The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept that has a goal of enabling most people to easily reach most of their necessities and services within 15 minutes by walking, by a bicycle ride, or by transit. These necessities and services include grocery stores, schools, healthcare facilities, and parks and recreation facilities.
The purpose of this concept is to reduce automobile dependency by increasing the convenience and safety of walking, bicycle use and transit riding. Less automobile use can result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced local air pollution, fewer traffic accidents and less traffic noise. These can all improve public health, as can the resulting increased walking and bicycle riding.
Reducing automobile dependency can also allow consumers to spend less money on automobiles, and thus have more available for other purposes. This lowered cost of urban living can also make such living a more affordable alternative to living in low density, automobile-dependent suburbs.
Although it is sometimes said that this concept would reduce mobility by restricting residents to their respective zones, actually the opposite is true with a well-planned 15-minute city plan. This is because improved public transportation linking zones as well as improved conditions for walking and bicycle riding would make it much easier to travel not only within zones but also outside of them.
The 15-minute city is one of several urban planning concepts with similar goals, including the 10-minute city, the 10-minute walkable neighborhood, transit-oriented development, walkable neighborhoods, complete neighborhoods and the urban village.
Such an urban structure is not new. Rather, it recreates how cities used to form organically before the use of automobiles became widespread and before the use of zoning, which discouraged or prohibited mixed uses of land.