mschwett 

unfortunately this is absolutely not true in many (if not most) jurisdictions in the united states. single use zoning or zoning where uses other than a primary use are conditional is extremely common.

Dockhead

They have been out of favor since the 90's, which happened with the shift in city planning thinking about sprawl and density.

City planning in the U.S. had previously favored low density over high, and tried to separate uses, and was intensely automobile oriented. By the 90's this was widely recognized as a failure; a few prophetic voices were railing against it already in the 60's. New thinking includes ideas like higher density around transport nodes with green spaces in between, and putting residential uses into downtowns so that they don't die at night; trying to make cities more walkable; more emphasis on public transport; accommodation of bikes. Reducing sprawl by increasing density around transport nodes.

I can't say that every U.S. city has city planning which works like that, but it's certainly what the thinking has been in the profession. U.S. cities I know have gotten much better in the last 30 years even if they are still a long ways from European cities.

Dockhead

Zoning reform is an ongoing process, but it's well underway. See: https://planning.org/planning/2023/w...do-we-need-it/

I'm right now building an ADU on a site in one U.S. city which was formerly single family only.

Most European cities don't have zoning AT ALL. They use a different system based on a master plan. It takes more resources to administer but in my opinion it's a superior approach. Anyone can apply to change the use of a land plot from one thing to another, and the authorities will let you if they think it enhances the urban fabric.

Dockhead

Some cities are hopeless -- L.A. comes to mind.

But you don't need to completely redesign a city to make it more walkable/bikeable. I know cities that are unrecognizably better than they were 30 years ago; Atlanta GA, Austin TX just to name two.

And don't forget we ARE going to get a significant redesign of cities soon to accommodate self-driving cars. The idea is to ban the use of human driven cars in urban parts of cities, which allows drastic reduction in the amount of road area needed (and almost completely eliminates parking), freeing up vast amounts of space for pedestrians, bikes, and green spaces. This will be really cool. I regret I will probably not live to see it fully implemented, but future cities are going to be fantastic.

mschwett 

underway, yes. but it takes a very, very long time and progress is uneven.

by way of explanation of my somewhat blanket statement, i’m a licensed architect in multiple states, a principal of a global A/E firm, and have designed many millions of square feet of stuff in many jurisdictions. outside a rising number of urban cores and other areas of existing density, zoning is still an incredible impediment to walkable, bikable urbanism in the us.

RCMoeur 

I know that Los Angeles is a favorite piñata for people in terms of development and mobility (especially for those of us to the right of it ), but note that the metro area is the second-most dense in the entire US in terms of residents per square mile, and that some neighborhoods are as or more dense than almost any other US city, including many NYC neighborhoods.

mschwett 

and also note that almost no city has expanded high quality transit as much as LA, with ridership gains (relative to the current larger climate!) to show for it.

Bleu

Yep, fewer private cars would make it easier and less expensive to get freight everywhere, and since cars do NOT pay their fair share of highways the tax base wouldn't be missed.

StarBiker

.

Bleu

Interesting, one guy talking about suburbs another about rural living but neither knows what the other means....lots of conspiracy theory theorists even though the link says pretty much nothing.... and the big thing no one noticed there's no such thing as a 15 minute city because the guy is talking about distance not time.

john m flores 

I live in a "15 minute city" AKA "small town". In the past week, I've:

• Ridden to a zoning board meeting (I'm on the board and there are often interesting discussions about development and planning and such)
• Ridden to the supermarket
• Ridden to a cafe
• Ridden to breakfast
• Walked to the pharmacy
• Ridden to the mountain bike trail

I did use the car on Monday to go to my family's house 45 minutes away and over the weekend to visit an ailing friend. And I'll drive to meetings and such, but the car will often sit in the driveway for weeks at a time unused. I used to drive ~30,000 miles/year. Now it's probably ~5,000 miles/year, if that. There are times where I say, "The car's been sitting too long. Need to use it just to get its fluids and joints moving."

