| Throughout recorded human history, less than 5 percent of people lived in cities. But in the relative blink of an eye, this situation reversed. People began leaving the countryside in droves during the industrial revolution. By 2008, the urban population had eclipsed the rural one. The gap continues to widen. Seventy percent of the world's population is expected to live in cities by 2050. But cities are staggering under their success. Congestion and lack of affordability are sapping their lifeblood, pushing people from many cities into expensive housing in far suburbs or exurbs. Vehicles have been the leading source of greenhouse gases in the United States since 2017. Few things exemplify this trajectory better than commuting in the United States. American commuters spent an average of about an hour each day driving to work in 2019, the vast majority alone, up from 44 minutes in 1980 (the pandemic put only a slight dent in these numbers). Few enjoy it. When 900 Texas women were asked to rate their feelings about daily activities, the morning commute came in dead last — after work and household chores. Longer commute times have also been associated with more stress, poorer mental health and lower job and leisure-time satisfaction — the equivalent of a 20 percent pay cut, according to a 2020 study in the journal Transportation. The response has been the 15-minute city. What is a 15-minute city? Conceived in 2016 by Carlos Moreno, the 15-minute city imagines putting "humans and their well-being as the main purpose of urban organization," Moreno, an urbanist and professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris, told The Post in March. The idea is "to promote sustainability and health by reducing car dependency and increasing physical activity," primarily through walking, biking and mass transit. What are the objections? Some have falsely claimed it will imprison people within a 15-minute radius of their homes (it's about convenience and freedom, advocates argue, not isolation). Some urban planners object to the idea, saying we can't fit everyone's job within a 15-minute walk and eliding the benefits of access to jobs across a metropolitan area. "It's not a very controversial idea in urban planning that it's better when you can reach things close by in a city," says David Zipper, a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School studying transportation policy. "But you can take it too far. … Everyone can live and work within 15 minutes of where they want to go? That's just not how things work." Why jobs and amenities are different when it comes to proximity "The welfare of cities is dependent on their labor markets," Alain Bertaud, an urban planner at New York University's Marron Institute, wrote in an influential 2014 essay. He notes more jobs and workers mean more innovative and productive cities. "Without a functioning labor market, there is no city." That's why some are saying 15-minute cities are best thought of as neighborhoods, said Adie Tomer, an urban economics and infrastructure policy expert at Brookings Metro. "There are really two kinds of trips: the commute and everything else," says Tomer. "There might be one perfect job for you in that [city's] labor market. But that's at a completely different proximity you need for your bakery, grocery store or daily activities." From an urban economist's perspective, the perfect 15-minute city fosters local businesses and amenities in that 15-minute zone to optimize free time and quality of life. It maximizes economic opportunity, ideally by many modes of transportation, within a 30-minute radius of people's homes. Why you might already be living in a 15-minute city In the 1890s, the first streetcar suburbs emerged. What made these older, inner-ring communities thrive was a core of mixed-use development — high- and low-density housing alongside shops and other services — next to fast, affordable transportation. Tomer thinks the first suburbs are these 15-minute cities in waiting. "These are not 15-minute neighborhoods yet, but they have the bones for it," he says. "You just have to do a little work." Click the button below to find out how citizens are making 15-minute cities happen. Write me with your questions at climatecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Climate Coach in your inbox every Tuesday. See you next Tuesday, Michael Coren, Climate Coach | 
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