I have split my years living part of the time in suburbs and part in urban areas. This is not counting two times that I lived in the LA area, which I don’t quite know how to quantify. I have learned that I like living in what urbanist researchers (as they are called) classify as a “15-minute neighborhood” — meaning that you can walk or bike to many of the things you need for your daily life within that time frame, which works out to about a mile or so walk and perhaps a three mile bike ride. I also define my neighborhood in St. Louis as walk-to-Whole Foods and walk-to-hospital, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Why is this important? Several reasons. First, I don’t like being in a car. On my last residency in LA, I had a 35 mile commute, which could take anywhere from 40 minutes to hours, depending on traffic and natural accidents. At my wife’s suggestion, I turned that commute into a 27 mile car ride and got on my bike for the last (or first) leg. While that lengthened the commute, it got me to ride each day. Now my commute is going from one bedroom (the one I sleep in) to another (that I work in). Some weeks go by where I don’t even use the car.
Second, I like being able to walk to many city services, even apart from WF and the doctors. When the weather is better, I bike in Forest Park, which is about half a mile away and is a real joy for other reasons besides its road and path network.
This research paper, which came out last summer, called “A universal framework for inclusive 15-minute cities,” talks about ways to quantify things across cities and takes a deep dive into specifics. It comes with an interactive map of the world’s urban areas that I could spend a lot of time exploring. The cities are mostly red (if you live here in the States) or mostly blue (if you live in Europe and a few other places). The colors aren’t an indication of political bent but how close to that 15-minute ideal most of the neighborhoods that make up the city are. Here is a screencap of the Long Island neighborhood that I spent many years living in: the area shown includes both my home and office locations, and for the most part is a typical suburban slice.
The cells (which in this view are the walkable area from a center point) are mostly red in that area. Many commuters who worked in the city would take issue with the scores in this part of Long Island, which has one of the fastest travel times into Manhattan, and in my case, I could walk to the train within 15 or so minutes.
The paper brings up an important issue: cities to be useful and equitable have to be inclusive and have services spread across their footprints. Most don’t come close to this ideal. For the 15 minute figure to apply, you need density high enough where people don’t have to drive. The academics write, “the very notion of the 15-minute city can not be a one-size-fits-all solution and is not a viable option in areas with a too-low density and a pronounced sprawl.”
Ray Delahanty makes this point in his latest video where he focuses on Hoboken, New Jersey. (You should subscribe to his videos, where he talks about other urban transportation planning issues. They have a nice mix of entertaining travelogue and acerbic wit.)
Maybe what we need aren’t just more 15-minute neighborhoods, but better distribution of city services.
I grew up in Saint Louis, and as soon as I got a driver’s license, I was off. It was my ticket to seemingly endless freedom, I loved driving, especially long distances, generally solo. Driving to Chicago to go record shopping, rolling out to Denver to meet friends for a ski weekend, an overnight road trip to Daytona Beach, driving for the day to/from Saint Louis to Austin, TX when I lived down there, or the art delivery of over $100k of glass Chihuly sculptures to DC in an old Ford delivery van; being on the road was everything, but as I’ve grown (matured?) it’s become more and more of a chore. I feel part of the reason is that people are not as kind as they used to be; road rage, people driving without regard for others… I feel it’s a symptom of a bigger problem in our society, but point is my views have changed. My Daughter lives in Chicago now and doesn’t drive; doesn’t have a car, doesn’t have car insurance, and has no need for it. She takes Amtrack to come here, rides the EL daily and can hop on a bus or grab an Uber to get wherever else she needs to go and I love that she has that freedom.
I visited New York for a few weeks two years ago and loved being able to hop on the subway at the Upper West side station by Central Park every morning and go anywhere I wanted, even for an hour through Brooklyn where a drunk Russian drinking a fifth of vodka kept us entertained on the way to Coney Island to (repeatedly) ride the Cyclone. Fast forward to last Fall and my time in Copenhagen underscored how much I love taking public transportation to get anywhere, be it the metro for getting around the city or the train to go up North to the Indiana Modern art museum which afforded views of Sweden across the sound. It’s also only a 45 minute train ride from CPH Central station over the sea to Malmö, Sweden for an amazing day trip. Don’t get me started on when I had a weekend off in London and took the Chunnel to Paris for the day, returning on time at night to meet friends at a pub for some curry before walking back to the hotel. Traveling around Berlin was a pleasure as well, those yellow trains and the German efficiency on full display there.
Now, as I have for over 30 years, I have to meander down Highway 40, trudge up and down the 270 loop, or battle the horrible I-70 Inter-belt with it’s Mad Max style drivers jockeying to get there before everyone else and I’m just over it. I long to live in a more progressive city (country?) that values its citizens having more freedom and less reliance on expensive 2000 pound machines that pollute the air and force us into a life of servitude as we buy the latest/greatest cars with the cool new (privacy sapping) technology that allows the car companies to keep making money off of us during our trips to the grocery store.
I still love cars, I still love driving, but I’d rather be able to do it when I want to; not when I have to, which is pretty much all the time. Sure I could walk maybe 45 minutes to the grocery store if I was so inclined, but cars traveling at 50 mph on Manchester just feet away from me gives me more anxiety than I remember experiencing when I was younger. I don’t know what the solution is, but I admire your life in the Central West End, where Saint Louis has at least as an as-semblance of something a bit more equitable, with a Metrolink station nearby. Of course the lack of safety and the limited route of that transit failure is well known and so disappointing. Any attempt to expand that gets shouted down, as a 5 mile North/South expansion along Jefferson was ridiculed at a meeting in the city last night. It’s a bummer and I really question how much longer I want to be part of this waste of time, energy, and sanity.
But on the plus side, I really appreciate your continued newsletters that challenge me to (re)think things and how I can improve my well being by making intentional changes regardless of how small. While perhaps not the true intent of your writing, it’s part of what I get out of it. Okay David, I need to turn off here, can you please let me change into your lane so I can get off at the next exit? I’ll give you my customary “thank you” wave and will see you later.
NOTE: Incidentally, my first attempt to post this failed with the error message, “forbidden – number in author name not allowed = fak3r” I apologize for my attempted hacking! 😉
My local government wants to impose 15-minute living on our existing suburban neighborhood. To them, it means making main roads impassable, while adding more housing. It will be a disaster if they do it. They have no idea how people get to work and how they get to school.
Much as people like to dunk on suburban sprawl, a suburban cul de sac is the best place to raise children.
I enjoyed your commentary on 15-minute cities.
A key element in making 15-minute cities viable is good law enforcement and the willingness of city and state governments to enforce laws to keep these cities safe. When cities turn a blind eye to shoplifting, stores that might be a short walk away will close. When criminals are not adequately prosecuted, people will drive to protect themselves from street crime even when stores and services are a short walk or bike ride away. When sidewalks are filled with drug users and panhandlers, people won’t want to use them. I live near Seattle and have seen the deterioration of this once-beautiful city over the past 20 years as crime is mostly ignored.
A recent webinar by the MIT Mobility Forum makes the case that all this will only be possible with e-Bikes. Anyone living in SF or any small city with hills will tell you those 15 minutes take a bit more! Here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1WVnbWg1I