A New Time Based Urban Agenda. Exploring the 15 minute city in concepts and practices

2.3. Interpretative remarks, problem statement & way forward to case studies.

The concept of Fifteen-minute city was initially developed for the Parisian context. However, in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic and the common problems experienced across the cities, the concept was globalised as a spatial planning model which according to its proponents, renders a paradigm shift in urban planning. In the pandemic-era, it has clear attractions, especially concerned with provisions for ‘work from home’ patterns and its spill over effect at the local scale. Yet, the concept has raised sharp contrasting perspectives across the academia and planning fraternity in general. Although its components of sustainable modes of travel, dense and diverse cities, proximity to services are appreciated and backed by the academic studies, the temporal limit of 15/20 minutes and its uncategorised social functions are less supported. According to its critics, it risk creating disparities and segregation reproduced due to uneven mobilities. During the study, a distinction was made while observing the ‘Arguments in favour’ & ‘Critical voices’, the former is informed by professionals which focused at the micro scale (i.e. neighbourhood to city) while the latter is informed by the macro perspective (i.e. city and metropolitan scale).

As the first theme of tension from a normative perspective to city making, it was observed that the concepts over dependency on decentralization for creating proximity of services to people stands in contrast to, what some economists and transport planners put forward as, primary function of cities i.e. Achieving benefits of agglomeration and scale of economies. Furthermore, localization of jobs from work centres to local neighbourhoods shall deprive the cities from performing the role of places of opportunities for members from low strata of society to achieve socio-economic mobility. The concept is criticized for its unidimensional outlook to cities from resident oriented perspective, risking economic vitality of cities.

From a spatial planning perspective covered in theme 2, the study attempted to analyse the concept from a prescriptive viewpoint to city design. It was found that the proponents use only normative concepts of design namely, density and diversity while no prescriptive guidelines are provided to achieve the fifteen-minute city. It also assumes proximity as an individual design principle apart from the above two, although in spatial planning practice, proximity is a by-product of design and diversity. Thus, making the concept inconsistent and ambiguous.

The concept poses a challenge to fundamental notion of time and distance consolidated in neighbourhood concept, the 8–10-minute walk (interpretated as 5-minute neighbourhood based on crow-fly distance) During the study, it was understood that the means of transport determines the size of shed, which in turn should be reflected in the density values which shall define the minimum population within that shed that is able to support the installation of services. For example, with an electric bike as a mode of transport, some suburban areas may qualify under 15minute accessibility.

Due to scale of economies and agglomeration activities as mentioned before, it is not recommended, due to economic vitality of cities, to decentralise the social functions. As an implication of it, lower order facilities can be provided at local scale however higher order facilities ought to be provided at more aggregate city level. Thus, it becomes imperative to 37