A ten-minute neighborhood is a neighborhood in which most services and amenities, such as grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, schools, parks and transit, are available within a ten minute walk (about one kilometer).
This concept emphasizes the designing, or redesigning, of urban areas to encourage walking as the primary mode of transportation and reduce reliance on automobiles. It involves enhancing the walking experience by making it more practical and appealing for daily activities by such means as by utilizing traffic calming measures and providing pedestrian amenities such as wide sidewalks, safe street crossings and shade trees.
Ten-minute neighborhoods benefit the environment because they can reduce automobile use and provide an attractive alternative to sprawl. The also benefit public health, both physical and mental, by encouraging walking and by improving air quality. In addition, they can be financially attractive to people because they can make it practical to live without, or with fewer, automobiles.
There are other, similar urban design concepts, such as the 15-minute city. This differs from the ten-minute neighborhood in that the goal is for most people to be able to get to most of their desired locations in a city within fifteen minutes by using transit or bicycles.