Living in Proximity in a Living City

Abstract

Rethinking urban life in a world of massive disruptions (climate change, air pollution, nature, water biodiversity and now Covid-19) has become one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. To face these crises we must urgently address lifestyles and mobility, move away from the omnipresent car and the petroleum era and question what kind of city we really want to live in. The proposition of Professor Carlos Moreno is the “15-Minute City” concept, in a compact zone (or the “30 Minute Territory” in a semi-dense or sparse zone), where inhabitants can access all their essential needs of life: living, working, supplying, caring, educating, enjoying. The 15-Minute City addresses the key components required for a sustainable world (ecological, social, economic) and integrates the concepts of chrono-urbanism, chronotopia, and topophilia. This reinvention of proximities utilizes the convergence of open data, digital mapping, geolocation and the massification of new services. Nevertheless, citizens and their quality of life are always at the heart of the 15-Minute City. It is thus a polycentric city which combines urban intelligence, social inclusion and technological innovation and ultimately defines itself as an urban life planning. Paris is among the world’s first cities to have implemented the 15-Minute City, where it is famously quoted as the “big-bang of proximities”. It has recognized this innovative approach based on a global and systemic vision of the city in order to meet the fundamental needs of its inhabitants and to urgently address the unprecedented challenges it is facing today. This concept has now become a global movement.