Transition to 15/20-Minute Cities: More Liveable and Loveable Cities
Changing how to live and work can be difficult and coping with the global climate-related crisis even can be harder and harder. On the other side, I believe that as humanity we can cope with the challenges that we are facing today. These challenges can be an opportunity for us to reconsider what we value, how we would like to live, work, and socialise withing our communities, while creating new jobs, increasing the economic growth, and developing new business models.
But what type of challenges we are talking about? These are mainly climate change and sustainability related issues like public health, equity, congestion, pollution, affordable housing, even structural racism (increased by migrations related to climate change) and civic engagement. Besides, inequalities in access to services and amenities, urban sprawl are other challenges faced by today’s cities.
“Not only do cities account for more than?70%?of global carbon emissions and are home to?most people, but they are also?centres of economic activities, knowledge generation, innovation, and new technologies. Throughout history, cities have often been at the forefront of change and innovation, and now is no exception.” from www.netzerocities.eu.
Since at least half of the World population live and work in the cities, we can say that cities are the centre to cope with these challenges and that is the reason why we need to start changing from the city design approaches and perspectives. And this transition should increase the accessibility of cities, social equity, environmental sustainability, and economic vitality by making cities as healthy places to be able to have liveable and lovable urban and sub-urban areas.
On the other side, we need to well understand why we need new kind of actions and why cities are facing these challenges. This will enhance us to avoid making same mistakes in the future. At this point, to be clear, I have to say that today, nearly 70% of cities are facing the challenges of climate change and global warming, and most cities are at under risk to provide a secure and liveable place for their citizens. When we look at the biggest reason for climate change, we see it is greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and when we look at the statistics about GHG emission, we see that there is a rapid climbing from 1940 to 2020. The reason is fast and unregulated industrialization, and the policy makers of that time could not foresee results of this industrialisation progress. So, we need a well understanding of the source of GHG while trying to create solutions to handle this global problem.
Another statistic shows that although cities cover 3% of the land on Earth, they consume over 65% of the energy in world, 75% of natural resources and causes for more than 70% of the global GHG emissions. Therefore, the climate emergency must be tackled by cities – and by citizens?(Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commission), 2020).?In this point, we need to highlight why cities are emitting so many GHG emissions. We see that sources of GHG emission in cities come from mostly fuel combustion that includes transport, households, commerce, manufacturing industries, construction, and energy industries. You can see the details in Figure 1.?
As an example, on continental level, European Commission has granted NetZeroCities project (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commission), 2020) in 2021 to support cities through their sustainable transition into carbon-neutral areas as a response to climate change. The project aimed to achieve 100 climate neutral and smart cities by 2030 in the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme participant countries. Besides, this project aimed to ensure that these 100-carbon neutral and smart cities will act like a innovation hub and experimentation labs for other European cities which will follow the European policies to be carbon neutral cities util 2050. Through the project, urban mobility is one of key pillars which is focused for developing new solutions and piloting activities as the transportation sector emits one of the largest shares of GHG emissions in cities, I will focus shortly on how Europe aims to get over transportation gas emission and to make cities more citizen centric. Let’s look at the strategy and road map of Europe to go to climate-neutral transportation target.?
Furthermore, as it has been already announced, Europe aims to become the first climate-neutral continent in across the World by 2050. As one of the first steps, the European Commission had implemented?a low emission mobility strategy?(European Commission, 2016)?in 2016 to be sure that Europe will stay competitive and able to respond to the rising mobility needs of people and goods. Then, first climate action initiatives under the Green Deal have been agreed by the members of European Union. The European Green Deal has announced ambitious targets of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and cities have a key role within this plan if the EU is to accomplish a 90% reduction in transport and mobility-related emissions by 2050.
Idea behind the 15-minute city concept
All these plans have supported to increase awareness on active mobility like walking and cycling which are one of main drivers for 15-minute city concept. Besides, these system level plans, strategies and road maps are important for long-term applications for 15-minute city concept. The 15-Minute City rides on the concept of “chrono-urbanism”, which outlines that the quality of urban life is inversely proportional to the amount of time invested in transportation, more so through the use of automobiles?(Moreno, Allam, Chabaud, Gall, & Pratlong, 2021).?Its basic idea is that citizens should reach everything they need like offices, stores, parks, schools, places of entertainment, health services, simply everything to be able to live in 15 minutes by walking or cycling. By this way, car-dependent transportation would be decreased, and the carbon footprint of mobility would be decreased in cities. That is not only opportunity, but it enables people also to have a healthier life by small actions in their life.
