and towards better provision for active travel is just trying to correct where we have gone wrong.

Are you saying that you agree with the Osborne cuts to local services? That you think that everything should be centralised in the name of economy, regardless of quality of life?

15 minute cities to me feels abit like living in Albert Square, they don’t go anywhere except work, the pub and a corner shop

Exactly.
Where I grew up developers built apartments on outskirts of town with nothing. Population increased by 1/3 but with no extra amenities. Now all these have to have 10% mixed use/retail premises. Everyone is really happy about it, not because of distance but because it helps community. Get a doctor on there or small local shop or coffee shop. They also have to build outside space and preferably some kinds playground (basic). Basically going back to how communists built miner's housing my mum grew up in. Flats, playgrounds, amenities right there. Family and community spaces.

I'm currently on holiday in Austria. A long way away from the pub/corner shop/work. No part of the fact that I live a short walk from the local shops stopped me from going on holiday. Nor does it stop me from taking the bus to the theatre in the next town, or the train to Liverpool. Why would it stop me from doing anything?

I had half an hour between trains just now (Austria isn't quite as coordinated as Switzerland) so I wandered into the nearby town (pop 2k, so a large village by UK standards) to grab a bite to eat. I found this self-service shop. No staff present, except whenever they come in to restock. This could allow villages to retain local shops.

Obviously though it relies on honesty, and shoplifting in the UK is now an industry. We'd need to crack down on that first.

I live in what could be described as a 15 minute city in Sweden. As in, it takes 15 minutes to walk from one side to the other, but is really just a village on steroids. We have everything you need but on a smaller scale. We have a small hospital, swimming pool, cinema, schools all the way up to university level, shops, cafes, train station, fire and police station, bank, post office, refuse tip, vets etc. You could happily live here and never leave.

We also have a small SEN school with wrap around SEN chilcare, and a seperate SEN respite centre where children can go in the evening, overnight or over weekends if needed.

Why would you be cycling dangerously? Or by danger are you referring to cars? Which wouldn’t be a problem if we had proper provision for cycling in this country.

If fewer people need to drive because they can access services they need within walking or cycling distance then guess what - roads are quieter for those people who DO needs to use their car.

Oh and we should be eating less meat too.

Do you live in the UK - there are only 3 IMO 'cheap' supermarkets. Aldi, Lidl and ASDA. The rest are midrange. iceland is frozen food.

From your description your 'downtown' area must be somewhere very populated, like Manchester City Centre. If we compared it to the Oxford plans, it would be like claiming 'I live within 15 mins walk of Oxford town centre' which is dense enough to support multiple supermarkets.

However, what the plans are saying is something like every 'suburb' has everything it needs. Suburbs are usually full of houses and not flats, and rarely have the population density to support multiple supermarkets.

If you want to go even further a town like Knutsford in the North West has two large supermarkets in the centre - Booths and Lidl. However all the houses are spread out, so there are a fair few that are 15 mins walk away but much more 20+ minutes.

Where would you plonk a Lidl in amongst all those houses?

Perhaps you yourself live nearby but there are other house, further away from whom 15 mins isn't achievable.

Where I currently live Morrisons is a 15 min walk, ASDA and Lidl 25 minutes. because of how they're located around the town centre. So I have access to the latter , they're just not within 15 mins walk of me. There are people further out from me where the Morrisons would be too far as well and the rest 40+ minutes walk.

And as I have stated MULTIPLE times if all these things already exist a short drive away and as PP have pointed out - easier to arrange transport to them, than to want to create multiple shop buildings everywhere. In my area these cheap + every other major supermarket is max 15 mins drive by car. So the solution is very obvious.

also @user1477391263 Didn't have time to finish post above but we do have a bus that makes various stops and passes quite a few supermarkets, currently it's 'supposed' to come once every 15 mins but comes once every 20. If it did indeed come as supposed to there'd be no problem getting to these places at all.

It's a phrase nobody used last week.