I'm going to venture an educated guess that proximity of things like grocery stores, restaurants and schools in urban areas is going to be highly correlated with income. Lower income neighborhoods are going to have gas stations and 7-Elevens/AMPMs. So an effort to make a true 15-min city should help improve quality of life and access to healthier food for lower-income residents. That would be a good thing.
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
#72The 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 e…
I live on top of a large supermarket, and did at my old building. It's absolutely awesome. No parking lot at all, but why would you need one? It's always packed.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#73I 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…
> 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
Not absolutely everything needs to be walkable in 15 minutes. Once kids are teenagers having go to school on transit or bicycle would be fine.
Perhaps focus on elementary schools being walkable.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#74I 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…
You perfectly describe the Nimby mindset. > I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things. But >Heck I'd be annoyed if someone decides "Sorry we're rezoning / creating an incentive to build a restaurant in the plot next to you, not enough restaurants nearby. Good luck..." >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 di…
I feel like people wield around “NIMBY” labels so that they don’t have to think about how to plan things.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being more than 10 miles from a real market of some sort in an actual rural area seems a pretty low bar. Population density is certainly lower but 10 miles isn't very far if you need to drive to the next town over.
It's not just 10 miles, it's 10 miles and being a low income tract which they define as average household income below 80% of state median or >20% households in the tract being below the poverty line. So trying to measure where the poorest areas have the most limited access.
I'm guessing the income criteria is satisfied in a lot of rural areas however.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#76The 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 e…
All of the grocery stores in the core of Seattle are exactly like that--urban centers with underground parking. Some even have apartments on top of them so you could live above the store if you desired.
Can confirm. This is also true in the denser areas outside the core. Ballard has a couple of large supermarkets with a lot of parking (although one of them is likely to get purchased and turned into a light rail station), but it also has several supermarkets that fit the urban core description. Fremont has an urban core supermarket right in the middle of the neighborhood; the U District has one coming.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#77I'm going to venture an educated guess that proximity of things like grocery stores, restaurants and schools in urban areas is going to be highly correlated with income. Lower income neighborhoods are going to have gas stations and 7-Elevens/AMPMs. So an effort to make a true 15-min city should help improve quality of life and access to healthier food for lower-income residents. That would be a good thing.
Has any city been able to do that? With the current hands-off punishment of theft, stores have multiple incentives working against them to open in low income neighborhoods.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#78I 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.
>Still, I'd guess you'd be right that it would be enormously expensive and difficult to bring this back.
I've moved into and out of downtown Boston over the past 20+ years, and it's been interesting to see this trend actually happen. In the neighborhoods I've lived in, there are usually 1-2 smaller markets that offer convenience at a price, and then a more "traditional" grocery store within 5-10 minutes of walking.
Over the years, a few new grocery stores have been built in the urban core, and they've actually been of the "larger traditional" variety. In most cases, they're part and parcel of new development, so the space, loading, and (reduced) parking requirements can be accommodated as part of the build.
The key is that the stores are being built concurrently with more housing being developed as well, so the stores are effectively meeting new demand. In my most recent "city phase", I actually had 3 "large format" grocery stores, 2-3 smaller markets, plus the assortment of convenience stores within a 15 minute walk.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just 10 miles, it's 10 miles and being a low income tract which they define as average household income below 80% of state median or >20% households in the tract being below the poverty line. So trying to measure where the poorest areas have the most limited access.
I'm guessing the income criteria is satisfied in a lot of rural areas however.
Yeah, you're not wrong, here's the 2010 map;
https://assets.aecf.org/m/blogimg/blog-exploringamericasfood...
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#80I 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…
You make a good point. Living in walkable neighborhoods means evacuating most of the country and concentrating ourselves in fewer, denser cities. It'll be a great thing to the extent we can accomplish it, but people have a strong attachment to place and to suburban lifestyles, and the shift will fuel the nasty culture war we already have.