UDG Event Review

Urban Design Group and Academy of Urbanism Joint Symposium | The 15 Minute City

Sebastian Loew

The COVID-19 pandemic has had all kinds of effects and one of them has been for the Academy of Urbanism (AoU) and the Urban Design Group to collaborate in a seminal event. The three-day event was called a symposium rather than a conference and it was of course virtual, using the magic of Zoom to get together. The title was The 15 Minute City, a subject which although not new, has been brought into focus by becoming a main objective of Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris, and widely reported in the media as a possible post-COVID solution. What it means, how and where it should be applied and the consequences on the ground were some of the themes discussed during the three days by many presenters and a large international audience. Wednesday evening was a warm-up exercise introduced by the chairs of the two organisations – Tony Reddy (AoU) and Leo Hammond (UDG). Zoom was then used to create small networking groups chatting informally and bringing up different perspectives on the themes of the three days. Examples from other countries seem to have appeared in several groups pointing at the dangers of being too UK and London-centric.

THURSDAY

Thursday started with a presentation by keynote speaker Arun Jain, Chief Planner and Urban Designer in Bellevue, Washington State, talking from America’s West Coast. Acknowledging that we are facing a whole series of crises, he suggested that we analyse what kind of services people can easily reach walking or cycling, and where the gaps are. Different social groups have different needs and we should concentrate on the more vulnerable.

A series of five minutes pre-recorded presentations followed in quick succession. Case studies showed how the 15 Minute City can mean different things: if you include public transport, London is already there; historic cities such as Leeds also achieve the standard; and, the superblocks in Brasilia were built as such but have evolved into specialised districts. Making streets and open spaces more attractive was a theme repeated throughout the event, and Saskia Huizinga outlined some interesting ideas from the Street Improvement Manual produced by the Street Improvement Collaboration. Chris Martin talked about ‘the power of nearness’ and suggested charging people for making choices that damaged the environment. Integrating places of work in the 15 Minute City was dealt with by speakers advocating help for people working from home by including home-work in planning and making buildings adaptable to needs, again a recurring theme of the symposium.

How the 15 Minute City could work for different age groups was discussed. Janet Sutherland addressed the plight of older people not finding suitable accommodation in their neighbourhood and therefore staying in houses too large and inconvenient for them; however she also gave examples of good solutions.

The afternoon session started with a presentation by Professor Carlos Moreno, Scientific Director at the Sorbonne, advisor to Anne Hidalgo and the person credited with introducing her to the 15 Minute policy for Paris. He started by stating that the current situation in cities was unsustainable and asked ‘what kind of city do we want to live in? He suggested that we needed to combine three concepts: chrono-urbanism (a new rhythm of life), chronotopia (multipurpose functions) and topophilia (the love of place). In practical terms, this means for instance urban development that isn’t based on moving further and faster, but helps people walking or cycling and having a healthier lifestyle. The city of proximities, which may or may not mean an exact 15 minute walk, tells us ‘take your time, enjoy, don’t rush’; it means one place, various uses. Moreno cited cities such as Nantes, Milan, Melbourne and Ottawa that were experimenting with these concepts. He also introduced ‘the commons’, the public good as a guiding idea, which the Mayor of Paris is considering as a guide to her policies, and seems so remote from the British approach.

The next speaker was Dr Wei Yang, the RTPI’s Vice-President whose subject was the 15 Minute City in China, seemingly inspired by the British Garden City. Wei outlined the changes in the Chinese planning system and gave examples of cities that base their plans on the 15 Minute concept; so for example Qing Dao is divided into liveable units (the plan looked like an updated version of Ebenezer Howard’s diagram). Shanghai aims for neighbourhoods that offer everything within 15 minutes’ reach, and helps the elderly in the community. It appears that reducing the carbon footprint is the motivation to return to a more local life style.

Daisy Narajan, Director of Urbanism for Sustrans and speaking from Edinburgh, contrasted her native village in Kerala where everything was available locally with the beautiful, but soulless and car-dependent, place where she had lived in the US. She described Edinburgh as wonderful but needing to improve transport and land use distribution, and put green space at the heart of the post-COVID recovery. Echoing Carlos Moreno, she thought that Scotland (and elsewhere) needed to rethink what kind of places people wanted to live in, but she acknowledged that change is difficult to achieve.

THURSDAY EVENING

An evening ‘fringe’ event dealt with the situation in Al Zaatari, a refugee camp in Jordan housing 100,000 people, an ‘enforced 15 Minute City’. Humar Al Waer of the University of Dundee spoke of terrible stories but also positive ones. Killian Kleinschmidt from the Innovation and Planning Agency (IPA-switxboard), narrated the changes in the camp where the inhabitants gradually organised their space, their economy and their governance. The transformation from a military-based layout to a more liveable one was slow and organic, but didn’t happen easily. Karen Fisher from the University of Washington explained how she developed the creativity of local inhabitants to improve their self-worth.

FRIDAY

Friday started early with looking at walking, cycling and the public realm. The UDG’s director Robert Huxford outlined the successes and (mostly) failures of the current highway design in Britain. David McKenna of Street Spirit Design promoted ‘slow streets’ and gave the example of Caernarfon’s Town Square and Chester’s Frodsham Street. David Harrison and Emma Griffin of London Living Streets gave a brief history of the way that urban streets have been used: after WW2 they were taken over by cars and now they have to be reclaimed for pedestrians. Gesine Junker and Laura Georgescu of Transport for London described how the pandemic has suddenly released funds to implement improvements for cyclists and pedestrians, but the short time for implementation and the lack of consultation have been a problem, leading to conflicts and backlash.

