Paris and Milan are among the cities closest to the “15-minute city” model, an urban planning concept in which every resident lives within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of everything they need for their daily lives, according to a global analysis published Monday.
Conspiracy theories. The concept of the “15-minute city” took off during the Covid-19 crisis, when lockdowns led to a focus on local services. It has since been adopted by dozens of mayors around the world, while also becoming the subject of numerous conspiracy theories on the internet.
To find out which cities were closest to achieving this model, a team of Italian researchers started with a database of about 10,000 cities around the world. They then used open-access maps to calculate the distance their residents would have to travel to access shops, restaurants, schools and health centres, among others.
City center and outskirts. In fact, “many people already live in a 15-minute city »Hygor Piaget Monteiro Melo, co-author of the study published in Nature Cities, told AFP. But in many cases, there are often huge differences between the affluent city center and the outskirts, he added.
As in the immense New York megacity where “Manhattan is probably one of the closest places to a 15-minute city in the world”, without this necessarily being the case in more outlying districts, adds Matteo Bruno, first author of the study. Hence the difficulty of quantifying the number of 15-minute cities, depending on whether we draw the boundary around the center or its periphery.
” Exception “. A key factor in identifying them is population density, because the closer people live to each other, the easier they have access to basic services. Small but dense cities like Milan or Barcelona are thus well placed, according to the map developed by the researchers, available for free online.
Among the largest, “Paris is an exception,” says Bruno, a researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome. The city adopted the concept in 2020 and today a “considerable portion” of the city has fallen below the 15-minute mark, according to the study. European cities have the advantage of having emerged centuries ago, with no means of transport other than walking, thus favoring a concentration of services.
Restrict movement. Conversely, more recent cities designed from the outset with automobile transport in mind, particularly in the United States, have a greater handicap. This is the case of Los Angeles, host city of the 2028 Olympic Games, Atlanta or several Chinese megacities such as Chongqing (southwest) and its 32 million inhabitants.
The concept regularly gives rise to conspiracy theories relayed by anti-vax or climate-sceptic groups, who claim that the “15-minute city” aims to restrict the movement of residents, the researchers regret. Themselves attacked on X, they emphasize that this model does not aim to confine anyone.
Not a utopia. Researcher Carlos Moreno, a champion of the concept who has advised Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, has himself been the target of “conspiracy theorists around the world,” he told AFP. He welcomed the new study, praising the fact that the idea has quickly become a topic of interest for researchers around the world.
When it comes to urban planning, there is no single perfect solution, the Italian researchers warn. “The 15-minute city is often presented as a utopia, which it is not,” says Bruno. For example, Americans living in sprawling cities live in houses with small gardens, while Europeans occupy apartments in very dense urban centers.
The 15-minute criterion is only one ingredient in the “recipe” that makes a good city, believes Mr. Bruno, who also cites the fight against inequalities and segregation, the improvement of public transport and the reduction of car traffic.
Daniel Lawler
© Agence France-Presse
