Chrono-Urbanism and Well-being

Considering the Benefits and Challenges of the 15-Minute City

​Author: Nélida Quintero, PhD

​I recently had the opportunity to moderate a panel entitled: The 15-Minute City: Cities of the Future, that focused on the 15-Minute City approach to designing more livable and sustainable cities, at the New York Build Expo 2025, an architecture and construction event held in New York City. The panel was composed of architects and urban designers and included Theodore Liebman from Perkins Eastman, David Green from Arup, Patrick McCaffrey from Dattner Architects, and Rob Piatkowski from WSP. 

What is the 15-minute city model and what are its benefits and challenges?  
 
The 15-Minute City concept proposes that everything a person needs in daily life—work, education, healthcare, shopping, and recreation—should be accessible within a 15-minute walk or bike ride or public transportation trip from home.  The model is meant to foster stronger local communities, reduce reliance on cars, and improve overall well-being and quality of life. 

Image Source: DiscoA340, Exterior of La Samaritaine 2, CC BY-SA 4.0

The term “15-Minute City” was popularized and advocated by urbanist and professor Carlos Moreno in the 2010s but its roots lie in older urbanist ideals revolving around human-scale, walkable cities and mixed-used development.  The concept gained global recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns and travel restrictions challenged our understanding of proximity, mobility, and the importance of local neighborhoods. In 2020, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo embraced it as a central part of the city’s post-pandemic recovery plan. Since then, cities like Melbourne, Milan, Portland, and Bogotá have applied some of its principles as well.

Image Source: Thesupermat, Paris - Station de métro Abbesses - PA00086748 - 001, CC BY-SA 3.0

While emphasizing proximity to basic resources, the model also underlines the importance of urban green spaces, community cohesion, and participatory planning. Though branded as innovative, the 15-minute city concept echoes ideas from a long lineage of urban thinkers and planners, such as Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, which aimed to merge the best of urban and rural life through self-contained communities with green belts and easy access to jobs, emphasizing decentralization, walkability, and access to nature. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the New Urbanist movement also called for walkable neighborhoods and mixed-used development, as a reaction against car-dependent suburban sprawl.  Around the same time, the concept of Transit-Orient Development (TOD) was also introduced, focusing on high-density and mixed-used development communities centered around public transportation. 

Image Source: Max Avans, Pexels

These models reflect a shared critique of 20th-century car-centric planning and a desire to bring people, activities, and green public space closer together. What makes the 15-Minute City unique is its focus on time as its primary metric. What these models also share are elements that have been shown to promote and sustain urban well-being.  

By emphasizing shorter travel times to most basic resources and daily activities, the 15-Minute City addresses the documented stress linked to long commuting times. Increased social interaction and access to nature, potentially facilitated by walkable, mixed-used neighborhoods with more public spaces, parks and third places, has also been shown to have multiple well-being benefits.  For instance, increased nature exposure may improve mood, reduce cortisol levels and increase cognitive performance. Walkable and bike-friendly areas may increase opportunities to strengthen weak social ties as well as encourage physical activity, which may reduce the risk of depression, anxiety and cognitive decline.
 
Challenges in Implementing the 15-Minute City
 
Some of the challenges for the implementation of the 15-Minute City, which were discussed by the New York Build Expo panelists, include the difficulty of retrofitting existing infrastructure, for example, in cities where city blocks are large or where urban zoning does not permit mixed-use or higher density development. There are also concerns and critiques regarding affordability, accessibility and equity around assuring that the benefits of the 15-Minute City are available to all.  

Image Source: Muhammad Renaldi, Pexels

By 2050, +/-70% of the global population will live in a city, according to the United Nations’ projections.

Therefore, the United Nations’ Sustainable Goal 11 calls for cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, and urban design approaches such as the 15-minute city could help in working towards this goal.

​The 15-minute city stands as a hopeful model in which time, proximity, and connection take precedence over speed, distance, and isolation, in an effort to promote and sustain urban health and well-being, and enhance urban life  in the cities of the future. 

Image Source: Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, New York Build 2025

Interested in reading more?  Here are some suggested readings:
 
Gehl, J. (2011). Life between buildings. Island Press.
 
Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989). The experience of nature: A psychological perspective. Cambridge university press.
 
Leyden K. M. (2003). Social capital and the built environment: the importance of walkable neighborhoods. American journal of public health, 93(9), 1546–1551.
 
Montgomery, C. (2013). Happy city: transforming our lives through urban design. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
 
Moreno, C. (2024). The 15-Minute city: a solution to saving our time and our planet. John Wiley & Sons.
 
Moreno, C., Allam, Z., Chabaud, D., Gall, C., & Pratlong, F. (2021). Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, resilience and place identity in future post-pandemic cities. Smart cities, 4(1), 93-111., 4(1), 93–100.
 
Roe, J., & McCay, L. (2021). Restorative cities: Urban design for mental health and wellbeing. Bloomsbury Publishing.
 
Whyte, W. H. (1980). The social life of small urban spaces. Conservation Foundation.
 
World Health Organization (WHO). (2018). Global action plan on physical activity 2018–2030: More active people for a healthier world. Geneva: World Health Organization.  Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241514187

About the Author

​Nélida Quintero, Ph.D. is an environmental psychologist and licensed architect based in New York. She is a Fellow at the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, an American Psychological Association NGO Representative at the United Nations and a member of the Psychology Coalition at the United Nations Program Committee. Her project list includes consulting on well-being and the physical environment, as well as designing and managing architecture and interiors projects in the US and Latin America. She has taught at various academic institutions including Hunter College, Parsons School of Design, as Assistant-in-Instruction at Princeton University, and currently at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her research interests are broadly focused on the interactions between people, behavior and the physical environment, in particular in relationship to health, well-being, gender, design equity, and the city. She holds a PhD in Environmental Psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, a Master's in Architecture from Princeton University, a Master's in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design, and a BA from Mills College in Studio Arts and Communications.