I think slogans for urban planning concepts draw attention. Some attention is good - people may be excited about the concept and get interested in the field, or just understand the value of mixed use and walkable places in a way they never did before and might not if things just stayed more technically precise. Also, it draws nutcases to attack it.
As a general matter, should people avoid ever making urbanist concepts exciting because of the nutcases? Because I think the same would generally happen as much with any concept. And worse with some, like congestion pricing.
I think the substantive critiques of the 15 minute city are technically fair but mostly irrelevant. Of course the concept isn’t perfectly trying to cover everything and I don’t see people pining for Montalcino; it’s a way to better conceptualize and communicate the value of walkable urbanism in cities.
Matt, I think you are both overthinking this and under thinking this.
The point of 15-minute cities is to relax residential-only zoning, because *most* people actually live in vast swathes of residential-only development where *nothing* except other houses exists within 15 minutes. That’s not just 15 minutes walking... where I grew up in the suburbs it was 15 minutes *drive* to get to the *closest restaurant* and further to get groceries. The only non-residential things within 15 minutes drive were a gas station and a church. And this was a place with a LOT of housing.
But even in a “walkers paradise” like San Francisco, you can live in the dense by American standards neighborhoods of the outer Richmond or Sunset and still have very little non-residential within 15 minutes of your house.
This whole concept is a slogan that’s simply trying to capture “wouldn’t it be nice if your neighborhood was super convenient” and then as an urban planning tool the “quilt” is an overly simplistic tool to identify where (and which) major gaps exist -- for example to spot which places have no grocery store within 15 minutes.
Now, you may be right that any slogan people on the left start to like will intrinsically, generate conspiracy, theories, and backlash on the right in today’s hyperpolarized environment. But as far as I can tell the only “solution“ to this problem would be to never allow any names for any of your ideas. That seems rather impractical. May be less extreme. We could just try to ask for message discipline from lefties to embrace the idea of 15 minutes as a message of convenience not a screed against cars. But I think in the hypermedia era where anyone can go on Twitter and the algorithm will elevate the nastiest and most enraging things that are said, message discipline is an impossible dream.
I would say more explicitly than you do that the 15MC concept is implicitly both unrealistic and selfish.
It's unrealistic in that its proponents will not want to live within 15 minutes of amenities that can be supported by a small population. They want to live within 15 minutes of amenities that are supported by millions of people.
It's selfish in that, given that they want these amenities that require the support of millions, the 15MC concept simply amounts to saying that they want privileged access to them, access that will not be available to most of the people who support the businesses.
It's like someone saying, "I want to hear Bruce Springsteen in a 15-person venue." Well, sorry, the Boss's economics require him to play arenas. So what you are really asking for is front row seats in the arena, plus a backstage pass, all supported by the other 20,000 people in the bad seats.
Maybe the should just rebrand to 15-minute neighborhoods (which I always assumed they meant anyway).
As much as I really like Matt (he has a blue collar vibe), sometimes he just idly drops things out there that remind me his life is disconnected from the average Americans. Spending a month in Italy? Got to admit I am jealous. Coincidentally I was researching the Amalfi Coast this morning. I really need to travel more. (the irony of this paragraph is I am writing this while working in Brazil... though my job isn't nearly as glamourous).
I digress... anyway. I really like my little single-family neighborhood in Boise. It's safe. Kids can play outside because its shut-off from through traffic... but it certainly isn't walking friendly. I don't have a single place to spend money on within 15-minutes of walking, though everything is within a 5-7 minute drive. Sort of sucks. I do have to admit though, my e-bike does make things better in the summer.
Great post. I wish Matt had engaged more with the proposed plan in Oxford that set things off, though. I lived there, and still frequently visit, and as far as I can tell, the local council really is attempting to divide the city into smaller cells in a much more direct way. If you wanted to get from one cell to another, you were according to the plan supposed to walk or bike, or use public transport. You *could* drive, but the intention was to make that extremely inconvenient (you basically would have to take a huge detour through the ring road, and even then only had a limited number of yearly permits for such a drive). This, of course, goes way further than what most people are willing to accept, and so provided an excellent target for critics of the 15MC concept.
I guess I wish that Matt would have either shown that the plans in Oxford have been misrepresented and that they do not in fact propose to do something extreme. (It is very possible, I have not chased down original documents myself.) Or come out and say that this specific plan went too far, and to disavow it. Or maybe the plan is extreme and he supports it - I would guess not, but as the article stands, I do not know.