The idea of 15-minute city has been called many things, like "complete communities", "mixed-use communities", "the city of short distances", the slightly different "20-minute neighbourhood"?or as Toderian, as chief planner of Vancouver, used to call it "the power of nearness".?(Baker & Weedon, 2023). As Toderian also said, the 15-minute city idea features the “power of nearness” in where although the term is relatively new, the idea was around for decades and decades.
Impacts and benefits from 15-minute city concept
When we look at the impacts from the concept, it can increase the walkability of the neighbourhood, which is one important measure of success for healthier and carbon neutral cities. Besides accessibility to services and amenities is increased because the basic needs can be reached by basic mobility modes like walking and biking. Social equity is also affected positively since the people who are coming from low socioeconomic groups can access their basic needs by walking. Since these concepts are highlighting and improving the usage of active mobility modes and public transportation, the carbon emission from transportation will be decreased and environmental sustainability is increased. Furthermore, it has been experienced that when the level of accessibility to local shops and business are increased, economic vitality and local economy is also increased. So in a nutshell, I can summarise the impacts and benefits as enhancing the stability of the urban infrastructure, reducing GHG emission, reducing energy needs, boosting local economy, increase employment rate, decreasing maintenance costs, ensuring the social cohesion, enhancing citizen participation into community, increasing the local air quality, decreasing the pollution and noise in the cities.
Barriers for 15-minute city concept
There are some barriers to implement these concepts in cities like political, economic, social, technical, and legal. Since these concepts are underlying quite complex disciplines like spatial planning, transportation, urban design etc, it can be a challenge for policy makers and decision makers. Besides, since implementation of these concepts requires significant investments mainly on public transportation, public spaces, and infrastructures, economic can be an obstacle. Another obstacle may be technical one; these concepts do not rely on specific technical component but requires a complex urban planning and designing challenge. On the legal side, some local and regional spatial planning and zoning ordinances may not be compatible with the 15-minute concept if they require a strict separation of different types of spaces, such as retail areas, recreational destinations, and residential quarters. Lastly, there would be some social obstacles if citizens and retailers do not feel safe and secure about the impacts of the estimated and foreseen changes on their daily lives and routines.
At this point, it worths to mention about the opponents of 15/20-minute city theory. However, they are a small group of people, the idea behind arguing these concepts says that these concepts are plots by "tyrannical bureaucrats" to take cars out and control people lives, which could lead to a real-life Hunger Games scenario?(Baker & Weedon, 2023). I totally agree that 15-minute city theory aims to take the car out from the streets by decreasing their amount but creating other healthier and sustainable alternatives for people. Making streets more secure to walk, increasing the capacity of streets to walk and/or ride a bike, designing neighbourhoods as more accessible for people who live in there are just few examples of the concept. Moving beyond that, I do not agree the point of controlling the lives of people and I am not sure also how it can be possible by these methods.
One important point which strengthens this counter view is that the concern of 15-minute city concept would create more ghettos in cities and decrease the interaction and connection of different neighbourhood and districts in urban and sub-urban areas. The shortcoming of the counterview is that 15-minute city concept is increasing the interaction and connection between different neighbourhoods by increasing the accessibility of mobility. In urban areas, it is not possible to establish everything in neighbourhoods. Will each neighbourhood have theatre, cinema, cultural buildings, university, high school? No, it is not possible. Idea is discussing how to increase accessibility basic needs like shops, elementary schools, parks, some leisure activities, and basic health care services by healthier and sustainable ways which can be done mainly by active mobility modes which will also reduce the noise pollution and increase the air quality of urban areas.
As it is seen mainly European wide, cities are getting decentralised and it results by reducing the need for car usage, redesigning public spaces with less roads, increasing the number of green areas, building new cycling and walking roads, new sport, and leisure amenities. The idea of self-sufficient neighbourhoods is not new – before cars became omnipresent, most cities were laid out like this. However, given the urgency of the climate actions we need to take, many cities are looking at ways to reduce emissions and improve residents’ quality of life?(United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2021).
20-minute city concept
The 15-minute city became a global movement when French capital Paris’s mayor Anne Hidalgo made the idea as big part of her election campaign, and she was re-elected?(Gongadze & Maassen, 2023). After Anne’s attempt and as an action to COVID-19 pandemic, many cities have taken up the idea — or a variation of the idea — in recent years.
