They’re building a 15-minute city from scratch in the Utah desert

In Paris, one of the first cities to champion the idea ofthe 15-minute city—urban planning that makes it possible to take care of most everyday errands with a short walk or bike ride—it was already fairly easy to get around without a car even before the current mayor开始改变. In a typical sprawling American suburb, it’s harder to transform streets designed for driving. But in Draper, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, a new neighborhood is being designed from the ground up to help residents avoid the need for cars.

与郊区正在建设的另一个新发展不同Phoenix, which calls itself car-free, the Utah project, calledThe Point, isn’t assuming that residents will give up cars completely, just that they’ll drive much less. “One of our goals is to create what we’ve termed a one-car community,” saysAlanMatheson, executive director of The Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, the government agency leading the project, which is happening on state-owned land. “We know there will be those who want more than one vehicle, but we think we can design this in a way where they wouldn’t need it.”

The site, which currently houses a state prison that will be demolished this summer, is large, a little more than 600 acres. (That’s bigger than the entire country of Monaco, or about 70% of Central Park in New York City.) It’s also the perfect size for the 15-minute city concept. “From the center to the edge is about a 10-minute walk or so, a 15-minute walk, depending on how fast you walk,” says Peter Kindel, an urban design and planning principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the global design and engineering firm that developed a framework plan to be used to build the neighborhood, which will contain 7,400 households.

该计划要求建立一个开放空间的网络，以便居民可以穿过无汽车的线性公园到达附近的不同地区，以便到达办公室，学校或商店，所有这些都建在混合用途区域中。“您可以在开放空间系统中浏览整个项目，并可以访问该项目中的几乎每个包裹，” Kindel说。街道将允许汽车，但也将优先考虑自行车道和宽阔人行道的空间。居住在附近的人们将能够乘坐公共汽车快速运输系统到附近的城市盐湖城或普罗沃。可以自动运行的小型班车将为需要迅速跑步而不想走路或骑自行车的人绕过附近。Mobility Hubs将提供共享的汽车，自行车和踏板车。

A pathway will also lead through the site on a new pedestrian bridge over a freeway to a recreational trail next to the river. On the other side of the neighborhood, it will link to hiking or biking in the mountains. “I think that’s where a lot of urban design and the future of cities is headed—this idea of ‘biomorphic urbanism,’ where people want connection to nature, and they want connection to each other,” Kindel says. “And they don’t want to spend their whole day in a car commuting.” The path that reconnects the river and mountains will also help wildlife move between the open spaces.

由于土地归国家所有，因此政府经历了一个漫长的过程，询问社区如何发展他们。Matheson说：“我们从他们那里听到了大声而清楚的消息，更方便，以汽车为中心的开发以及更紧凑，更富裕的社区的原则会很吸引人。”他说，犹他州的人口一直在迅速增长，“这里的人们担心这种增长意味着什么。”“这将如何影响我们令人羡慕的生活质量？我认为，他们越来越愿意寻找能够更加周到的方式，可以保护该地区的美丽并改善我们的空气质量，并最大程度地减少交通拥堵。”

一些居民可能会放弃汽车所有权。“The idea here is that it’s an economic driver for the state to attract younger workers who are in the tech sector or the science sector, and we know that they don’t want to live in the suburbs, oftentimes, as the suburbs are currently configured,” says Kindel. “They want more urban features, they want to know their neighbors, they want to be part of a community. They don’t want to spend their day driving.”

尽管该网站是独一无二的，并且可能是在美国建造的第一个真正的15分钟城市，但他说这些想法可以在其他城市中复制。他说：“我们确实认为这可能是其他美国郊区的原型。”“具体来说，在西方，城市更新的地方，丹佛和达拉斯等城市可能会有更多的蔓延。在许多这些城市中，有未充分利用的土地，旧的工业遗址，可能不是600英亩的连续，但可能是100英亩或200英亩。因此，我们确实认为该概念可以转移到其他城市。但是，城市需要做出对步行性，开放空间，重新思考街头设计的承诺。”