This afternoon, I'm walking to the train station to go visit my partner in Queens, NYC. Within a 15 minute walk is great pizza, ramen, Greek food, bagels, etc... And she's three stops from Central Park, five stops from Carnegie Hall, seven stops from Times Square.

When I bought this place, I told the realtor that I wanted to live in a town with sidewalks. I'm glad that I did. I like this way of living.

Trakhak

I never would have thought of such a simple method to pick a good place to live. That's great.

Polaris OBark

on road.cc:

“Crackpot conspiracy theory” led to government slashing active travel funding

RChung

Yikes. So the "15 minute city means you can't travel more than 15 minutes away" crackpot tactics actually worked.

awac

I live between small towns.
Not many services unless you go to the small towns.
I am between two cities that have hospitals, and as I recently had cause to make regular trip every day for a couple of months, I had to use my car.
There is a great smaller hospital near but shuts at 21.00hrs and does not have the equipment I required.
I love to cycle, but the rural roads are as dangerous as urban roads with people cutting blind corners.
I rarely see young children on their bikes on the main road on their own, as I used to do, to much traffic.

I love the idea of a 15min city, fully support it. I try to use the car as little as I can.
My car recently died, and getting to an appointment without it,and back again after surgery proved unrealistic. I had to use a work colleague, because even after surgery (neck dissection) I was deemed not to meet the criteria for hospital assisted transport and they would have left me to use a combination of buses and trains. I am in the process of buying a car as I write this, because I need one where I live, but wish the world was different.

Here is a “googly” or “curve ball” to our friends over the pond! Make the roads one way, and the other lane cycle. You can still use your car but it will take much more time for a round trip when you can go both directions on a cycle. No more land taken for tarmac.
This might encourage local business to set up, all that passing cycling trade going past as it would be less hassle than driving a round trip out of your way, unless you absolutely had to use a car. Until we see the light and introduce monorails and whatever it could be an evolutionary transport step, if you want to go revolutionary on the climate issue I’m with you, but I can’t do it without everyone else!

The world has a love affair with the car for many reasons, and the infrastructure is not there to replace it yet, this would be a quick first step. Why should the car have the right to the amount of space it has?

georges1

I live in a 15 min city since 43 years, postal office, pharmacy and groceries are at least 10min with bike and 15min -20min by foot. I am 25min from the RER station and 1 hour far from Paris. The river is 5 min far from my appartment and I have nice trails where to ride. Sold my dad's car because it was getting too old,gasoline, maintenance and insurance are costly by these days and with cars older than 20 years old because in my country you need to have a specific prefectoral authorization from the department's general council from your place of residence.

Dockhead

There are two sides to that story.

Making it "less convenient or more expensive" to access cities by car seems manipulative and oppressive to car drivers. Cities have gotten furious blowback for some of these initiatives.
Yet -- you do somehow have to get cars out of city centers to make this work.
At least human driven cars. I think self-driving cars or rather cheap self-driving taxis will make it possible to reach a consensus.

Dockhead

That's a perfect example of "the average temperature in the hospital".
The average density across a large metro area is not meaningful. What is meaningful is the density across more granular areas; also, the way uses are mixed. Very well measured with the 15 minute city concept.
A well designed city has all the different elements of urban life arranged around transport nodes so you can access those elements of urban life in 15 minute walks or short bike rides, and use transport for the odd longer trip.
L.A. is not that, and probably can't be fixed. L.A. was designed in an era when it was considered desirable to separate uses as much as possible, and when having a little scrap of your own grass was considered the supreme value in housing. A lot of American cities were designed like that but some of them, at least, have urban cores designed before cars, which can be much more easily adapted to modern ideas about how cities should work.

cooker

A better way to understand it is: "let's stop spending so much money, and wrecking some of the best features of our cities, in order to make it so cheap and convenient for car drivers to buzz around, at the expense of others." Does that make is seem less oppressive and manipulative?