However, the main theory is based on 15-minute city, there are other variations of the idea and one of them is called as 20-minute city. The concept has been developed by Capasso Da Silva. His definition for concept is that most of daily needs of citizens should be accessible within 20 minutes by walking, cycling, public transport or transit. The public transportation and transit between modes is the main differentiation between 15 minutes and 20 minutes city concepts. The concept has been implemented by the City of Edinburgh/Scotland to create healthier, greener, thriving and more inclusive neighbourhoods.?(The City of Edinburgh Council, 2023)
Before going to specific policies regarding to implementation of 15/20-minute city concepts, I have to highlight that to make real these concepts in cities, bicycle and walking infrastructure should be built, developed and/or improved since active mobility modes are lying at the core of these concepts. Moving beyond the infrastructure, campaigns to change behaviours of citizens would be crucial to increase the efficiency of implementations.
To reach 15/20-minute cities, we need to focus on using time effectively, increasing the better usability of existing building as modular and recreation of environment in cities. So, in here, I want to summarise some further ideas regarding to these subjects. Mobile Lives Forum?(Mobile Lives Forum, 2022) has developed some concepts which are emphasizing those as chrono-urbanism, chronotopia and topophilia. Chrono-urbanism aims to decentralise cities indicates that cities should get out obligatory mobility and move towards chosen mobility. It is mainly about taking care of reclaimed time for mobility. Chrono-urbanism means the end of the existing urban model in where working, residential, commercial, leisure and sport areas are separated and people spend much time to get where they work, shop or play sports in their daily life. On the other side, chrono-urbanism suggests the new imagination of cities and organising small nuclei in where every neighbourhood and district have needed services for day-today life.
Second suggested idea by Mobile Live Forum is Chronotopia which focuses on reimagining the usage of existing buildings and increasing their modularity for using various services. When we think that almost half of a day, most of buildings are closed. Because 15/20 minutes city concept is offering small communities in where lands should be used effectively, Chronotopia can be implemented for better communities.
The third and last idea is Topophilia?(Haimer, 2005) which stands for creating functional, social, and emotional engagement between citizens and their arounds. This is another crucial suggestion for planning of cities because the mental health of inhabitants determine their engagement with the environment. So, the city should be designed by improving the psychological and mental health of citizens to connect them with their surroundings.
As some example to small scale implementations which enhanced demonstration of 15/20-minute city concept, it will be fine to point to the COVID-19 pandemic period. To COVID-19 pandemics, one of the temporary responses in urban areas across the world during lockdown of cities in where vehicle usage had drastically decreased, was the inclusion of bicycle paths. ?counter the effects as result of vehicle usage restrictions. And they proved their efficiency in terms of mobility and accessibility. De Vos?(De Vos, 2020) indicates that boosting bicycle usage during this COVID-19 pandemics has had various positive impacts including on the health and well-being as well as in helping people preserve social contact while observing health policies and adhering to the long-term objectives of sustainability.
The impact of cycling in promoting sustainable transport and combating COVID-19 can be seen in cities such as Berlin, Germany, where two temporary cycle lanes were established[1] at the start of the pandemic, followed by long-term policy on the topic?(Connolly, 2020). Another example is New York City, which saw a more than 67% increase in bicycle use in March, a success that has led to calls for a permanent transformation into a “bike city”?(Hu, 2020). In Beijing, bicycle use also increased by more than 150% as people tried to avoid public transport and abide by restrictions on private car use?(Morris, 2020).
In Copenhagen, bike shops were considered essential service providers and were never closed, even though other non-essential service providers were forced to close?(Ibold, Medimorec, Wagner, Peruzzo, & Platzer, 2020). Additionally, other services related to public spaces, parks and cultural services and facilities – often overlooked in the past – have grown in popularity and demand during the pandemic. This newly discovered demand for active mobility and citizen-based public services is enforcing mayors and city managers to facilitate and, where possible, make temporary and permanent urban responses, even after the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, these implementations and policies have been made during the COVID-19 pandemic, I want to highlight that pandemic period fastened the shifting to sustainable urban mobility since public transportation has been restricted and mobility of people and goods have been decreased. So that, these actions are implementable even after the COVID-19 pandemic.
