The 15-Minute City

Our August 2025 book, The 15-Minute City, argued that cities would be happier and more resilient places if they changed how neighborhoods worked. The change: Bring nearly everything people need for daily life within a 15-minute walk, bike ride or bus ride of home. The happiness comes, the author says, from neighbors seeing one another regularly on sidewalks, in stores . . . and maybe in streets that were taken back from their sole use by cars. How would greater use of streets make people happier? In 2024, The Atlantic magazine offered a glimpse: the effort by parents in Britain to create “play streets” so their children could use a public space from time to time. Turns out, it also helped bring adults closer together.