I appreciate and strongly agree with the larger point here, and I love the idea of 15-minute neighborhoods, but criticisms of Oxford's implementation are absolutely not "insane conspiracy theories". The Oxford plan is directionally dystopian and I think most people would be at least a little shocked to read the details of how it assumes the surveillance state ought to be involved with our daily decisions, and its presumption that people's behavior ought to be subject to committee by default.
> We want to reduce unnecessary journeys by private cars and make walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice.
Even the fevered "fact-checks" and "debunkings" are Orwellian! Here's a paragraph from the Bloomberg coverage of "the conspiracy paranoia":
> At issue was the proposed introduction of six new traffic filters intended to limit car use through residential parts of the city at peak hours. Monitored by automatic license plate readers, these filters would fine drivers from outside the county of Oxfordshire who entered central areas during high-traffic periods. Oxford residents will be allowed fine-free peak-hour access for 100 days per year, with residents of the wider county able to apply for a 25-day fine-free access permit.
Two aspects of the coverage stand out . First, the authors describe the Oxford plan as the "introduction of six new traffic filters"- as if traffic filters were commonplace!
Second, the middle sentence gives priority to the idea that the filters are aimed at "drivers from outside the county of Oxfordshire", with admirably simplicity. Perhaps I'm taking this too far, but a moderately careless reader might not even untangle the syntax of the last sentence and realize that it also applies to Oxford residents.
Or take the AP's "fact check"! Its summary boils down to this:
> CLAIM: “15-minute cities” are designed to restrict people’s movements, increase government surveillance and infringe on other individual rights.
> THE FACTS: The urban planning concept is simply about building more compact, walkable communities where people are less reliant on cars.
Those ... aren't incompatible.
This feels like the lab leak controversy playing out again, in exactly the same ways. At least I hope it is, since that would suggest that we will someday be able to discuss opposition to traffic filters without dealing with the "conspiracy theory" misdirection.
I don't think you and 15MC advocates are in opposition. It's more that if you're going to have an "ideal" city, it's one where a good amount of amenities are within walking distance of your home while still accessing all of the business and culture that a city has to offer within a larger radius. Is anyone arguing that literally *everything* you need should be within a 15-minute walk? I thought it was more "plan to be like New York or Paris or Berlin rather than Houston."
What I don't understand is where and how the 15 minute city conspiracies suddenly sprung to life and became part of the discourse. I'm a pretty dedicated urbanist and YIMBY, and while I know what the term meant, its not one I often saw used.
Then all of a sudden a bunch of kooks and weirdos are protesting it and calling it the road to hell or the George Soros plan to enslave us in pods? Did Tucker or Alex Jones do a show on the concept or something? It just feels like this was an overnight explosion in interest into what is usually an uncontroversial marketing term for mixed use density.
I'm an urban planner, and we've been using the term "20-minute neighborhood" for years to articulate a policy goal. And I think that term actually does work and is not arbitrary.
First, 20 minutes was chosen because that is about how long a typical person will actually walk to get somewhere on average, something borne out by research. 20 minutes is conveniently also a 1 mile walk for most people. So we say that "most" daily/weekly needs should be able to be met within a mile radius. More recently, this was expanded to include biking, which works out to be a 3-mile radius. So the idea is to have a good transportation and land use system so that you can walk to your really close destinations or bike to the destinations a bit further away but still 20 minute bike ride or less.
Second, it works because it uses the term "neighborhood" rather than city. We would never claim people can literally meet all their needs in walking or biking distance. Your job, your school, your medical appointments, your occasional big-box shopping trips, these are all likely to be further away and for those you more likely will take public transit, or drive, or maybe ride an e-bike to extend that biking range. And a city has great agglomeration effects and special destinations that warrant longer-distance travel. So we're not saying everyone should live in a small town or stay in their neighborhood forever, just that each neighborhood should have a lot of destinations so people don't have to travel as far for quite as many trips.
I don't know who came up with this 15-minute city nonsense, but it seems to be a bad idea, a poor attempt at articulating those ideas, and now it has spread and become polarizing. It's unfortunate, because there was nothing wrong with the term urban planners actually use and have for decades, the 20-minute neighborhood.
It's also confusing to see this being pushed by the mayors of large European cities like Paris. What parts are Paris aren't already '15 minute cities'? So like, what's the goal here for these already large and dense places.
