As cities continue to grow and become more complex, the need for efficient and sustainable urban development becomes increasingly important.
One concept that has gained traction in recent years is the idea of building 15-minute smart cities.
Read more: The Role of Construction in Urban Development: Building 15 Minute Smart Cities
There are few experiences more soul-sucking than sitting in traffic. According to NPR, the average American lost nearly an hour a week to traffic congestion in 2022. Drivers lose an additional 17 hours per year hunting for parking, USA Today reports — and in the same survey, 34 percent of U.S. drivers said they had given up on a trip because of parking problems.
By contrast: Picture living in a bustling neighborhood where all your friends, basic needs, and even your job are reachable by a quick walk or bike or bus ride. (Something many people experience, possibly for the first and last time, on college campuses.) In such a city, parking areas may have been reclaimed as urban greenways, chance encounters with neighbors might be more common, and small local businesses would proliferate and thrive.
Read more: How ‘15-minute cities’ could save time, reduce emissions, and build community
At ULI’s Spring Meeting apartment experts found new solutions and opportunities to build—even in uncertain times.
A questionable economy and high-interest rates are not stopping apartment developers from making new plans to transform communities.
Read more: Empty offices, troubled malls become new “15-Minute Cities”
What’s the context?
The concept of 15-minute cities is gaining traction around the world, but so are conspiracy theories calling it the start of “climate lockdowns”.
- 15-minute cities aim to make towns more liveable
- Most things a short walk or cycle away
- But some call it a "climate lockdown"
Experts believe 15-minute cities, where most things are a short walk or bike ride away, could help tackle climate change and improve the quality of life, but conspiracy theorists see the idea as a bid to lock people up in their own neighbourhoods.
Read more: What’s a 15-minute city? Liveable urban space or climate lockdown?
The 15-minute city (FMC) – a neat idea, a new way to control the populace, a trendy blip in the public planning industry, a long-term insidious scheme – all, some, or none of these?
If you have questions about the concept, here is what you are already being called.
As with the gas stove “debate,” any questioning of the latest coolest way to reorganize society is a sign of madness. This haughty reality-shifting attitude somehow pervades the elites despite the deserved devastation of the public’s trust in its institutions in the wake of the pandemic, the response to which involved lies, half-truths, spin, lies, mistakes, lies, the threat of force, lies, the threat of unemployment, the ordered home confinement, the mass destruction of small businesses, and lies.