Have You Got Fifteen Minutes?

Studio Principal, Guy Pearson, and Principal, Mixed-Use, Buildings, Maja Nesdale reflect on a human approach to urban design and regeneration for creating and connecting 15-minute cities. The concept helps access-focused urban transformations to be ambitious, inclusive, and sustainable.

We’re throwing a note of caution into the current conversations around fifteen minute neighbourhoods, but let’s be clear from the outset that, in principle, they are a good thing – encompassing walkability, local economies, neighbourliness, and a more sustainable approach to living. What’s not to like?

Some of us are fortunate to be able to walk to a local award-winning market for organic veg and vegan pastel de nata (oh yes) potentially bumping into friends along the way. Within our fifteen minute neighbourhood we can easily walk to pretty much everything needed, and it’s a very nice environment to boot. Despite lockdown restrictions, we’ve been fortunate to spend it here. The prospect of spending more time working from home, and less in the city-centre office, appears to appeal to many neighbourhood professional peers, most of whom are now established decision makers within their businesses. It’s a fair guess that for our patch of the planet, changing patterns of work, leisure and convenience shopping post-pandemic will ultimately be a positive for an already localising, circularising (is that a word?) economy. A current surge in house prices seems to support that theory.

So far, so very smug. And, so what?