City planners’ new designs include setting up schools, markets and commercial places (like offices) in different areas of the city. Do you think it will help the city dwellers?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Urban planning plays a central role in contemporary city development. There is no space for uncontrolled sprawling anymore, every move has to be tought an valuated, in order to guarantee the best possible solution for everyone who lives in the city. The pandemic crisis due to Covid, created a relevant discussion about the dynamics concerning urban centers, showing the numerous crucial defection of today’s city. Between these issues, one main topic emergend: the so called “15 minutes city”, for long forgotten from who wasn’t an architect or a planner, made the first page of many newspaper. The 15 minutes city is an ideal model that is based on a very simple idea: one inhabitant should be able to reach all the basic servicis, such as the school, a pharmacy, a grocery shop, etc. in within 15 minutes by walking. Althoug this principle can seem overly simple, is very hard to achieve. In fact, it requires a new fresh way of thinking, that can be far for the strictly economic-conntected reasoning. Of course zoning, building a certain cathegory of buildings in the same area, would be easier and cheaper option, since the same type of buildings require similar infrastructure and services, however this is an old minded vision, that don’t consider that an “economy” is not based only on profit, not to mansion that it is a discriminatory way of thinking that privilege only certain groups of people. In conclusion it seems fair to say that, since everybody has an equal right to the city, te 15 minutes principle is the one to keep in mind when taking decisions about future urban development.