So one of the most common criticisms of Urbanism I have seen is the fact that people don't want to live in incredibly dense areas, and that's fair. But here's the thing while density helps to get good transit and services, incredibly high density is not needed. Here are some photos of 2 places I would consider 15 minute cities that aren't dense like a New York or Hong Kong
These are disconnected houses with front and back yards with nature around them, the 15 minute City just means a place where your needs are within 15 minutes. A grocery store can easily support itself with only a few thousand people within a mile of it. So can a school or a restaurant. Every historical city was a 15 minute city because people needed to be able to reach their needs in walking distance before cars and bikes were invented as horses were only available to the wealthy. The reason we are told that good urban design requires you to live on top of other people is because there is a vested interest in making good places to live seem scary by making it seem full of people and devoid of nature because it helps auto companies and big box stores make even more money. This post is not to say that density is a bad thing, it is a good and helpful thing, what this post is saying is that the fear of density being needed for good urban design is a myth
@dancingpieces the 2 places I located are places I have personal experience with, those being the Highlands neighborhood in Louisville and the Dayton/Bellevue/Newport area of Northern Kentucky
Urban scrawl is actually bad though, it contributes hugely to climate change and makes resources scarcer! Support 15 minute towns/cities instead of urban expansion!
I'm not saying urban sprawl is good, I am still arguing for higher density in our urban areas, what I am arguing is that the idea that you need to live in massive apartment buildings for a 15 minute city to exist is an incorrect idea
These kinds of neighborhoods are often called "streetcar suburbs", sometimes "old-growth suburbs". They're typically located in a ring around a city's historic urban center, and since they often predate mass car ownership, they were built with walkability and connectivity in mind. As the name implies, these neighborhoods were usually connected to the urban core with a streetcar line.
I love streetcar suburbs, they genuinely have some of the best urban design in the US and because of how they were built it is easy to readd transit to them. If we started building neighborhoods like them again, so many of modern America’s problems could be solved due to how streetcar suburbs are designed in a way that supports connection.
