This attracted the judges of the Auberge. US landscape architect and climate activist Martha Schwartz said the idea was “powerful, clear and simple”. “It’s dynamic enough and open enough that many cities are willing to embrace it to fit their city… It supports leadership and people who are willing to try different things, take risks and move our society forward.”
Neighborhood
Moreno will use the €100,000 prize money to realize his next idea, the 30-minute field. This focuses on ideas targeting areas with lower population densities than larger cities, where people may not be able to access all essential urban functions by foot or bike.
“We needed to retain the concept of the 15-minute city, but come up with new ways to implement its proximity principles in other densities,” he explained. Moreno’s team has started a new experiment in southern France to understand the behavior of this lower density level.
Moreno said there are many practical steps city authorities can take to create a 15-minute city. One principle is to use existing buildings and infrastructure more intensively. “The urbanist model is oriented towards using buildings for one activity only. So buildings are closed 60-70% of the time. We wanted to propose new functions for existing buildings, different activities,” he said.
Paris, for example, now has campuses open on weekends to expand the number of play areas. It is also closing streets around schools and banning vehicles to make it safer for children to walk or cycle and reduce their exposure to air pollution.
Moreno acknowledged that efforts to create 15-minute cities have the potential to lead to gentrification and increase inequality. To avoid this, he said, projects need to be implemented in all areas, regardless of residents’ income. For example, by charging below-market rents, local shops and businesses such as bakeries and crafts can be encouraged in poorer neighborhoods.
Urban
He said social isolation needed to be avoided, especially in specific areas where only low-income people lived.
He believes that in order to develop the common good, new financial instruments are needed. An example of this is participatory budgeting. This could support the creation of 15-minute cities by allowing citizens to propose projects and vote on which projects and how much municipal spending is allocated to them.
Everyone should be involved in this process, especially low-income and marginalized communities and local SMEs, which are likely to be hardest hit by the pandemic. Paris has one of the largest participatory budgets in the world, and 10% of the city’s spending is determined through this process. In New York, over the past eight years, $120 million has been awarded to 706 community design projects to improve local services.
Moreno said the private sector also needs to be involved in urban transformation. “We need to develop social uses in mixed cities, and for that we need to discuss with the private sector developing new projects to foster cities that promote liveability,” he said.
“The 15-minute city is not a magic wand or a market model – it is a new urban narrative. It is a paradigm-shifting way to base development on temporal convergence and according to economic, social and environmental priorities, Create livable and equitable cities,” concludes Moreno.
this author
early katherine is the chief reporter ecologist.
