The 30 minute city; a metric, not a destination
8:30 pmThe 30 minute city is not a place. It is not a CBD or a downtown centre that can be somehow reached within 30 minutes. It is, however, a...
8:30 pm
The 30 minute city is not a place. It is not a CBD or a downtown
centre that can be somehow reached within 30 minutes. It is, however, a
powerful and insightful metric of how a city functions. For planners and urban policy
experts the 30 minute city should be simply defined as, “what can I access in 30 minutes”? That’s it!
Using GIS technology we can now generate heat maps that
illustrate what any resident of a city can access within 30 minutes of their
home or place of work. It has the potential to show the jobs, shopping, recreation, health care and education someone could access within 30 minutes. And
from a business perspective, what labour market, customers, suppliers, ports,
road and rail gateways they could access within 30 minutes.
There is an emerging narrative in Sydney that the 30 minute
city should be a destination. That is, within 30 minutes, any resident should
be able to access a centre designated to be a “30 minute CBD”. This concept is
appealing to urban planners, it allows them to define what a 30 minute CBD looks
like, and allows them to draw lines on maps and reinforce their ideological
definition of what the perfect city should be.
But that’s not how cities work, and it’s not how we live in them.
This concept of a 30 minute city as a destination doesn’t stack up to even the
most simple scrutiny. For example, in
Sydney how many 30 minute CBDs do we need? Do we need better transport
networks, or more 30 minute CBDs? Where would they be located and what
services would they provide? Do regional centres like Campbelltown, Liverpool
and Penrith stack up as 30 minutes CBDs? Should I be able to visit an art
gallery, study at a world class university, watch a football game or visit a
specialist neurosurgeon at every 30 minute CBD? What kind of jobs should I
expect to find in my local 30 minute CBD? Can I work for an investment bank or
a tech start-up in my local 30 minute CBD? What if the economic conditions for
these designated centres never eventuate, and the visions of planners become development
nightmares of isolated business parks, motorways, and sprawling low density
suburbs? Is that the city we want?
It’s not just the city that’s hard to define, how do we even
define 30 minutes? Is that 30 minutes during the morning peak? Middle of the
day? By foot, bicycle, transit or private car? Can I access these 30 minute
CBDs by public transport? Or do I need to spend tens of thousands of dollars a
year on a private motor vehicle to reach one of these CBDs?
The idea of a 30 minute city, with urban services deemed
essential by urban planners, is no place I want to live! The 30 minute city
should be a metric of accessibility. With technology we can easily convey the
accessibility of services and experiences someone might reach within 30 minutes,
by any mode of transport. People should be empowered with this information to
make personal decisions that trade-off their time and money as to where they
choose to live and work. If there are parts of the city that are poorly served
within 30 minutes, then we can use these measures to debate and discuss trade
offs and investments, either providing services nearby or making them more
accessible by better transport. We should be enabling bottom-up planning,
debating the merits of transport infrastructure and land use densities, rather
than dictates of ideal CBDs from above.
The idea of a 30 minute city is a great concept,
let’s not confuse a powerful metric of liveability with some contrived ideology
of a perfect destination.