Cities with a “15-Minute-Plan” for the post-Covid

by SIMONE D’ANTONIO

There is no doubt that urban residents who are going to better resist to the consequences of the lockdown are the ones who are living in neighbourhoods with a direct access to services, shops and green areas. The current crisis is showing the urgency of accelerating the implementation of the so-called “15-Minute-City”, a concept recently made famous by the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo during her campaign for municipal elections but well-known to the experts of sustainable urban development and inspired to similar experiences (such as the 20-minute neighbourhoods of Portland or the East London’s Every One Every Day plan) adopted by other cities.

Reducing the access radius to education, culture and leisure, sustainable food and transport facilities should not be just a right of who is living in the city centres, but local authorities and communities need to cooperate to ensure that this kind of accessibility is granted to all the residents.

One of the desirable revolutions which could take place in the next months should be for every city to provide its “15-Minute-Plan” as part of its strategies for recovery and resilience, which needs to be constantly updated according to the evolution of the pandemic in the next months. Collaborating with residents in defining this kind of plans and regularly checking their implementation can be crucial for reviving a community spirit based on the right to an accessible and liveable city. 

MAKING ROOM FOR PUBLIC LIFE

by CHIARA LUCCHINI

The need to adapt public spaces to safety measures has stimulated many cities to start new initiatives and make policies which could potentially redefine roles and balances in the uses of public spaces. A great opportunity we shouldn’t lose. A big change that should be accompanied by more discussion.

The end of the lockdown and the start of phase two brought public life in the spotlight. To restart many activities the adaptation and reframing of public spaces is key to provide an infrastructure capable to enable safe physical distancing. Experiments are being launched all over the world: City of Milan gained a lot of visibility with its urban adaptation plan, but similar things are taking place in New Zealand (where the central state will finance intervention in cities), in the rest of Europe (Madrid, Brussels, just to name a few cases), in the United States. As they choose to redefine the relationship between the different mobility systems, these initiatives propose new ways to distribute the space of the road and to (apparently) radically rethink the uses of urban grounds. 

Austrian bikers keeping the distance

From an urban planner or an urban designer’s perspective, this is critical and exciting at the same time. Rethinking the limits and the uses of public spaces is unfortunately not always possible (and certainly not everywhere). On the other hand, many agree on the fact that this is a great opportunity to define new priorities and imagine, with a little ambition, more virtuous futures and new balances. What emerges at the moment is great enthusiasm, and a little confusion, with a reduced ability to distinguish and value the different typologies and scales of public spaces (neighborhood spaces, large public infrastructures, parks and gardens are different things and policies should treat them as such). The risk of promoting a one-for-all set of solutions is very high at the moment, with a reduction in diversity, contextuality and effectiveness of solutions, according to the different contexts and societies. 

The conditions of use and exploitation of public spaces has a lot to do with economy and economic balances – as opportunities  of exchange and movement need to be granted to people for certain activities to happen. Pedestrian streets occupied by  tables and chairs, drive-ins, and drive-though services, are recurring images in these days, as the need for economic activities to gain outdoor space is becoming more and more debated – often forgetting about the critical issue of privatizing something that is public, letting some interest prevail among others. 

As we go through newspapers declarations, and more in general  the evolution of the “public discourse on space”,  these initial attempts to redefine our public spaces disclose some critical  “weak points” that  require further discussion. 

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THOUGHTS FROM IM-MOBILITY

BY ELENA COLLI

As a passionate urban cyclist, disguised as an academic working on sustainable mobility, there are few things that caught my attention during these dramatic, absurd, but utterly thoughtful quarantine days. At this moment the current object of my study – human movements – is on pause. Movements are dramatically reduced. Cancelled. Banned. Prohibited.

We are experiencing a stop that would have been unimaginable in normal circumstances. Something that we would have called “impossible” to realize until a few weeks ago. It’s more than 70 years that Europeans do not experience similar limitations to movement for precaution or imposition. And this is forcing us to live a very prolonged and spread “Traffic-ban day” – except the fact we cannot experience the positive consequences of re-appropriation of streets and public space, if not once a week in those few meters to go to the supermarket (even if cycling those few meters is so glorious right now, with the crosses and streets empty, and without the fear to die in a car accident every now and then).

So what I have noticed?

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