Oof, in my city there's one route that's 40 minutes, and the rest are an hour+

If I lived in a different spot or had kids or anything, it'd be impossible for me to take the bus. I don't blame people who don't use it. It's mostly used by homeless people.

It's getting better though, slowly but surely :)

One of the mistakes for which j think you are down voted is thinking you can't have nature nearby if you live in a more dense cluster. Quite the opposite is true. People living in apartments 4 or 5 high leaves a lot more open space available for parks, playgrounds, etc. Suburban sprawl looking for "wanting nature and places in their backyard that kids can play" is exactly what destroys this space in cities in the first place...

As an American, I worked in Tokyo for a while and I would 100% raise a family in any sized walkable town or city with mass transit. You could walk to several stores or restaurants, the train station, the river, or several parks within 10 minutes.

I think 15 minute cities are great if you have everything to back it up.

This is just a tautology

I think water is great if it has two hydrogens for each oxygen

Even if you have most things nearby for day-to-day life but still need to travel an hour for any of: school, work, daycare, groceries, or even common leisure or entertainment activities, "green spaces"... Then that ain't a 15 minute city.

Additionally, transit is absolutely included in 15 minute city concept - whether it be pedestrian, biking, bus, train, mixed-mode trips, cars*... It's a holistic concept so of course these are all under the umbrella.

* yes even cars can be included, but in order for the others to be successful they are general de-prioritized in this model.

Edit: I'll also add that I see "15-minute city" is an aspirational goal, and anything that moves us closer towards it tends to be good for the people that live there - and even if not fully achieved in a particular place, this type of hand-wringing about specific aspects in order to disregard the whole concept seems disingenuous at best.

If people can work and live anywhere they want, they want nature.

This is a huge generalization and you seem to imply that would mean populations spreading out into semi rural areas. Studies have shown people are happier with access to nature, but you seem to forget green spaces, parks and tree lined streets exist. I loved living in a walkable city and absolutely would again if I could afford it.

I think the downvotes are the blanket statement of “if people can work and live anywhere they want, they want nature”

I like nature just fine and have worked from home for most of the past ten years but you couldn’t get me to give up the city for the country and I’ve had the option for a long time. I moved from Atlanta to Seattle because i preferred the opposite of what you said people want.

Families wanting nature and places in their backyard that kids can play

Prospect Park is often called Brooklyn's back yard.

I think 15 minute cities are great if you have everything to back it up.

The fifteen minute city is the infrastructure.

Only thing urban planners seem to understand is if you make driving more difficult somehow this magically makes mass transit better instead of people just refusing to go to that area. Also that poor people don't have a right to park their car.

That you can't imagine how it possibly could.

You think the rest of the world just, I guess, found the natural transit in the ground? The rest of the world built public transit systems to satisfy the people. America did not, to satisfy the companies.

to pre-empt the standard responses:

"america is very big", yes yes so is the rest of the world, we managed.

"America isn't as dense", yup the rest of the world has low densities, too. We still build infrastructure, though

"It's very expensive and we already bought a car and made all these empty dead suburban environments, it would take people three hours by bus to get to a store", yup America made its choices there, the rest of the world zones so that people live near the infrastructure they need and can get the things they need via transit.

It’s so weird, do they think handicapped people can bike and walk everywhere or don’t exist?

As a handicapped person myself, it really baffles me how people think car oriented infrastructure is so much better for us. I am a wheelchair user, and I live in a 15 minute neighborhood. Getting around in my wheelchair is a million times simpler there than in my old car-centric suburb, because the same disabilities that make me wheelchair bound also prevent me from driving. Which mean that in a car-centric environment I do one of the following:

a) Rely on the generosity of friends and family to cart me around at their convenience, or b) Utilize shared access rides, which are door to door, but take longer than using public transit, or c) Roll myself to underserved suburban bus stops over badly maintained sidewalk, and pray I make it on time.

None of which are appealing.

Meanwhile, in my 15 minute city:

• The buses often run at 10 to 15 minute intervals (vs 30 to 60 minutes in the suburb),
• Sidewalks are larger
• I have less distance to travel in the first place

Handicapped people are more affected by the inverse. Small cities are great, car-centric communes are terrible for them. They've worked out their own mobility issues, but those solutions are interrupted when the crosswalks and pedestrian bridges are affected. If the "solution" involves getting in and out of a car repeatedly, it's often cumbersome for people in wheelchairs.

The point on kids really relates more to neighborhood safety, and how often people interact with a community. Often, kids should be trusted to go down the street to the park. All our old Saturday newspaper comics involve kids going places themselves on foot or bike instead of constantly "being dropped off".

You never even seen the Netherlands, have you? Also, what I tell everyone who comes up with these kind of non-questions, no one is taking your car away. Cars still exist in Europe, but they are not the default, they are used for what they make sense, making irregular trips of 100+Km. But chances are, that there is a train that serves the route anyway.

Handicapped people: most have access to electric micro-mobility vehicles that are legal to use on bike lanes. For those who can't use micro vehicles, there's still cars, and vans. They still exists. They weren't magicked away.

Kids: My sister lives in the outskirts of Madrid, her neighborhood is littered with dozens of parks of all kinds, all less than 10 minute walks. My 10 y.o. nephew can go on his own to many parks without ever having to set foot on asphalt, cross a road or get on neither a bus or a car. He has never had to play on a street. They live in an urban tower that, while they don't have a personal green cancer backyard, they have a skatepark, a playground, a pet park, sport courts (tennis, badminton, soccer and basketball), a running trail and a botanical garden, all within walking distance.

I can't figure out how they think these utopian 15 minute cities would work if they don't have a working transit built in. It's so weird

Isn't the assumption that the 15 minute city is a neighbourhood in a functional city? There should be transit.

It's so weird, do they think handicapped people can bike and walk everywhere or don't exist?

I lived in something like a fifteen minute neighbourhood. I saw people in wheelchairs around. They appeared to use the same amenities as everyone else.

Do they think parents love sending their kids down the block to play by themselves instead of the backyard?

Our kids preferred going to playgrounds because the toys and play structures were better. And they ran into kids they knew.

Their choices aren't going to make sense for a ton of people.

I'm not sure what would be bad about a fifteen minute neighbourhood. It's just a normal neighbourhood, with stores, schools, work, and civic infrastructure.

As far as I can tell, a fifteen minute neighbourhood only adds to what exists, rather than taking away.