Ideal model for creating a healthy lifestyle: 15 minute living circle
The “15 minute city” as an emerging urban design concept is redefining the relationship between people and the city. This concept advocates that residents can meet most of their daily needs such as going to work, school, shopping, leisure, and even seeking medical treatment within 15 minutes of walking or cycling. It not only pursues efficiency, but also emphasizes health, sustainability, and humanistic care.
The Origin of the “15 Minute Life Circle”
The idea of “life circle” first came from Japan. As early as 1962, Japan proposed the theory of “life circle composition”, which means dividing residents’ living areas into different levels based on population size and travel distance, such as supermarkets, schools, or regional centers that can be reached within a few minutes’ walk from home. This concept gradually developed and gave rise to different terms such as “wide area living circle”, “regional living circle”, and “settlement circle”. Among them, the “settlement circle” can be seen as the embryonic form of the current “15 minute living circle” concept, and gradually influenced South Korea and other Asian countries (Wu et al., 2021). The specific term “15 minute city” was proposed by Carlos Moreno in 2015 as a new urban master planning concept aimed at enabling people to meet their daily needs within a 15 minute walking or cycling distance (Ferrer Ortiz et al., 2022).
Case Study: Shanghai’s Living Circle Practice
In China, Shanghai actively promotes the construction of the “15 minute living circle”.According to the research of Wu et al. (2021), Shanghai has utilized big data analysis and supply-demand matching models to gain a deep understanding of the actual needs of community residents in areas such as healthcare, shopping, and leisure, thereby optimizing the layout and configuration of infrastructure in a targeted manner. For example, in Quyang Road Street and Tianlin Street, urban renewal not only focuses on the density of facilities, but also emphasizes the accessibility and diversity of services, thereby enhancing the convenience and happiness of residents’ lives.
The significance of the “15 minute life circle”
In my opinion, the charm of the 15 minute lifestyle circle lies not only in its convenience, but also in creating a more humane, low-carbon, and health oriented way of life. We can imagine that if there were green spaces, parks, small cafes, and shared spaces right in front of our homes, we wouldn’t need to drive through half of the city to find the joy of life.
References
- Wu, H., Wang, L., Zhang, Z., & Gao, J. (2021). Analysis and optimization of 15-minute community life circle based on supply and demand matching: A case study of Shanghai.PloS one, 16(8), e0256904.
- Ferrer-Ortiz, C., Marquet, O., Mojica, L., & Vich, G. (2022). Barcelona under the 15-minute city lens: Mapping the accessibility and proximity potential based on pedestrian travel times.Smart Cities, 5(1), 146-161.
This blog highlights the strength of the 15-minute life circle as a sustainable and human-oriented urban planning model system by presenting a reflective and systematic summary of the concept. It provides nice background history and follows the development of the concept nicely from Carlos Moreno’s 2015 vision of the 15-minute city to Japan’s original “life circle” theory (Wu et al., 2021; Ferrer-Ortiz et al., 2022).
Making an example out of Shanghai, with its improved quality of life and access to services by using localized planning and big data, is the crescendo of the blog. Measuring walkable distance to the park, the coffee shop, and the public areas is given to exemplify, in a way, the psychological as well as social benefits of such city planning.
The blog might have, possibly, challenged the potential for implementing this strategy in low-density or high auto-dependency neighborhoods with more skepticism. Other than that, there is certainly a legitimate concern about the risk of gentrification or social exclusion of current neighborhoods, even if improved accessibility is the goal.
Overall, the blog succeeds in its ability to balance vision and practice and in making a compelling case for incorporating equity, proximity, and health into future city design
References
Ferrer-Ortiz, C. et al., 2022. Barcelona under the 15-minute city lens. Smart Cities, 5(1), pp.146–161.
Wu, H. et al., 2021. Analysis of 15-minute community life circle. PLOS ONE, 16(8), p.e0256904.