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.

OP you mention these
“Multiple cafes, bars, pubs, restaurants.
Multiple hairdressers, salons, barbers etc.
Many, many shops.
Several gyms”

is your area very crowded? Do most of the staff live within 15 min walk? Maybe I’ve got a different definition of “multiple”.

I think the hospital thing is really not feasible. Clinics sure. But hospitals that can deal with heart attacks etc, I think that’s a big ask purely due to numbers of medics, in any country.

Its a fair aim but I just dont know how realistic it is. How does any council or government force shops and businesses to stay or open if its not viable for them. The council has some control over schools, libraries, perhaps some health services if there is good collaboration but not public transport as such, certainly not train stations, small businesses, dentists, so how does that get put in place?

I think when people express frustration, its because the reality is that the majority of people in the UK live in areas where a car is necessary, not desirable, not fancy or a status symbol, but necessary to function and concepts like 15 min cities are sort of sold as if we should be doing without cars. I dont know why we should be doing without cars, the car is necessary and effective, our cities or towns need to accommodate driving effectively so that we can all access work/schooling/leisure with ease.

Why arent we building huge underground car parks, fly overs, underpasses?

I think you’re being a bit unfair suggesting that people are gullible and ignorant if they think this is about restricting movement. The proposal in Oxford is that they install traffic filters between zones which has restrictions on who can drive through and when, and if you breach these it’s a fine. Agreed it isn’t that you can’t leave by car at all, but as I understand it there are proposals for filters and fines in some circumstances.

https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/joint-statement-from-oxfordshire-county-council-and-oxford-city-council-on-oxfords-traffic-filters/#

@Dadfromthesea
Wrong - it's about reducing the amount of car traffic. Not just giving people the 'option'.
https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/Oxford-hit-by-wave-of-protests-over-15-minute-city-backlash/12130

Say for example there's 'one' GP in your neighbourhood. Box ticked - but they're shite. You want to go to a GP further away, but because of the traffic filter you get issued a PCN. You cannot charge people for travelling outside an allotted zone!

The SENSIBLE solution would be to provide better public transport, like in London. But that requires investment, ongoing operational costs and far more thinking than just the one off cost of sticking up a couple of traffic filters , sitting back and watching the money form fines roll in. Win -win! Less car journeys AND more money for the council via fines!

The only losers are the poor sods who have to live with it.

In theory, no problem at all, especially in London where you have good public transport, still have shops, employment, etc.

In reality, in a lot of places, like Northern towns, it's just not going to happen because the infrastructure/facilities just aren't there anymore. They've been dismantled for the past 50 years, basically ever since Beeching, then the offshoring of manufacturing, then the London centralisation of white collar work, then out of town retail parks, and then internet shopping. It's going to take hundreds of billions and a few decades to reverse all that damage. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but realistically, a London suburb is very different to a run down Northern ex-mill town.

We don't have a GP surgery nor school nor hospital within 15 minutes - do you really think any Govt has the money to build new schools and hospitals "within 15 minutes" of where everyone lives? Just not going to happen. We don't even have a post office within 15 minutes!

I live within 15 minutes of GP (big health centre), lots of shops, primary school, dentist, station, playgrounds and parks, swimming pool and theatre.

The cost is a significantly smaller house, small garden and no off street parking, compared to my friends who moved out to the leafy bits of Surrey. I much prefer it my way, but they seem to prefer a more car based lifestyle.

Yes, it was the Oxford proposal which sprang to mind when I saw this thread. I am not confusing the idea with ULEZ.

But how do you actually make them neighbourhoods and not theme parks where people who live in rich suburbs visit for the ambience and all the workers live in poor estates, both of which are 30 mins drive away?

I wonder where all the minimum wage part time workers live who service all those resources?

Is it likely they can afford the mortgage or rent for a property within 15 mins of where they work?

frivlot I'm in a small UK city, ahout 10 minutes walk from the centre (and ten the other way to open countryside). Lots of the list (all of which my city has, except a zoo!) is within 10 minutes. Most is 15/20 minutes walk, but it's all semis/detached once outside the very centre of the city. The only exception is the hospital, which would be at least a 30 minute walk (I'd drive, but there are frequent buses).

I can see how in a huge city cost of housing and a much bigger population would make it near impossible to reach everything on the list. So I can see my small city is likely an exception.

There's been a lot of publicity regarding this - calling people 'hysterical', 'conspiracy theorists' etc etc for protesting.
As though restricting who can drive where and when to such a granular level (Using number plates) isn't the stuff of dystopian nightmares.

If these 15 minute cities etc are such a great idea, surely there's no need for this level of control? Surely people will realise the benefits?

Needing to lean so heavily on the stick rather than the carrot suggests to me that it's not as effective as they think it is.

I dont know why we should be doing without cars, the car is necessary and effective, our cities or towns need to accommodate driving effectively so that we can all access work/schooling/leisure with ease. They’re not effective for the elderly, newly independent teenagers, those with epilepsy or other problems that mean they cannot drive, those with no car or no access to the family car. And the more we build our cities and towns around the car, the more difficult we make things for all those other people

I used to live in an area like that and I would never go back. It’s too dense, too crowded, and too noisy. It’s not worth being able to walk to almost everything to live with the noise of so many people.

I love having space and quiet. People aren’t meant to live crowded together and stacked on top of one another.

Yes I have pretty much all that too, although I live in a town. I think it’s great. I don’t get why anyone wouldn’t want it really

Yes, it's beautiful to look at, but fields, mountains and sheep don't look different from one day to the next. You’re so wrong there! Weather, clouds, mean the fields and mountains look different every day

Having had only a vague idea of what a 15 min city is, I read the Wiki article.