My main takeaway from this article is that this is Matt saying he is a YIMBY, not an urbanist--even though he personally prefers an urbanist lifestyle. This was a question I was thinking of answering him in a mailbag that I can probably take off my queue now, though Matt can correct me if my inference is wrong.
On the politics, I'm begrudgingly inclined to believe Matt is correct to take this path. People are going to have their differing living preferences, trying to appeal to as many of them as possible is good coalition building, and since he says posting is praxis, attacking the 15 minute city as a standard probably makes sense.
Yet on the merits...there still needs to be city planning that doesn't gobble everything up into the car being the only viable mode of transportation. Even if it's some simple things like always adding sidewalks, bike lanes, and basic bus routes, this should be part and parcel of any new publicly operated transportation corridors constructed, so that we don't create networks that are unworkable to retrofit for forms of transportation other than by car.
So I guess my own political pitch for a 15 minute city would be one of freedom: freeing people from the necessity to do most life tasks with a car. And getting there means building the ability to use that freedom.
As a person who wrote a lot about Agenda 21 conspiracy theories back in the day, I think Matt is right to be concerned about the glib framing of FMC.
Yes, it's helpful shorthand for people who haven't thought about walkable urbanism before. But I think it appeals to the already converted while setting up an unnecessarily binary choice that, understandably or not, will alarm some people (while giving ammunition to others who cynically want to fan the flames in the discourse and, more harmfully, at local public meetings).
Planning, unfortunately, is susceptible to this kind of faddish groupthink. Many of us went into the profession because we like walking to the grocery store and having art-house movies in or close to our neighborhoods, and we don't like big-box stores and giant surface parking lots. But not everybody appreciates those things to the same extent (or at all). There are ways to "retrofit" suburban areas to enable more multifamily housing and a wider range of uses, and in a lot of places, the real estate market reflects the desire on the part of a lot of people to increase walkability in their neighborhoods.
These places will never be FMCs, nor, as Greg Steiner points out above, will nice small/college towns. But they share a lot of their characteristics. So, as Rory says, do neighborhoods. In the spirit of popularism, I think we (planners and people who are interested in planning) should keep the focus as broad and inclusive as possible.
I think you are overlooking the possibility of small towns or, better yet, networks of small towns. I live in Bentonville, Arkansas (population 54k). It's part of a region called "Northwest Arkansas" that includes nearby cities of Rogers, Springdale, and Fatetteville. Not long ago, they truly were "small towns" but were connected by a two-lane highway and were lucky enough to have a state university and a few really big corporations. Now, there is an interstate, a nice airport, and each of the town squares of these cities are now walkable hubs of social activity and commerce. There are Farmer's Markets, food trucks, museums, outdoor concerts, and lots of festivals. NIMBY problems are starting to emerge as land within the city limits is becoming scarce, and rising home prices are a problem. But, there are other small towns in the region that can be added to the network.
My point is there are lots of other places in the country with similar possibilities for regional growth. Many are around college towns. I was born in Mankato, Minnesota, and it is booming. Texas has Waco and Bryan/College Station. I drove from Houston to DC last summer and went through several areas that seem to be doing this already (Tuscaloosa/Birmingham, Chattanooga, Blacksburg/Roanoke). There are lots of them and they are good spots for corporate relocations and startups. It would be a lot easier to leverage existing infrastructure and build up these regions of walkable small towns effectively into networks rather than trying to continually retrofit and gentrify large metropolitan areas at incredible cost. If there were more of them, then the people who live here wouldn't be so worried that their secret would get out.
15mC frames the value of dispersed, mixed-use development in an extremely tangible way. In the US people often have no experience of this, because separated-use zoning makes it illegal to open amenities close to where people live, so going to an ordinary codfeeshop and grocery store is a 20-minute drive, errands take hours i the car, you need a giant car for these errand runs, and nobody sees any downsides to this because it’s perfectly normal. You really should try living in a place where there aren’t basic amenities within a 15-minute walk or bike ride! That a large city has unique amenities that are 25 minutes away isn’t an argument against the idea that it’s valuable for people to have basic amenities near to home! Noting that you have several movie theaters within 15 minutes but the cool one is 16 minutes away is not a refutation of the 15mC, but a validation of it!
"The X concept is a good theme for a TED Talk, but it never should have become a dominant element of Y discourse," for all X and Y.
