IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v60y2023i16p3167-3186.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rethinking urban utopianism: The fallacy of social mix in the 15-minute city

Author

Listed:
  • Giada Casarin

    (University of Bristol, UK)

  • Julie MacLeavy

    (University of Bristol, UK)

  • David Manley

    (University of Bristol, UK
    Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The concept of urban living is evolving, and there is a growing interest in creating smaller, more connected, and hyperlocal neighbourhoods, where everything people need is within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. This paper challenges the concept of the ‘15-minute city’ as a panacea for urban ills, by exploring the history of utopian urban planning and regeneration aimed at creating sustainable, inclusive and vibrant communities by desegregating disadvantaged groups. Specifically, we examine social mixing policies, which are recurring top-down interventions that pathologise concentrated urban disadvantage. We trace the evolution of these policies in Europe from the Garden City movement to post-war social housing redevelopment to the current 15-minute city, which we consider to be social mix by stealth. While such policies can reduce the degree of concentrated disadvantage in the short term, they tend to be ineffective in the long term, as deprived neighbourhoods often remain so despite attempts to make them more diverse. The paper argues that the 15-minute city would be implemented through de facto social mix actions at the neighbourhood level, which are insufficient to address the deeper structural issues that perpetuate spatial inequality and deprivation. We propose that longitudinal and comparative analyses, combined with ‘right to the city’ perspectives, should be considered in future research and policymaking to understand – and more importantly address – why urban renewal initiatives that aim for equitable outcomes at the neighbourhood scale ultimately fail to deliver.

