15-Minute City: Decomposing the New Urban Planning Eutopia

Georgia Pozoukidou and Zoi Chatziyiannaki
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Georgia Pozoukidou: Faculty of Engineering, School of Spatial Planning and Development, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Zoi Chatziyiannaki: Faculty of Engineering, School of Spatial Planning and Development, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-25

Abstract: As cities are struggling to cope with the second wave of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of 15-min cities seem to have sparked planners’ imagination and politicians’ willingness for providing us with a new urban planning eutopia. This paper explores the “15-min city” concept as a structural and functional element for redesigning contemporary cities. Methodologically, a study of three case cities that have adopted this new model of city vision, is carried out. The analysis focus on understanding how the idea of 15-min cities fits the legacies of different cities as described by traditional planning principles in the context of three evaluation pillars: inclusion, safety and health. The paper argues that the 15-min city approach is not a radical new idea since it utilizes long established planning principles. Nevertheless, it uses these principles to achieve the bottom-up promotion of wellbeing while it proposes an alternative way to think about optimal resource allocation in a citywide scale. Hence, application of 15-min city implies a shift in the emphasis of planning from the accessibility of neighborhood to urban functions to the proximity of urban functions within neighborhoods, along with large systemic changes in resource allocation patterns and governance schemes citywide.

Keywords: 15-min cities; proximity; inclusive planning; COVID-19 pandemic; spatial planning; land use planning; bottom-up wellbeing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

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