A couple of days ago I received in my e-mailbox an interesting article published in the World Bank blog: “Less driving, more living, and the promise of the 15-minute city” that describes some reflections about the 15-min-city concept. In the article it is mentioned that good results of the “Barcelona’s Superblocks” concept as one of the first successful examples of a 15-min city and makes the comparison with the city of Atalanta in Georgia (US) that, despite having the same number of inhabitants, shows a 25-time larger geographical extension, therefore the same concept applied couldn’t generate the same kind of results.
This is certainly true and I would add the way we would travel these 15 minutes matters. Let’s make a step back: what is it intended with “15-minute city”?
On Wikipedia, the items opens up with this paragraph: “The 15-minute city (FMC or 15mC) is an urban planning concept in which most daily necessities and services, such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride from any point in the city. This approach aims to reduce car dependency, promote healthy and sustainable living, and improve wellbeing and quality of life for city dwellers” (reference provided on Wikipedia).
OK, it is an urban planning concept, I accept it, but I am not satisfied with the following phrase: “…can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride from any point in the city”.
Humans in good health conditions are said to normally walk at about 3 miles per hour, which is 4.8 km/h, that is 4,800 metres in 60 minutes, therefore is 1,200m in 15 mins. This means I should be able to find all I need (e.g. grocery, schools, office, cinemas when walking 1.2 km. Pretty impossible.
Conversely, if I travel by bike (traditional or electric?) my distance would be longer whereas if I travel by public transport (let’s assume a conventional commercial speed of 15 km/h) I could find all I need within 4 kms and this begins to become more acceptable. More difficult is calculating the distance I could reach using several modes of transport, but the waiting times for public transport would make the 15-min concept useless.
Let’s extend the concept: if I travelled by high-speed train, in 15 mins I could reach a location 30 or 40 kms from my departure point, very probably another city! Of course, this is intentionally exaggerated, but it helps me get to the original point.
The 15-minute city concept must be very well defined to generate a viable and realistic urban planning. Although there are a few examples worldwide of attempts to implement this concept, I am not entirely sure the results obtained met the original expectation.
Theory and practice differ – sometimes – a lot. Provided the concept would be applied by travelling by public transport, what if the service is congested and buses arrive later at the stop? My amount of 15 minutes could become 30 or even 45.
I think we still need a lot of studies before having 15-minute cities properly working and the first step would be having public transport (PT) networks properly designed and the overall service well operated in such a way that PT customers would be convinced of using it. This would increase the number of private vehicles left at home, with the positive consequences of less congestion and less pollution in our cities. This would increase our quality of life and maybe indirectly our cities could offer their best within 15-minute (multi-modal?) travelling.
Stefano Mainero
EPN Consulting and EPN Consulting Research and Innovation Founder & CEO
Article written by human beings without any use of AI. EPN Consulting Ltd. copyright 2025
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