mossThe Fields development in Frisco, Texas, is being called a "15 minute city". As someone interested in urbanism, this was very exciting for me—that is, until I saw that "15 minute city" was being defined as "a design where most daily necessities can be reached by a 15-minute walk, bike, or car ride." The inclusion of cars in that definition defeats the purpose of a 15 minute city.
By including cars in the definition, you turn a style of urban planning that could dramatically improve the health of our communities into a style of urban planning that most suburban and urban communities in USAmerica already use. Even my grandparents out in semi-rural Texas live less than 15 minutes from everything they need by car. That is nothing special, nothing new.
One of the main purposes of 15 minute cities is to reduce car dependency because of how bad cars are for air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, and community atomization. Being able to get to everything you need on a daily basis within 15 minutes of your home without a car would make it so that we don't have to rely on cars so much, so we can avoid those negative effects. That's the point.
One of the main roads in the Fields development, Legacy Drive, has a speed limit of 45 mph. Traveling at 45 mph, you can go over 10 miles in 15 minutes. Even going 20 mph, much slower than most residential speed limits, you can go 5 miles in 15 minutes.
Going 3 mph—average human walking speed—you can't even go 1 mile in 15 minutes. I cannot emphasize this enough; adding car journeys to the definition of a 15 minute city defeats the point.