I think slogans for urban planning concepts draw attention. Some attention is good - people may be excited about the concept and get interested in the field, or just understand the value of mixed use and walkable places in a way they never did before and might not if things just stayed more technically precise. Also, it draws nutcases to attack it.
As a general matter, should people avoid ever making urbanist concepts exciting because of the nutcases? Because I think the same would generally happen as much with any concept. And worse with some, like congestion pricing.
I think the substantive critiques of the 15 minute city are technically fair but mostly irrelevant. Of course the concept isn’t perfectly trying to cover everything and I don’t see people pining for Montalcino; it’s a way to better conceptualize and communicate the value of walkable urbanism in cities.
Matt, I think you are both overthinking this and under thinking this.
The point of 15-minute cities is to relax residential-only zoning, because *most* people actually live in vast swathes of residential-only development where *nothing* except other houses exists within 15 minutes. That’s not just 15 minutes walking... where I grew up in the suburbs it was 15 minutes *drive* to get to the *closest restaurant* and further to get groceries. The only non-residential things within 15 minutes drive were a gas station and a church. And this was a place with a LOT of housing.
But even in a “walkers paradise” like San Francisco, you can live in the dense by American standards neighborhoods of the outer Richmond or Sunset and still have very little non-residential within 15 minutes of your house.
This whole concept is a slogan that’s simply trying to capture “wouldn’t it be nice if your neighborhood was super convenient” and then as an urban planning tool the “quilt” is an overly simplistic tool to identify where (and which) major gaps exist -- for example to spot which places have no grocery store within 15 minutes.
Now, you may be right that any slogan people on the left start to like will intrinsically, generate conspiracy, theories, and backlash on the right in today’s hyperpolarized environment. But as far as I can tell the only “solution“ to this problem would be to never allow any names for any of your ideas. That seems rather impractical. May be less extreme. We could just try to ask for message discipline from lefties to embrace the idea of 15 minutes as a message of convenience not a screed against cars. But I think in the hypermedia era where anyone can go on Twitter and the algorithm will elevate the nastiest and most enraging things that are said, message discipline is an impossible dream.
I would say more explicitly than you do that the 15MC concept is implicitly both unrealistic and selfish.
It's unrealistic in that its proponents will not want to live within 15 minutes of amenities that can be supported by a small population. They want to live within 15 minutes of amenities that are supported by millions of people.
It's selfish in that, given that they want these amenities that require the support of millions, the 15MC concept simply amounts to saying that they want privileged access to them, access that will not be available to most of the people who support the businesses.
It's like someone saying, "I want to hear Bruce Springsteen in a 15-person venue." Well, sorry, the Boss's economics require him to play arenas. So what you are really asking for is front row seats in the arena, plus a backstage pass, all supported by the other 20,000 people in the bad seats.
Maybe the should just rebrand to 15-minute neighborhoods (which I always assumed they meant anyway).
As much as I really like Matt (he has a blue collar vibe), sometimes he just idly drops things out there that remind me his life is disconnected from the average Americans. Spending a month in Italy? Got to admit I am jealous. Coincidentally I was researching the Amalfi Coast this morning. I really need to travel more. (the irony of this paragraph is I am writing this while working in Brazil... though my job isn't nearly as glamourous).
I digress... anyway. I really like my little single-family neighborhood in Boise. It's safe. Kids can play outside because its shut-off from through traffic... but it certainly isn't walking friendly. I don't have a single place to spend money on within 15-minutes of walking, though everything is within a 5-7 minute drive. Sort of sucks. I do have to admit though, my e-bike does make things better in the summer.
Great post. I wish Matt had engaged more with the proposed plan in Oxford that set things off, though. I lived there, and still frequently visit, and as far as I can tell, the local council really is attempting to divide the city into smaller cells in a much more direct way. If you wanted to get from one cell to another, you were according to the plan supposed to walk or bike, or use public transport. You *could* drive, but the intention was to make that extremely inconvenient (you basically would have to take a huge detour through the ring road, and even then only had a limited number of yearly permits for such a drive). This, of course, goes way further than what most people are willing to accept, and so provided an excellent target for critics of the 15MC concept.
I guess I wish that Matt would have either shown that the plans in Oxford have been misrepresented and that they do not in fact propose to do something extreme. (It is very possible, I have not chased down original documents myself.) Or come out and say that this specific plan went too far, and to disavow it. Or maybe the plan is extreme and he supports it - I would guess not, but as the article stands, I do not know.
I guess it's my week to defend cranks!
