Earlier this year, American right-wing media circulated one of the most random conspiracies of recent memory: the 15-minute city.
As someone in a field adjacent to urban planning, I’ve known of the concept of 15-minute cities for a while. The phrase was first coined by urbanist Carlos Moreno in 2016, though its ideological foundations come from before the automobile age and have been rekindled in urban theory since the publication of Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities in 1961.
A 15-minute city is a city in which everyday necessities like grocery stores, pharmacies, schools, and places of work are accessible within a 15-minute walk, bike, or public transit ride from your home. This principle is meant to improve people’s quality of life and make owning a car a choice rather than a prerequisite of thriving in society.