Cities are under pressure. Rising housing costs, climate commitments, ageing infrastructure, and the disruption of remote work have forced urban planners to rethink the fundamentals of how cities are designed and experienced.

The 15-minute city — popularised by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and urban theorist Carlos Moreno — proposes that all daily needs should be reachable within 15 minutes on foot or bike. The concept challenges the dominant model of car-dependent urban sprawl that has shaped most twentieth-century city planning.

Critics — including some conspiracy theorists who distorted the idea into a surveillance narrative — miss the genuine tensions the concept raises. Densification and mixed-use zoning can improve sustainability and reduce commuting, but they also accelerate gentrification and displacement if not paired with robust social housing policy.

The post-pandemic city faces a particular challenge: office districts have emptied, city centres have lost footfall, and the revenue models that funded social infrastructure are under strain. The cities that thrive will be those that adapt — not by rebuilding the twentieth century, but by designing for the lives people actually want to live.