Professor Rob Adams, Director of City Design and Projects at the City of Melbourne was the morning’s keynote speaker, presenting from his home in Australia. Viewed from here, his position is admirable and enviable; assisted by a professional team and supported by the politicians, Rob admitted that not everybody would be as lucky and successful as he was! He took advantage of the lockdown to think about the future of the city. Many new cycle lanes appeared and trees were planted. People’s experience during the lockdown depended on the neighbourhood: you can get everything you need at a walkable distance in Melbourne’s centre and in the inner suburbs, but as you move further out, you first rely on good public transport, and then you need a car and you are more stressed. The solutions seem to be both a sensitive densification along movement corridors and at key centres in order to use land more efficiently, and a great improvement of the public realm for pedestrians. He also praised the new trackless tram as a public transport innovation. His talk was rich with examples and inspiration.

A discussion period followed, led by Lord Matthew Taylor. Barriers to the 15 Minute City included the fact that newly redundant office blocks did not necessarily make good housing and that even if they did, only very few people in Britain wanted to live in a flat. Another issue was that applying such a blanket concept everywhere ignored local characteristics.

The afternoon keynote speaker was Anuela Ristani, Deputy Mayor of Tirana, who surprised many of us, unaware of what happened in recent years in her city, by showing the amazing transformation it has achieved in a short period of time. She started with a short history of the growth of Tirana whose population has multiplied fourfold in 25 years, with the accompanying growth in car ownership but no adapted infrastructure.

One of her first interventions was the removal of cars from Skandenberg Square, the city’s main public space, and its transformation into a truly popular place. She then tackled and transformed a number of other unloved spaces in the city and most importantly, she created play areas all over the city. ‘A happy kid is the best advocate for change’ she said, explaining how she gained the support of the local inhabitants through children. Other measures have dealt with mobility, particularly the expansion of bike lanes to 47km, and the greening of the city, for example an orbital forest and the planting of 300,000 trees.

The last session of the day involved young professionals suggesting ways of involving children in design for the post pandemic future. Jas Atwal, Rob Thomas and Rachel Toms presented their ideas and showed examples of work with children.

CONCLUSION

This summary of the event cannot cover the large number of questions that were asked and the many issues debated. One of the advantages of the Zoom format is that throughout the event, comments and questions appear on the chat window; in a real room these would wait until a Q&A session and their numbers would be limited. The result is more democratic but also confusing and distracting: the chat was often at least as interesting as the speaker, and following both was impossible. I wanted to stop one or the other to be able to concentrate better and missed a lot of undoubtedly valuable comments.

On the content of the symposium, it was noticeable that in spite of participants being in different parts of the country and well beyond, the debate kept returning to London, which even in Britain is an exceptional case – privileged in its public transport system and atypical. Worse problems are elsewhere and often overlooked. Equally, when hearing about good examples from abroad, we don’t seem to openly say that the main culprits for the non-neighbourhood places built in this country are a blind faith in market forces, or the lack of powers or leadership of the public sector. No tinkering with the planning system and no design codes will resolve this conundrum.

Sebastian Loew with help from Tim Hagyard

URBAN DESIGN 157 Winter 2021 Publication Urban Design Group

As featured in URBAN DESIGN 157 Winter 2021

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Wednesday 16 September

A welcome from the AoU & UDG Chairs followed by an introductory networking evening

Thursday 17 September

Keynote Speaker: Arun Jain Chief Urban Designer & Principal Planner for the City of Bellevue, Washington presenting  FACILITATING URBAN DENSITY - REVISTING THE BASICS

5 Minutes of Fame: sharp presentations from AoU & UDG members pitching their ideas for the Fifteen Minute City with case studies old and new, and an examination of how in future we best accommodate the needs of all of society, ensure a thriving economy whilst providing more community control, rethinking the quality and comfort of public transport and how we travel, what are the travel differences in urban and suburban settings.

Global Responses to The Fifteen Minute City: City leaders and leading authorities, from around the world, talk about the measures they are taking to transform their streets, neighbourhoods, businesses and lives. With Professor Carlos Moreno, Sorbonne Paris; Daisy Narayanan, Sustrans Edinburgh; chaired by Dr Wei Yang, Chairman of  Wei Yang and Partners, Chairman + Vice President of the RTPI

The 15 Minute City as applied to Paris, from Prof Carlo Moreno’s presentation

Lessons from the Middle East with presentations on Al Zaatari Refugee Camp - an enforced Fifteen Minute City

Friday 18 September

Breakfast Roundtable Discussion on Walking, Cycling, Public Realm: representatives from Transport for London, London Living Streets and elsewhere review the recent U-turn in transport policy that now sees walking and cycling as a key political objective

Keynote Speaker: Professor Rob Adams, General Manager, City Design, Melbourne shares his experience on creating socially inclusive, economically viable & environmentally sustainable neighbourhoods.

Question Time: a panel of experts and the audience share issues, concerns, hopes and ideas surrounding Fifteen Minute Cities and responses to the pandemic

Keynote Speaker: Anuela Ristani, Deputy Mayor of Tirana, Albania talks about successful city transformation whilst overcoming natural disasterd and a pandemic


Tirana: Skandenberg Square before and after transformation, from Anuela Ristani’s presentation

Future Urbanists 2040: young people share their thoughts on future neighbourhoods

Friday night social with Plandemonium, our Urban Quiz

See programme page for more info

PROGRAMME