An urban-planning ideal where daily needs — work, shops, school, care, parks — sit within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of home.
Popularised by Carlos Moreno in 2016, the 15-minute city is a planning ideal in which most daily needs — work, groceries, schools, healthcare and green space — lie within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of home. The goal is less car dependence, shorter trips, and more local, liveable neighbourhoods.
It is a target, not a gadget: cities pursue it by mixing land uses and handing street space back to people. Barcelona's green axes rebuild Eixample streets into car-light corridors dotted with new squares — a close cousin of the superblock and of the quick, low-cost street trials of tactical urbanism.
Very few atlas projects are a whole 15-minute city; most are single streets or districts. The idea has also drawn fierce backlash, including conspiracy theories casting it as a scheme to confine residents. More soberly, critics warn that making a neighbourhood highly walkable can lift rents and push out the very people it claims to serve — proximity alone says nothing about who benefits.
Added 2026-07-30 · Part of the growing Smart City Glossary