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Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

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Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#31

Post by dsfyu404ed »

duxup wrote: post #6
actionfromafar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning laws are too strict. Buy a home and convert it to a grocery store? No can do, in many places.

I agree generally about zoning laws. But I also think they do a good job of keeping joe schmo from trying to turn a random plot into a car repair business that is just not suited to the job. Rando business guy doesn't care if the area is suited for it and neither do their customers. I speak from experience as I lived in a house near a guy who decided to do just that... broken down cars parked everywhere (leaking all…

When you kick out all those businesses that the upper middle class finds unsightly there ceases to be enough latent economic activity for the businesses you do like to exist in an economically sustainable manner.

Banning automotive repair might be ok by itself but there's another idiot who wants to ban X, and Y and Z and their complaints are just as valid as yours and the status quo is what you get when you try and accommodate all of them.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#32

Post by logifail »

trillic wrote: post #17
logifail wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a High School (This is going to sound like we're playing Sim City 2000) but don't forget to add a hospital (a proper one, with an emergency room), a fire station, a police station... > a grocery store Are there many neighbourhoods which don't already have some kind of grocery store?

They're called food deserts and they exist all over the United States. Even in big cities. They are not the same as a food dessert.

> They're called food deserts and they exist all over the United States. Even in big cities.

Wiki (sorry) appears to define that as "an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food"

I appreciate their point, but "no grocery store" really isn't the same as "limited access to affordable and nutritious food".

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#33

Post by jrochkind1 »

duxup wrote: post #26
jrochkind1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me personally, coffee shops and restaurants within a 15 minute walk is huge for my quality of life. I currently have it... barely.

I think that's a personal preference thing, you pick where you go based on that. Just a bit less essential than say groceries.

I suppose it's all a personal preference thing to some extent -- at least if you have a car to get you further away for whatever it is.

But true, different people at different points in their lives, income levels, social positions, and preferences will prioritize different things.

The OP list seems pretty good for improving quality of life for a big round population of people at different stages of their lives and social positions. (After all, generational and income diversity in a neighborhood is probably also a plus?)

I wish I could make a personal preference to have all of those things in a 15 minute walk from me! It would require moving to a different city probably, and paying much much much more than I do now for living expenses.

I think 15 minute walkability actually has would have a much larger impact on quality of life than many people realize. I think if most people could get it without having to trade off between different personal preferences (like being able to afford the rent!), we'd be doing a lot better.

Like... nobody needs a coffee shop or everyday restaurant within a 15 minute walk. And if it requires trade-offs, including to affordability, not everyone is going to choose it. But when everyone has one (or ideally several), I think it's going to make neighborhood relationships and connections stronger in general, the people that run into each other at such establishments, or while one (and not necessarily the other) of them are walking to such establishments, the relationships between workers and customers, etc.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#34

Post by david927 »

jgwil2 wrote: post #9

Really neat visualization. Would love to see it for other cities (perhaps Paris would be a good one for comparison, since it's touted as the fifteen-minute city par excellence).

I don't see how Paris is the best example. I would nominate Zurich.

Strangely, I live with my wife and daughter in Boise, Idaho and we don't own a car. The high school, my work, grocery stores, etc. are all within a short walk.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#35

Post by nicoburns »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #7
duxup wrote: post #2

I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things. But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reason…

My guess is that most USA urban neighborhoods in, say, 1960 (or 1930), met the 15 minute criteria. Still, I'd guess you'd be right that it would be enormously expensive and difficult to bring this back. But it was once this way, and it was human decisions that made it not this way. If we want it to be this way again and start, it can be eventually.

Politically difficult, yes. Enormously expensive, I'd imagine not. Retrofitting a house to be a cafe/shop isn't that difficult or expensive. And it needn't be done all at once, it could be done gradually over time.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#36

Post by dabbledash »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #7
duxup wrote: post #2

I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things. But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reason…

My guess is that most USA urban neighborhoods in, say, 1960 (or 1930), met the 15 minute criteria. Still, I'd guess you'd be right that it would be enormously expensive and difficult to bring this back. But it was once this way, and it was human decisions that made it not this way. If we want it to be this way again and start, it can be eventually.

I think it's possible that we lost this because, while people do genuinely like it, they like quiet, space, and privacy more.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#37

Post by pjc50 »

duxup wrote: post #2

I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things. But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reason…

> annoyed if .. creating an incentive to build a restaurant in the plot next to you, not enough restaurants nearby

Why?

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#38

Post by hammock »

The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back.

Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery with no or limited off-street parking, and which receives its deliveries on the street in the early morning (no loading dock)

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#39

Post by kenperkins »

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension. If I was living at the base of Lower Queen Anne and the "facilities" meeting the 15m criteria was at the top, that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#40

Post by logifail »

ghaff wrote: post #21
logifail wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a High School (This is going to sound like we're playing Sim City 2000) but don't forget to add a hospital (a proper one, with an emergency room), a fire station, a police station... > a grocery store Are there many neighbourhoods which don't already have some kind of grocery store?

It probably depends on what you mean by "grocery store." In dense urban areas, bodegas, chain convenience stores, and pharmacies with a small grocery section are pretty plentiful. Supermarkets a lot less so. That's probably part of a shift over time. In general, we probably have more relatively large but spread out businesses than little mom and pop places on every corner. (This is sort of a US comment. There seem to…

> It probably depends on what you mean by "grocery store." In dense urban areas, bodegas, chain convenience stores, and pharmacies with a small grocery section are pretty plentiful. Supermarkets a lot less so. That's probably part of a shift over time. In general, we probably have more relatively large but spread out businesses than little mom and pop places on every corner. (This is sort of a US comment. There seem to be more serviceable smallish grocery stores in Europe that are in between a supermarket and a convenience sore. That's less common in the US other than one-off markets.)

While on a business trip I stopped at a petrol (gas) station in the UK a couple of weeks ago, the sort on the side of a major road outside a city, and with a mini-supermarket attached, and was literally speechless when I realised they had a whole shelf rack containing gluten-free products.

I have coeliac disease, and had been assuming I'd have to travel specially to some large supermarket to get the stuff I can eat, but thanks to this place I grabbed loaf of gluten-free bread and a pack of gluten-free cornflakes, and I was good to go.

I'm discovering that coeliac and mid-range hotels don't always mix :/

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