Suggested Citation

  • Giada Casarin & Julie MacLeavy & David Manley, 2023. "Rethinking urban utopianism: The fallacy of social mix in the 15-minute city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(16), pages 3167-3186, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:16:p:3167-3186
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980231169174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980231169174
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00420980231169174?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dallas Rogers & Emma Power, 2020. "Housing policy and the COVID-19 pandemic: the importance of housing research during this health emergency," International Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 177-183, April.
    2. Wendy Sarkissian, 1976. "The Idea of Social Mix in Town Planning: An Historical Review," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 13(3), pages 231-246, October.
    3. Sarah Elwood & Victoria Lawson & Samuel Nowak, 2015. "Middle-Class Poverty Politics: Making Place, Making People," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 105(1), pages 123-143, January.
    4. Valeria Monno & Abdul Khakee, 2012. "Tokenism or Political Activism? Some Reflections on Participatory Planning," International Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 85-101.
    5. Tom Slater, 2006. "The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 737-757, December.
    6. Ash Amin, 2002. "Ethnicity and the Multicultural City: Living with Diversity," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(6), pages 959-980, June.
    7. Carlos Moreno & Zaheer Allam & Didier Chabaud & Catherine Gall & Florent Pratlong, 2021. "Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities," Post-Print hal-03549665, HAL.
    8. Zoltán Cs�falvay & Chris Webster, 2012. "Gates or No Gates? A Cross-European Enquiry into the Driving Forces behind Gated Communities," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 293-308, June.
    9. Elena Marchigiani & Bertrando Bonfantini, 2022. "Urban Transition and the Return of Neighbourhood Planning. Questioning the Proximity Syndrome and the 15-Minute City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-29, May.
    10. Justus Uitermark, 2014. "Integration and Control: The Governing of Urban Marginality in Western Europe," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    11. Georgia Pozoukidou & Zoi Chatziyiannaki, 2021. "15-Minute City: Decomposing the New Urban Planning Eutopia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-25, January.
    12. Katie Cross & Jamie Evans & Julie MacLeavy & David Manley, 2022. "Analysing the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19: a new regional geography or pandemic enhanced inequalities?," Regional Studies, Regional Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 461-485, December.
    13. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesco Andreoli & Eugenio Peluso, 2016. "So close yet so unequal: Reconsidering spatial inequality in U.S. cities," Working Papers 21/2016, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    2. Renia Ehrenfeucht & Marla Nelson, 2013. "Young Professionals as Ambivalent Change Agents in New Orleans after the 2005 Hurricanes," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(4), pages 825-841, March.
    3. ANDREOLI Francesco & PELUSO Eugenio, 2017. "So close yet so unequal: Spatial inequality in American cities," LISER Working Paper Series 2017-11, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    4. Alba Ramírez Saiz & Andrea Alonso & Delfín Jiménez Martín & Patxi Lamíquiz, 2022. "Can Proximal Environments Prevent Social Inequalities Amongst People of All Ages and Abilities? An Integrative Literature Review Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-31, October.
    5. Wouter van Gent & Cody Hochstenbach & Justus Uitermark, 2018. "Exclusion as urban policy: The Dutch ‘Act on Extraordinary Measures for Urban Problems’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(11), pages 2337-2353, August.
    6. Ranji Devadason, 2010. "Cosmopolitanism, Geographical Imaginaries and Belonging in North London," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(14), pages 2945-2963, December.
    7. Loretta Lees, 2008. "Gentrification and Social Mixing: Towards an Inclusive Urban Renaissance?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(12), pages 2449-2470, November.
    8. Paul R. Flora, 2021. "Regional Spotlight: Poverty in Philadelphia, and Beyond," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 6(4), pages 16-22, December.
    9. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2020. "Housing, urban growth and inequalities: The limits to deregulation and upzoning in reducing economic and spatial inequality," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(2), pages 223-248, February.
    10. Patricio S Dalton & Victor H Gonzalez Jimenez & Charles N Noussair, 2017. "Exposure to Poverty and Productivity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, January.
    11. Fabian Kosse & Thomas Deckers & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Armin Falk, 2020. "The Formation of Prosociality: Causal Evidence on the Role of Social Environment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 434-467.
    12. Michael Geruso & Timothy J. Layton & Jacob Wallace, 2023. "What Difference Does a Health Plan Make? Evidence from Random Plan Assignment in Medicaid," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 341-379, July.
    13. Alex Bell & Raj Chetty & Xavier Jaravel & Neviana Petkova & John Van Reenen, 2019. "Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 647-713.
    14. Daniela D’Alessandro & Andrea Rebecchi & Letizia Appolloni & Andrea Brambilla & Silvio Brusaferro & Maddalena Buffoli & Maurizio Carta & Alessandra Casuccio & Liliana Coppola & Maria Vittoria Corazza , 2023. "Re-Thinking the Environment, Cities, and Living Spaces for Public Health Purposes, According with the COVID-19 Lesson: The LVII Erice Charter," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-17, September.
    15. Peter Leopold S. Bergman & Eric W. Chan & Adam Kapor, 2020. "Housing Search Frictions: Evidence from Detailed Search Data and a Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 8080, CESifo.
    16. Chong Lu, 2022. "The effect of migration on rural residents’ intergenerational subjective social status mobility in China," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3279-3308, October.
    17. John Gathergood & Fabian Gunzinger & Benedict Guttman-Kenney & Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Levelling Down and the COVID-19 Lockdowns: Uneven Regional Recovery in UK Consumer Spending," Papers 2012.09336, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    18. Adam M. Lavecchia & Philip Oreopoulos & Robert S. Brown, 2020. "Long-Run Effects from Comprehensive Student Support: Evidence from Pathways to Education," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 209-224, June.
    19. Michael J. Kottelenberg & Steven F. Lehrer, 2019. "How Skills and Parental Valuation of Education Influence Human Capital Acquisition and Early Labor Market Return to Human Capital in Canada," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 735-778.
    20. Francis Leo Collins & Wardlow Friesen, 2011. "Making the Most of Diversity? The Intercultural City Project and a Rescaled Version of Diversity in Auckland, New Zealand," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(14), pages 3067-3085, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:16:p:3167-3186. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.