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.

So basically a benevolence theorist. I'm not that optimistic.

@cardibach nice try but I don't live rurally. I live in the Welsh valleys which I'm assuming you'll be familiar with given your username?

I'm also guessing you haven't read Welsh Labours plans to get people out of their cars and implement charges for driving on certain roads? I thought paying our road tax gave us the right to drive wherever we wanted but slowly that's being taken away.

People who don’t live in a city are unaffected. Life goes on as now.
Thats why it’s ‘15 min cities’ not ‘15 minute villages’.
Why do you think otherwise?

Don’t be obtuse..

If you want to be a hermit you presumably don’t live in a city.

The idea of 15 minute cities is most people’s day to day needs are within 15 minutes, because it’s better for the environment and for community life. Obviously when you need to access specialist medical care or education you will have to go further afield.

No. A person who reads before jumping to extreme conclusions. Are all politicians benevolent? Of course not. Are they all trying to enslave us? Also no.
And 15 minute cities are a specific plan. I’m not commenting on political views of them, just on what they are.

So are people from outside the city allowed to drive round 15 min cities with no restrictions and no charge? Great if true. If not true it does affect me.

Fine for London

Loads of people in London won't be within 15 mins walk of a rail station or hospital or cinema etc.

It would have been common in the past though, and there is a move to make city living like this again. It’s better for the environment and for building communities.

How far back @theduchessofspork I like having a high street close by but many London high streets are dying or the good ones have very high house prices. All the high street shops from my youth moved to online & out of town shopping centres.

This 👏🏻👏🏻 it's always do as I say not do as I do.

Most people who live in a city dont live in the centre of it though, its hugely expensive to live in the town centre or city centre of any city/town, property gets less expensive as you move further out of any town or city.

I would be able to walk in 15 mins to many amenities if I lived in the town centre where I live, but house prices are double to what ours is worth here on the outskirts, about 2/3 miles away

I live in South Wales now.
Yes, I’ve read what has been written. I’ve also seen loads of people misreading, extrapolating and catastrophising about them.
That’s irrelevant though. This is about what 15 minute cities are. They are about providing services to people in cities (or wider, large urban areas) within 15 minutes’ walk. As we all had if we go back about 40 years.

I don't think anyone is campaigning against having everything they need within 15 minutes of their home.

More, they're pointing out that the UK isn't set up that way so telling people to stop driving is impractical. We have poor and expensive public transport provision, a plethora of out of town shopping centres, next to no libraries and minimal, expensive leisure and sports centres. Bike lanes run for five metres and stop, nobody grits or maintains foot and cycle paths ... in short, it's a country where you need to have a car if you want to do regular everyday things, even though it's small. And instead of making it easier to not have a car all that most transport initiatives do is make it expensive and difficult to have one.

It's frustrating.

It would take me about 40 mins to walk into the nearest city or 10 mins on the bus. I can be in central London in less than an hour on public transport.

I love the countryside but I’d hate to live there with teenagers and be a constant taxi!

Perhaps one aspect is the way housing is built nowadays. Most housing is built by private developers and there's no profit in building shops etc. We have a number of new developments around us and none of them have included shops or schools or ant other facility. Lots and lots of houses and if you want to take the children to school you need a car, want to see a doctor - car, go to the shops - car. No additional public transport, just houses.

Totally. I might not live in a city now but I have in the past and my situation would have been the same. This country is broken, they’ll promise the earth and not deliver. They can’t organise anything, they can’t afford to make the changes which would be needed.

I would be quite happy to have more on my doorstep but I don't think there is the space & as London school rolls are falling &
some primaries are facing closure I can't see more schools opening up or more amenities for my dc being with walking distance. I have to drive 30 mins for swimming lessons because my local pool doesn't do any ones for kids in the evenings for example.

If course they are. It’s simply about trying to ensure that as many urban dwellers as possible have services within 15 minutes’ walk.
You are mixing it all up with LTNs, ULEZs and congestion charges.

Before anyone applauds Rishi & his war on things like LTNs just remember who brought them in - that’s right, his very own party.
Dint be taken in by this snake oil salesman

Wouldn’t work here and I live in a city.

15 minutes I have, a premier, an Afghan shop(genuinely what it’s called), a infant school, a junior school, a tanning shop, a hair dresser, a barbers, a cafe, a library and a post office. That’s all.

No space to build massive shopping centres either. Now within half an hour I have loads of stuff but not 15 minutes walk.

Yes. The aim is to ensure that out of centre areas also have services. As they should have had from the start. As most people had 40 years ago.

Also, LOL to all the people saying ‘Fifteen minute cities are an abomination. Where I live we have nothing nearby, and it’s AWFUL’. 🤣

Oh and ULEZ? That was Boris, with the new zone forced through as part of a TFL bailout by the very same Tory govt that Rishi is at the helm of.

I don't get it. We have all that within 15 mins or so and live in a nice detached house. What's the point of living in a city if you don't have all that close by? Might as well be in a small town or village otherwise?

I'm probably missing the point, I haven't really followed this story

I live in a City. A big City.

We used to have a lot more things available within a 15min walk, but then funding for everything got cut, so they started combining services, and selling off the buildings, to save money.

So, we used to have 2 police stations (and many more around the whole City) that I could have walked to from my house, but, due to 'economies of scale' , they have closed them all and the entire police force now work out from one building many miles away on the other side of the City.
We used to have lots of libraries that you could drop in to. But funding was cut and now there aren't anywhere near as many, so more people either can't get there, or have to drive.
We used to have more GP surgeries. Until recently, lots tended to be in residential areas - often a converted house - which meant everyone was close to one. Same as dentists. Now, more and more have been 'merged' into super surgeries and people have to drive for something they used to be able to walk to.
SureStart Children's Centres were set up with the aim of there being on "in pram pushing distance" of every resident of the City. They gave SO much support to families (including things like supporting people back into work, not just directly working with U5s) but then came the austerity from 2010 onwards, which saw the children's centres cut from the original 75, to about 15.
Obviously, no longer in 'pram pushing distance'.

Before this thread, I'd not heard of '15min Cities'.
It seems to me, the idea is upside down. How about stopping removing facilities from where people live, rather than trying to make people live in a flat in the City Centre ?

Or, how about ensuring that on every new housing development there have to be facilities like local shops, medical facilities, a Community Hall and a sports field so that all the people buying the new houses can walk to these facilities rather than having to get their car out to go anywhere ?

Most people who live in a city dont live in the centre of it though, its hugely expensive to live in the town centre or city centre of any city/town, property gets less expensive as you move further out of any town or city.

Exactly which is why I can't think of many places you would be within 15 mins of everything the OP listed

This thread has generated much 'traffic' at tea time on a Sunday. It seems that we feel it is important.
I hope that politicians read us and notice our opinions.
Unfortunately they will ignore us and carry on with whatever they have decided in their vegan stuffed back rooms.