City-to-city cooperation and the 15-minute city
Résumé
How can cities and territories be transformed for an effective and sustainable environmental transition? How can we rethink the functioning of urban areas? How can we ease people’s lives?
To tackle those challenges, I searched for an urban model that is anchored in modernity by its sustainability and humanity, not its technology. It led, in 2016, to the concept of the 15-minute city, a city model that is today known all around the world.
I propose a new form of urban organization based on proximity. The idea is to enable each inhabitant to satisfy his essential needs (housing, work, access to healthcare, supplies, learning, and self-fulfillment) within 15 minutes of his home by active modes of transport (walking, cycling). Proximity is making people’s lives easier, more pleasant, less stressful and, at the same time, reduces the carbon footprint of urban systems. It’s an alternative to a metropolitan lifestyle that many people suffer from: time-consuming commutes, CO2 emissions, the omnipresence of the car in the urban space, air pollution, isolation, unhappiness, etc.