It is oppressive, an environment in which the state monitors one’s every move, mandating where citizens live, learn, buy stuff, get treatment, chill, play, and how they travel. It is conspiratorial in its Orwellian plot, a sinister form of post-Covid era social control, curtailing free will and free movement alike. It is dystopian, not utopian.
This is what the 15-Minute City (FMC) is, if we go by its most hardline of detractors’ views.
But for proponents of this urban planning concept, the FMC promises to make the world a better place through fancy catch-all buzzwords — “accessibility,” “inclusivity” and, for sure, “sustainability.”
FMC challenges the layout defining what most of the world’s cities have evolved into. Instead of having people travel some distance to get to offices and commercial establishments, to school, hospital and parks, the FMC gathers these places and other facilities essential to modern life to within a 15-minute walk, public transport ride, or a bicycle/scooter trip from where they live. A few mutations of the FMC idea exist, tweaking the acceptable travel time or distance.
It is hardly a new concept. Civilizations have evolved in a way where essential areas are accessible to its citizens. The process is organic.
But things changed when commercial and industrial spaces started to cram most city centers, making their peripheries more viable for residences.
Concerned with this, a congress of urban planners in the last century, taking cues from the ideas of Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, imagined the modern city. This was outlined in The Athens Charter, formally discussed in 1933.
The plan sought to reorganize urban areas by assigning where residences, workplaces, schools, businesses and recreational spaces should ideally be located. Recognizing the requirements of a then-revolutionary form of transport — automobiles — it also drew up new, suitable routes, and recommended the best paths for pedestrians.
But, for critics, the charter only promoted segregation. And one of the things that came out of this is an apparent, if unintended, reliance on car use.
A FMC “fixes” this. The concept, largely credited to French-Colombian urbanist Carlos Moreno (likely because he was the most recent and, more important, loudest to crow about its merits), advocates for minimal to no car use in a FMC. The argument for this is that, well, every place can be reached by a 15-minute walk or ride anyway, negating the need to travel by car.
But what should also be taken into account is that tied in to the FMC concept are the ways by which most people are increasingly expected to move around. This emerging mobility trend focuses on car “usership” rather than on car ownership, where solutions like car-sharing and subscription, as well as on-demand services, are embraced. Backing these up are a host of other personal mobility choices.
In all this, connected and electrification technologies are making the transition to new forms of mobility as seamless as possible, minimizing the negative social and environmental impact leveled on car use.
The ideas put forth by Moreno, a Sorbonne Business School professor, are embraced by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo who, according to US-based research non-profit World Resources Institute (WRI), “articulated her 2020 reelection policy agenda around making Paris a 15-Minute City.”
Hidalgo’s moves have since seen some of Paris’ thoroughfares banning cars while having over 1,000 kilometers of cycling lanes built. Complementing these are social housing, environmental and recreational projects. Plus, the mayor’s administration encourages every Parisian district to adopt its own greening and micro-mobility initiatives, said the WRI.
The WRI also noted the Paris example has sparked a global movement, with cities like Melbourne, Ottawa, and Shanghai adopting some form of FMC concept. Barcelona is a prominent example, too.
In stark contrast, Oxford is encountering resistance. Decrying limitations imposed on car use (such as hourly or outright bans, as well as tolls on certain roads), a part of the city’s citizenry has emerged as the leading voices, if a bit hysterical to some, in the argument against FMC.
Arguably, Metro Manila’s commercial business districts in BGC, Makati, Ortigas, and Alabang qualify to a certain degree as FMCs. In these places, every facility essential to modern living is found reasonably near a mid- or high-rise condo, and there is some form of transport scheme in place (car bans, pedestrianized areas, personal mobility choices, cycling lanes, etc.).
However, it also requires some level of affluence if one were to live in any of these places.
With the prohibitive cost, most people are left with no choice but to commute within, to, from and around these neighborhoods — creating congestion and gridlock. For these people, let alone those consigned to a fate of having only P21 to spend per meal, these are not places to live in, but rather are for work, business, transit, or occasional entertainment. Seems that 3D billboard is democratic enough for a Tiktok post or two, after all.
So, yes, creating an accessible, inclusive and sustainable FMC comes with major challenges, even when not going as far as calling the concept dystopian. Whether the 15-Minute City is simply enjoying its 15 minutes of fame still remains to be seen, though.
What is quite apparent is that Rome (incidentally not yet a FMC) was not built in a day, and neither would any 15-Minute City be.
