Am I the only urban studies person who is just not really impressed by the "15-minute city" idea? I support its goals but as an overall urban planning vision, it feels kind of flimsy, like it's lacking something

The 15-minute city idea isn’t so far from the position that says that zoning is the sole root of all urban problems. Both ignore questions of politics, class and power with regards to urban land and housing markets.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying a 15-minute city would be a *bad* thing, just that the ideas lacks any critical edge. Plus it seems to somehow have become the term that a lot of planners have settled on for What the Post-Covid City Should Be, and as such it is lacking.

I see a lot of people are telling me that the 15-minute city is not trying to be a vision of what cities should be, but you can see where someone might get that impression. Its proponents certainly seem to think it's a new urban planning model.

Imagine you’re a tenant in a building that’s very far from any shop or social infrastructure. This definitely makes daily life more difficult. But without strong tenancy rights, ‘amenitising’ your street might very well mean a rent hike that forces you to move even further away.

I’ve not seen any 15-minute city proponent talk about how making the idea a reality requires the definancialisation and decommodificatipn of housing (let’s hope they start doing so, I don’t mean this as a form of point scoring). So at best the idea is significantly incomplete.

The threat of displacement is never reason to deny giving people what they need. But we’ve seen again and again that “improvements” that don’t reckon with the reality of housing displacement, inequality & insecurity don’t redistribute urban amenities, they just move things around

So yes—accessible, nearby jobs, social infrastructure, parks, shops, health clinics etc for all. I mean, obviously! But if you’re not talking about the political-economic forces & processes that actually shape the production & distribution of these things, you’re doing it wrong