The 15-minute City.

Many years ago, my father who loved books and discussion, along with Serge Haber and others initiated a seniors' program within the Jewish community that eventually became the Jewish Seniors Alliance. https://jsalliance.org/

A few years ago, I was invited to join the board and one of my few contributions is a regular column in the JSA's impressive magazine Senior Line.  https://jsalliance.org/outreach/publications/senior-line-magazine-2/

When I wrote my bi-weekly column for the Vancouver Courier, I was never told what to write. I always chose the topic for each column. However, at The Senior Line, editor-in-chief Dolores Luber has always suggested topics she thought would be of interest to the readers, and I have been happy to oblige.

Past columns have examined different forms of housing, types of care facilities, and even NIMBYs. For the most recent edition, Dolores asked me to write about the 15-Minute City. I suggested that we expand the topic to include other terms that have recently been added to the planning lexicon. Below is the latest column. I hope you find it of interest. 

The 15-minute City

Recently, several terms describing different approaches to city and neighbourhood planning have been added to our lexicon. They include ‘Missing Middle’ ‘Gentle Density’ ‘New Urbanism’ and ‘15-minute City’.

‘Missing Middle’ has two interpretations. It sometimes refers to a missing segment of the population between those who are rich and those who are poor and often excluded from most government housing programs.

However, it can also refer to a missing form of housing between a single-family house and conventional apartment building, including duplexes, triplexes, and townhouses.

This housing is also referred to as ‘gentle density’ in that it can increase the number of homes in a neighbourhood without the dramatic changes that result from larger apartment buildings.

Allowing laneway or coach houses or the subdivision of larger houses into multiple suites are other ways of achieving ‘gentle density’.

The third and fourth terms could be grouped under the heading ‘everything old is new again’. ‘New Urbanism’ is a planning and development approach based on the principles used to plan cities and towns in the past, with walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in proximity, and accessible public spaces. In other words, a human-scaled approach to urban design and planning.

Which brings us to the ’15-minute City’.

It too has alternative meanings for different audiences. For many, it refers to a residential urban concept in which most daily activities can be accomplished by either walking or cycling from one’s home within 15 minutes. For others, it includes accessing these services and activities by public transit within a similar timeframe.

Regardless of which definition is applied, the key consideration is that the 15-minute city or neighbourhood is quite different than the auto-oriented car-dependent neighbourhoods that planners have been creating since the 1950s.

In these neighbourhoods there are no corner stores, and you often need to drive children or grandchildren to school.  It may even be necessary to drive to a neighbourhood park or playground.

The 15-minute city concept first gained prominence with planners when it was used during Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s successful re-election in Paris in 2020. Since then, politicians and planners around the world have been using it to describe the types of neighbourhoods they want to promote in their cities or municipalities.

If you live in downtown Vancouver or Kerrisdale; along Number 3 Road in Richmond or Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver; or in West Vancouver’s Dundarave Village, you already enjoy the attributes of a 15-minute neighbourhood. Indeed, most urban areas built prior to the overwhelming proliferation of cars have the qualities of a 15-minute city. UniverCity, SFU’s new community on Burnaby Mountain, which I managed for seven years, is another 15-minute community.

However, if you live in other parts of Metro Vancouver, due to zoning bylaws that often separated residential, commercial, and institutional uses, it is usually necessary to get into a car to access shops, services, and other amenities.

This becomes particularly problematic for seniors and others who either do not have a car or can no longer drive.

Today, the challenge for many politicians and planners is how best to transform car-oriented suburbs into more walkable and accessible neighbourhoods that will allow seniors who want to remain in their homes to do so.

One way is to start allowing the mixing of shops and housing. This might mean including corner stores within new townhouse or apartment developments within established single-family neighbourhoods.

It could also include the transformation of arterial streets by replacing single-family houses with mixed-use buildings offering grocery stores, pharmacies, general merchandise, and offices at grade, with housing above, like those sprouting up along Cambie Street.

Another approach is to locate housing, libraries and even schools on the expansive parking areas surrounding older suburban shopping centres. While we can see the massive redevelopment at Oakridge, a similar approach, albeit at a different scale, needs to happen at other shopping centres around the region. After all, for many of us, the shopping centre is our community centre.

Finally, we need to rethink our public transit system. Instead of having to walk 20 minutes to a bus stop, why not bring the bus stop to our homes? This is already happening with HandiDART and ‘community shuttle’ routes operated by minibuses carrying fewer passengers. These tend to operate in quieter, residential communities that do not have enough ridership to justify longer 40ft buses.

While these services are more expensive than conventional bus routes, they need not be. It may just be a matter of time before minibuses are autonomous, like one I experienced earlier this year in Masdar City, a sustainable new town just outside of Abu Dhabi. I just had to select my desired destination on the dashboard, and the bus took me there. No driver.

If you do not expect to see this in your lifetime, you might be surprised!