Being able to travel somewhere in 15 minutes is powerful. It’s brief enough to be part of a daily schedule, and quick enough that many people may decide to walk or bike instead of taking a car.
This idea is the core of the 15-minute town (also known as the 15-minute city or ville du quart d’heure). A 15-minute town is one where basic necessities such as grocery stores, restaurants, parks and some schools and offices are all available within a 15-minute trip by bike, foot or public transportation
Originally proposed by professor Carlos Moreno, 15-minute towns became popular through the campaign of Anne Hidalgo for mayor of Paris, France in 2020. Since then, the idea has spread to other cities and organizations. It’s time for Chapel Hill to join them and officially support some form of the 15-minute town as a concept for local planning.
The advantage of enshrining the idea of a 15-minute town in official town planning, such as the Land Use Management Ordinance that is in the process of being rewritten, is that it provides a concrete goal to aim for, acting much like the UN Sustainable Development Goals do for the world. The model centers the discussion on issues important to everyday life—where people learn, sleep, work and buy groceries.
As it stands now, Chapel Hill holds potential for the model. There is already a wide variety of grocery stores spread throughout town—many Harris Teeters, several Food Lions, a Whole Foods, a Wegmans, and many others. A cursory glance at a map shows most housing developments are within walking distance from at least one restaurant.
Access to parks is also already good, by and large. The Daily Tar Heel correctly pointed out that statistics claiming that Chapel Hill is significantly behind our neighbours in park space are influenced by poor data excluding significant portions of green space. However, this doesn’t mean that we should be content with our current amount of parks, as multiple studies have shown that living near parks is associated with lower mortality rates.
Still, there are some major gaps in people living close to where they work, an important component of the plan for a 15-minute town. According to Rod Stevens’ Housing Report, almost 90 percent of people who work in Chapel Hill live in outlying communities, while around two-thirds of Chapel Hill residents do not work in Chapel Hill. This imbalance exposes the hollow side of much of the progress Chapel Hill has made toward becoming a 15-minute town, since it comes at the price of forcing many people who would live in Chapel Hill to live elsewhere.
While the comparison to a 15-minute town model exposes holes in Chapel Hill’s ideas of sustainability, it also needs some modifications to be right for here. Medical facilities and houses of worship, which are also important for a thriving town, are excluded from most versions of the model. Fifteen minutes is also probably unrealistic for getting to school and work from our suburban neighborhoods.
Even if it needs some tweaks, aiming for the idea of a 15-minute town is still an important goal for Chapel Hill. It moves Chapel Hill away from a shortsighted focus on car traffic and toward a wider vision of a greener future.
