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THEME PAPER
from the car centric designs
to human centric designs,
like the Paris City, which has
been successful in removing
70% of its on-street parking,
thanks to the urban innovator
Carlos Moreno and Political
acceptance by Anne Hidalgo,
the mayor of Paris.
Figure 1: Baghdad - 767 and 912 AD (Muir)
Other cities include Venice
of Italy, Constantinople,
Harappa, Mohen-jo-Daro
and the list goes on. It’s been
theorized by Harvard Health
that “human under their
own capacity have about a
30-minute mental limit i.e.,
they are not going to walk
more than 30 minutes unless
they have to – that’s about
1.7 kilometers or cycle for
about 30 minutes which is 7
On learning about some other
examples such as Baghdad
–the largest city of Iraq and
one of the most populated
urban agglomerations of the
Middle East: In 767 to 912 AD,
it was also a closed city with
travelling time from one end
to the other being a mere 25
minutes’ walk (Figure 1).
kilometers.” Many cities were
scaled to accommodate this
inherent transport psychology
in earlier days.
The Last Century
With urbanization, the urban
designing principles thrifted
from human sensitive design
to economic development
designs, where the distances
became easier to reach, and
cities started to sprawl. With
October 2021 Volume 22 No. 2 - SHELTER
the introduction of cars and
other automobiles, cities
began to stretch beyond the
human limit of walking or
cycling, hence they started
to move away from the
center instead of densifying
the cities first, which is not
only unsustainable but also
economically expensive
for the municipalities,
environmentally unjustifiable
and people do lose time
in the bubble of illusory
acceleration.
This concept of 15-minute
neighbourhoods is in direct
contrast to the urban planning
paradigms that dominated
for the last century, whereby
residential areas are separated
from business, retail,
industry and entertainment.
Nonetheless, most of
the ideas and principles
underpinning the 15-minute
neighbourhoods are not
new and most cities already
contain areas that align with
15-minute principles, even
if by accident rather than
by design, some already
have longer-standing urban
development plans that strive
for the very outcomes sought
by the 15-minute-city model of
Carlos Moreno, extending its
assistances across the whole
city, for everyone (Group,
2020); but the merger of it
with the other two concepts,
might be the answer to every
city everywhere.
Pragmatic use at the city
level, the creation of 15-min
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