Jul 18, 2020

15 Minute Liverpool - First Look at the 15 Minute City

I’ve seen a lot about 15 minute cities recently:

“this simple notion that all your basic everyday needs, from education to commerce to health care to culture and so on, are located within 15 minutes walk or bike of your front door”.

I’m not sure how it might work - do people get to mix? Might you lose the special things you get in a city centre when you have to endlessly repeat the basics? I like having a pub near my house, but I’m definitely prepared to travel slightly further to exhibitions, libraries and well-equiped maker spaces.

It is an interesting way of looking at we do need though, and how we can move away from cars to cycling and walking more - this seems like a good time to think about things when everything has already been shaken up by the COVID crisis - for me that means that the office I usually work from in Greater Manchester is closed, and I’m working from the coworking space at DoES Liverpool (just over half an hour’s cycling from my home, so it doesn’t quite fit into the 15 minute city idea, but I love cycling into work- it gives me time to think and stuff to look at, and it’s good for you).

It seems like a good lunchtime project to start by exploring the area around DoES Liverpool - Adrian McEwen has been working on isochrone maps which show how far you can get in 15 minutes by cycling or walking (including for people with mobility issues) - you can find out more here: trips.mcqn.com. Here’s one of his maps showing how far you can get from DoES Liverpool in 15 minutes:

15 minutes from DoES Liverpool

I started by just walking to Rodney Street and back on Monday lunchtime - it took exactly half an hour, so the map is accurate, at least for me.

I’m sure there’s lots more thought that can be put into this. For anyone else who’s interested, here’s a few links:

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