Shrink the City
The 15-Minute Urban Experiment and the Cities of the Future
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- £6.49
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- £6.49
Publisher Description
“[Shrink the City] surveys ways in which cities around the globe have created compact neighborhoods where residents’ daily needs are quickly accessible on foot or by bicycle—a concept known as the 15-minute city. . . . deeply researched and winsomely written. . . an invaluable overview of the cutting edge of urban planning.”—Publishers Weekly
Cities define the lives of all those who call them home: where we go, how we get there, how we spend our time. But what if we rethink the ways we plan, live in, and move around our cities? What if we didn’t need a car to reach the grocery store? What if we could get back the time we would have spent commuting and put it to other uses?
In this fascinating, carefully researched and reported book, longtime Financial Times journalist Natalie Whittle investigates the 15-minute city idea—its pros, cons, and its potential to revolutionize modern living.
From Paris, Melbourne, and Rotterdam to Charlotte, North Carolina, and Tempe, Arizona, cities worldwide are being guided by the 15-minute city’s ideals—with varying results. By looking at these examples, Whittle considers:
what really happens when a city expands bike lanes and pedestrian areas—and disincentivizes long commutes
which approaches to building affordable housing are actually effective
how neighborhoods of varying wealth are affected by 15-minute city policies
whether it’s possible to convince car-owning city dwellers to replace their vehicles with other forms of transport.
This timely book serves as a call to reflect on our cities and neighborhoods—and it outfits us with insights on how to make them more sustainable, safe, and welcoming.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Whittle's enlightening debut surveys ways in which cities around the globe have created compact neighborhoods where residents' daily needs are quickly accessible on foot or by bicycle—a concept known as "the 15-minute city." Whittle begins by highlighting the 15-minute city's benefits to not only the climate (it reduces emissions) and human health (it promotes daily exercise and limits pollution) but also to commerce, as many studies have shown walkability and bikability increase a community's economic activity. The examples she spotlights are deeply researched and winsomely written. In a chapter explaining why Paris has been leading the way on walkability and car-reduction, she attributes the development to the doggedness of longtime mayor Anne Hidalgo but also to the fact that Parisians never really developed a strong attachment to the automobile (in Paris, the car has for decades been "like a nervous aristocrat, getting on with life but catching glimpses of the guillotine"). In another chapter, Whittle explains how "Latino Urbanism" is now being studied as a powerful force for revitalizing deadened, sprawling suburban areas of Los Angeles, where incoming waves of Latino residents have brought food stalls, front-yard gardens, and other small, inexpensive changes that "lift up the spirit of the place" and create walkable corridors. It's an invaluable overview of the cutting edge of urban planning.
