Canada's 15 Minute Cities

Because of the current global epidemic I have not traveled more than three miles from my home in over seven months. I do not own a car and at the moment I am reluctant to use public transport. Consequently my world has become a lot smaller. 

Luckily, however, I live in a '15 minute city'. Which means that all my essential needs can be accessed in 15 minutes from my home by foot or by bike. The concept of the 15 Minute City was developed by Professor Carlos Moreno of the Sorbonne. Moreno's new approach to city planning wants to make urban living more livable and sustainable by ensuring that all the essential needs of individuals can be accessed without having to get in a car or use public transport.

The importance of this concept has become much more apparent to many people during the current global epidemic. Many more of us now work from home and many more of us are restricted in how far we can or are willing to travel. 

If you live in Canada then you refer to The Globe and Mail's 15 Minute City article to discover whether you live in a 15 minute city or not. The newspaper has used Statistics Canada data to see how close people in Canada's major cities live to essential amenities, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, schools and libraries.

According to The Globe and Mail's analysis Canada's most amenity dense city is Vancouver. 72% of the residents of Vancouver live in neighborhoods which are 'amenity-dense'. At the other end of the scale less than 4% of people living in St. John's have easy access to essential amenities.

You can also explore your access to local amenities for yourself by using Statistics Canada's Proximity Measures Data Viewer. This map allows you to explore how close you live to a number of different amenities. 

The amenities which you can explore on the map include public transit, grocery stores, health care, education, libraries and parks. If you select one of these amenities you can view a choropleth map showing the proximity of each census block to this amenity. Select a census block on the map and you can also view a table which outlines the block's proximity to each type of amenity and gives the block an overall score for its 'amenity density'.

If you live in the United States then you can answer the question Do you live in a “15-minute” city? by using HERE's interactive map. Enter your address or zip-code into the map and it will show you all the Groceries, Medical Facilities, Cultural Sites, Educational Facilities, Transit Stops and Leisure Facilities within a 15 minute walk of your home. The map will also tell you if your address qualifies as a 15 Minute City or not