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34-Minute ?stanbul
When it comes to how these concepts and ideas can be applied to large urban regions, I want to focus on the City of ?stanbul. ?stanbul is a metropolitan city in Türkiye that combines Europe and Asia across the Bosporus Strait. According to Turkish Statistical Institute?(Tü?K, 2021), the population of the city is about 16 million but according to informal statistics the population is over 18 million. Besides, the city has 39 districts. Each of these districts have their district municipality and they are governed so under the general administration of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
For ?stanbul, some scope of 15/20-minute city concept is already applied. These applications generally like schools, markets, stores, sport areas, basic health institutions (sa?l?k oca??[2]) but for ?stanbul and cities like ?stanbul, green areas, functional public areas, entertainment spaces are not so widened and enough for citizens live in the neighbourhoods. It is because of high population and worse urban planning applications. But for ?stanbul and similar cities, I think that Chrono-urbanism idea cannot be applied since already most of the land in cities have been used for residential and commercial areas and using more lands for further applications will decrease the number of green spaces (which already are less) and public spaces. On the other side, ideas of Chronotophia and Topophilia can be applied easily to increase the efficient use of existing infrastructure and buildings. Moving beyond these ideas, redesigning, and recreating roads, streets, and public areas to implement walking and cycling paths would be helpful to reach 15/20-minute city concept.
Beside that, the ?stanbul Büyük?ehir Belediyesi has developed a tool and concept which is called as 34-Minute ?stanbul. 34-Minute ?stanbul concepts is a different version of 15-minute cities which is more applicable for ?stanbul. And this tool is a publicly open planning tool for the municipality, startups, academicians and business who wants to develop new and novel solutions for ?stanbul but also for citizens to explore their environment in a healthy way. It is interactive, dynamic and data-based accessibility planning tool which shows the places for the basic needs can be reached by walking in 34 minutes. As a fun fact, 34 is the number which symbolise ?stanbul.
The tool is so important for the policy makers for further urban planning activities and policy development for 34-Minute ?stanbul concept which aims to increase the health, increase saving time, decrease carbon emission rate and increase local diversity. It is also valuable for startups to develop new solutions and products. The value for academicians is coming mainly from being an open big data and analysis tool for research and simulations. It is obvious that the concept and the tool will create impacts for featuring the diversity and richness of Istanbul's public spaces and being open to everyone, making accessible and walkable for everyone at any time, and representing different segments of society to make Istanbul and its public spaces livable and lovable.
Conclusion
The challenges posed by the global climate-related crisis necessitate a transformative shift in how we live and work, especially within urban areas where the majority of the world's population resides. The myriad challenges, including climate change, sustainability issues, public health concerns, and social inequalities, demand innovative and comprehensive solutions.
The urgency of addressing climate change is underscored by alarming statistics, such as cities contributing over 70% of global carbon emissions. The NetZeroCities project, initiated by the European Commission, exemplifies a proactive response to these challenges by striving for 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030. The focus on urban mobility within this project reflects a recognition of the significant impact of transportation-related emissions on the climate in Europe.
While system level strategies and policies like Green Deal and Cities Mission Programme will be fruitful for the future of cities to shifting to 15/20-minute city in long-term, solution-based applications like redesigning roads and public areas are implementable for short-terms. Furthermore, former policies are mainly realistic for large urban regions since they need more time to make their transformations real, latter is applicable for small size regions, districts, and regions and as well as newly constructed cities and regions.
The emergence of the 15-minute city concept represents a paradigm shift in urban planning, aiming to create more sustainable, liveable, and equitable urban spaces. By promoting active mobility modes like walking and cycling, reducing reliance on cars, and enhancing accessibility to essential services within a short distance, the 15-minute city concept addresses environmental, economic, and social dimensions simultaneously. In essence, the 15-minute city concept and its variations offer a blueprint for creating resilient, sustainable, and inclusive urban spaces. The ongoing efforts by cities, regions, and initiatives worldwide, coupled with innovative tools like 34-Minute Istanbul, exemplify the commitment to redefining urban living for a better and more sustainable future. The journey toward realizing these concepts requires collective action, adaptive policies, and a shared vision for creating cities that are not just habitable but also lovable for all.
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[1] District Office Berlin. Temporary Installation and Expansion of Bicycle Traffic Facilities during the Pandemic Crisis. Available online:?https://www.berlin.de/ba-friedrichshain-kreuzberg/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2020/pressemitteilung.911780.php