All very interesting and no doubt worthy. But it all looks hopelessly optimistic to me. I have a strong suspicion that these schemes will go the way of the 1960s utopian concepts of tower blocks and housing estates: well-intentioned but just didn’t work in the real world.

In reality most people need cars, even for routine things. How could I bring home six bags of grocery shopping on foot or on a bike?

(The conspiracy theories about 15 min cities are clearly bonkers.)

I could walk to several schools in my neighbourhood, but they are all shite. 15 min city makes social mobility impossible ; they create ghettos. Good for you that you live somewhere nice, but for those of us living in poor neighbourhoods being limited to services 15 min cycle way sounds like a nightmare. And as for this obsession with cycling….. for many people it is just not feasible. In a country where it’s pissing rain for half they year and pitch dark during commuter hours , a public transport system should be the assumed mode of transport , not a bike.

It's also complete unnecessary. There are simpler solutions.

I live in a small town in Greater Manchester, the town centre has supermarkets, GP surgeries and the like - but for me, right on the edge, it's a 15-20 minute walk. For others a bit further it might be 30 -40. Where I live is bordered by farms and ancient woodland. I certainly wouldn't want to live in the busy and noisy centre.

Instead of packing everyone into flats within 15 minutes of the town centre, or trying to build multiple cinemas/supermarkets/leisure centres everywhere the more sensible solution, to me seems to be the provision of better public transport. Instead of one bus an hour.

I used to work in a place that offered shuttle buses, you had to sign in via an app. Depending on how many people wanted to take the shuttle you could get a 10 seater van to an entire bus! Why can we not have that, people checking in, smaller vans/minibuses to get people to and fro. The Tube in London comes every 3-4 minutes, I know that's too much to ask here, but a vehicle that came every 10 or 15 mins would still be a MASSIVE improvement.

People bang on about cycling but given how rainy, windy and wet it is here cycling, especially with loads of stuff doesn't appeal to me.

The point of the 15m city idea isn't that you shouldn't travel more than 15m - it's that you shouldn't have to travel more than 15m to get to day to day stuff. If you want to go to a oub further away, brilliant.

I live just shy of 30min walk from my high street which has most of those things, definately not a hospital or a zoo. The council would have to rip out loads of houses to build another mini high street being just a few miles part for me to be a 15 min walk away. It seems from those who have lived it the compromise is a small house, maybe no garden or live in a flat.

And to have multiple gyms, cafes etc there needs to be enough people to be spending in those places to make it worthwhile so sounds to me like a really densely populated area, well you would get that if everything was high rise flats.

No thank you! Prefer to have my reasonably sized house and garden with a 30 min walk or 10 min bus ride. And so what if the hospital is 1hr away, its not like I need it everyday infact I haven't needed it for the past 20yrs.

I think when im older I would love to see more mini areas that are build for elderly people where you have those services at hand - can't remember what they are called but you can have your own place and all the help you need closeby.

Investment is needed. And they aren’t sold as removing the necessity for cars - they only apply to a minority of the population and even then just mean you don’t need a car for day to day convenience, not that you don’t need it at all. I think you are reading too much into it.

I also wondered why public transport was suspiciously missing from the conversation - replaced by this obsession with cycling.
I can see why the gov like cycling though. Zero cost to them, 'exercise', zero emissions, what's not to like? Hmmm?

@Tremour exactly! We could have loads of shops restaurants etc etc but there needs to be the population density to support it.
Better to transport the people. It's not rocket science.

All city's arnt created equal and your an idiot if you think this can be easily rolled out across the country my local hospital was closed my nearest A&E is 30 plus minutes away by car if there is no traffic we do have a minor injuries which is great unless you get a minor injury in the afternoon dentist? No problem none in our area 30 minutes away by car not too bad or an hour and 45 on public transport plus 15 minutes walk doctors we have a few of those but even my closest is 20 minutes walk as long as you can actually walk work? Might have a problem we have a few zero hour minimum wage jobs that will give 10/15 people a few hours work or there is home care jobs loads of those although again you need a car bus service? Ummmm no they took it away from my estate for a few years now they are moaning no-one uses it now its back reality? They don't show up LOCAL SCHOOLS! we have those within 15 minutes however there are no spaces so we are out of catchment for those too we pay for a bus service but they take that off us too they were suprised thst we complained that a few days before school began they cut off the service and refused to return our money apparently we should accept being paid back "at some point in the future" special school? Have that, full of children from other areas and bizarrely local children are sent out of area

I could go on but its boring

Tldr

Will only work in certain parts of the country we don't all live in cities

That’s LTNs. As I said.

I think people have a fundamental misunderstanding about what a 15 minute locality is. It means that there is an aspiration that everything should be within 15 minutes.

It does not mean that you are forbidden from going to other locations, using a car elsewhere, living somewhere else because you like peace and quiet etc. If your local hospital is 30 minutes away, well that's how far away it is.

There is no conspiracy to keep people in certain zones. The filters in Oxford are completely different and based on a Dutch model (and they, and LTNs do not stop you taking a car where you want, but possibly not the route you would have chosen if the road you want is closed at certain times).

LTNs do not lock you in either, and you can drive within them if you have cause eg picking up an elderly relative ( despite claims to the contrary).

I live in a town where I can walk to the town centre, dentist and GP within 15 minutes, the leisure centre and railway station within 20.

And guess what, sometimes/often I still drive! And nobody stops me!