I appreciate and strongly agree with the larger point here, and I love the idea of 15-minute neighborhoods, but criticisms of Oxford's implementation are absolutely not "insane conspiracy theories". The Oxford plan is directionally dystopian and I think most people would be at least a little shocked to read the details of how it assumes the surveillance state ought to be involved with our daily decisions, and its presumption that people's behavior ought to be subject to committee by default.
Most of us accept tolls collected to maintain roads. I'm even up for congestion pricing. This is a different matter. From the plan itself (https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/connecting-oxfordshire/traffic-filters):
> We want to reduce unnecessary journeys by private cars and make walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice.
Even the fevered "fact-checks" and "debunkings" are Orwellian! Here's a paragraph from the Bloomberg coverage of "the conspiracy paranoia":
> At issue was the proposed introduction of six new traffic filters intended to limit car use through residential parts of the city at peak hours. Monitored by automatic license plate readers, these filters would fine drivers from outside the county of Oxfordshire who entered central areas during high-traffic periods. Oxford residents will be allowed fine-free peak-hour access for 100 days per year, with residents of the wider county able to apply for a 25-day fine-free access permit.
Two aspects of the coverage stand out . First, the authors describe the Oxford plan as the "introduction of six new traffic filters"- as if traffic filters were commonplace!
Second, the middle sentence gives priority to the idea that the filters are aimed at "drivers from outside the county of Oxfordshire", with admirably simplicity. Perhaps I'm taking this too far, but a moderately careless reader might not even untangle the syntax of the last sentence and realize that it also applies to Oxford residents.
Or take the AP's "fact check"! Its summary boils down to this:
> CLAIM: “15-minute cities” are designed to restrict people’s movements, increase government surveillance and infringe on other individual rights.
> THE FACTS: The urban planning concept is simply about building more compact, walkable communities where people are less reliant on cars.
Those ... aren't incompatible.
This feels like the lab leak controversy playing out again, in exactly the same ways. At least I hope it is, since that would suggest that we will someday be able to discuss opposition to traffic filters without dealing with the "conspiracy theory" misdirection.
15MC? FMC? Pick one terrible acronym and stick with it.
I don't think you and 15MC advocates are in opposition. It's more that if you're going to have an "ideal" city, it's one where a good amount of amenities are within walking distance of your home while still accessing all of the business and culture that a city has to offer within a larger radius. Is anyone arguing that literally *everything* you need should be within a 15-minute walk? I thought it was more "plan to be like New York or Paris or Berlin rather than Houston."
What I don't understand is where and how the 15 minute city conspiracies suddenly sprung to life and became part of the discourse. I'm a pretty dedicated urbanist and YIMBY, and while I know what the term meant, its not one I often saw used.
Then all of a sudden a bunch of kooks and weirdos are protesting it and calling it the road to hell or the George Soros plan to enslave us in pods? Did Tucker or Alex Jones do a show on the concept or something? It just feels like this was an overnight explosion in interest into what is usually an uncontroversial marketing term for mixed use density.
I'm an urban planner, and we've been using the term "20-minute neighborhood" for years to articulate a policy goal. And I think that term actually does work and is not arbitrary.
First, 20 minutes was chosen because that is about how long a typical person will actually walk to get somewhere on average, something borne out by research. 20 minutes is conveniently also a 1 mile walk for most people. So we say that "most" daily/weekly needs should be able to be met within a mile radius. More recently, this was expanded to include biking, which works out to be a 3-mile radius. So the idea is to have a good transportation and land use system so that you can walk to your really close destinations or bike to the destinations a bit further away but still 20 minute bike ride or less.
Second, it works because it uses the term "neighborhood" rather than city. We would never claim people can literally meet all their needs in walking or biking distance. Your job, your school, your medical appointments, your occasional big-box shopping trips, these are all likely to be further away and for those you more likely will take public transit, or drive, or maybe ride an e-bike to extend that biking range. And a city has great agglomeration effects and special destinations that warrant longer-distance travel. So we're not saying everyone should live in a small town or stay in their neighborhood forever, just that each neighborhood should have a lot of destinations so people don't have to travel as far for quite as many trips.
I don't know who came up with this 15-minute city nonsense, but it seems to be a bad idea, a poor attempt at articulating those ideas, and now it has spread and become polarizing. It's unfortunate, because there was nothing wrong with the term urban planners actually use and have for decades, the 20-minute neighborhood.
