(2020-01-29) Paris's Mayor Has A Dream Of The 15-minute City

Paris’s mayor has a dream of ‘the 15-minute city’. They’re very hard to find now, even in dense cities (the average New Yorker now spends around 43 minutes getting to work, and that’s not on foot).

Inspired by the work of Jane Jacobs, who argued that proximity is the key to making cities vital, he argues that cities should be redesigned so that people can access the basic social functions of a city within their own neighborhoods

Paris is already walkable, and as the city has added new bike lanes, the number of cyclists has grown 54% over the last year alone. But the aging train system often has delays, and many people still drive.

In Canada, Ottawa announced last August that it also wants to transform into a network of 15-minute neighborhoods

Hidalgo’s plan would add offices in neighborhoods that lack them, so people can work closer to home. Some people could work in neighborhood coworking hubs

Another key to the approach, he says, is finding multiple uses for infrastructure that already exists. Libraries, stadiums, and other buildings could be used outside their standard hours. Nightclubs could double as gyms in the afternoon. (This is really hard: liability/etc)

Paris has relatively little green space, so the city is adding greenery to school playgrounds, and Hidalgo wants to open access to these new “parks” to neighbors on weekends as a new place to relax. (SmallPark)

New gardens for urban agriculture (urban farming) can provide neighborhoods with local food (Probably pointless, doesn't scale.)

A sketch from the reelection campaign outlines one way a street might change to make it more enticing to avoid driving and better utilize the existing road space: Filled with traffic and parked cars now, it would be redesigned with greenery and park space at the side, a wide lane for biking and walking.

She wants to build even more bike lanes, calling for a “100% bike” city

the efforts are one part of a plan to become carbon neutral by the middle of the century. But it’s also meant to improve the quality of life for Parisians and reconnect neighbors