It's also confusing to see this being pushed by the mayors of large European cities like Paris. What parts are Paris aren't already '15 minute cities'? So like, what's the goal here for these already large and dense places.
My main takeaway from this article is that this is Matt saying he is a YIMBY, not an urbanist--even though he personally prefers an urbanist lifestyle. This was a question I was thinking of answering him in a mailbag that I can probably take off my queue now, though Matt can correct me if my inference is wrong.
On the politics, I'm begrudgingly inclined to believe Matt is correct to take this path. People are going to have their differing living preferences, trying to appeal to as many of them as possible is good coalition building, and since he says posting is praxis, attacking the 15 minute city as a standard probably makes sense.
Yet on the merits...there still needs to be city planning that doesn't gobble everything up into the car being the only viable mode of transportation. Even if it's some simple things like always adding sidewalks, bike lanes, and basic bus routes, this should be part and parcel of any new publicly operated transportation corridors constructed, so that we don't create networks that are unworkable to retrofit for forms of transportation other than by car.
So I guess my own political pitch for a 15 minute city would be one of freedom: freeing people from the necessity to do most life tasks with a car. And getting there means building the ability to use that freedom.
As a person who wrote a lot about Agenda 21 conspiracy theories back in the day, I think Matt is right to be concerned about the glib framing of FMC.
Yes, it's helpful shorthand for people who haven't thought about walkable urbanism before. But I think it appeals to the already converted while setting up an unnecessarily binary choice that, understandably or not, will alarm some people (while giving ammunition to others who cynically want to fan the flames in the discourse and, more harmfully, at local public meetings).
Planning, unfortunately, is susceptible to this kind of faddish groupthink. Many of us went into the profession because we like walking to the grocery store and having art-house movies in or close to our neighborhoods, and we don't like big-box stores and giant surface parking lots. But not everybody appreciates those things to the same extent (or at all). There are ways to "retrofit" suburban areas to enable more multifamily housing and a wider range of uses, and in a lot of places, the real estate market reflects the desire on the part of a lot of people to increase walkability in their neighborhoods.
These places will never be FMCs, nor, as Greg Steiner points out above, will nice small/college towns. But they share a lot of their characteristics. So, as Rory says, do neighborhoods. In the spirit of popularism, I think we (planners and people who are interested in planning) should keep the focus as broad and inclusive as possible.
I think you are overlooking the possibility of small towns or, better yet, networks of small towns. I live in Bentonville, Arkansas (population 54k). It's part of a region called "Northwest Arkansas" that includes nearby cities of Rogers, Springdale, and Fatetteville. Not long ago, they truly were "small towns" but were connected by a two-lane highway and were lucky enough to have a state university and a few really big corporations. Now, there is an interstate, a nice airport, and each of the town squares of these cities are now walkable hubs of social activity and commerce. There are Farmer's Markets, food trucks, museums, outdoor concerts, and lots of festivals. NIMBY problems are starting to emerge as land within the city limits is becoming scarce, and rising home prices are a problem. But, there are other small towns in the region that can be added to the network.
My point is there are lots of other places in the country with similar possibilities for regional growth. Many are around college towns. I was born in Mankato, Minnesota, and it is booming. Texas has Waco and Bryan/College Station. I drove from Houston to DC last summer and went through several areas that seem to be doing this already (Tuscaloosa/Birmingham, Chattanooga, Blacksburg/Roanoke). There are lots of them and they are good spots for corporate relocations and startups. It would be a lot easier to leverage existing infrastructure and build up these regions of walkable small towns effectively into networks rather than trying to continually retrofit and gentrify large metropolitan areas at incredible cost. If there were more of them, then the people who live here wouldn't be so worried that their secret would get out.
15mC frames the value of dispersed, mixed-use development in an extremely tangible way. In the US people often have no experience of this, because separated-use zoning makes it illegal to open amenities close to where people live, so going to an ordinary codfeeshop and grocery store is a 20-minute drive, errands take hours i the car, you need a giant car for these errand runs, and nobody sees any downsides to this because it’s perfectly normal. You really should try living in a place where there aren’t basic amenities within a 15-minute walk or bike ride! That a large city has unique amenities that are 25 minutes away isn’t an argument against the idea that it’s valuable for people to have basic amenities near to home! Noting that you have several movie theaters within 15 minutes but the cool one is 16 minutes away is not a refutation of the 15mC, but a validation of it!