What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?
A recent YouGov survey asked Americans what they think they should be able to get to within a 15-minute walk of their house.
Of these choices, I can currently walk to all of them from my apartment, aside from a university (no biggie, I’m not currently studying, although there is a Tafe within walking distance), a hospital, and a sports arena.
How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?
#fuckcars #walkability #urbanism #UrbanPlanning @fuck_cars #walking
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@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Aw, c’mon! You have to have at least one pub or something to call it a neighbourhood. Sheesh!
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars we’ve been in coburg and although a few bits of gentrification are getring toe-holds it feels like it hasn’t changed much in 50 years. surprised to see bar ranked so low - definitely best to have within walking distance.
we can get to everything except hospital (though there are plans to build one in the next decade or so), sports arena (plenty of pitches around), university, and gas/petrol station (should have one this year or next).
laughs in San Franciscan
@[email protected] @[email protected] I can get to all of those except a hospital and arena, too. Most in much less than 15 min. Granted, I live in a small city with a still vibrant downtown.
Of course, I wouldn’t walk right now. It’s freezing out there!
How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?
Jokes on you, I live in the countryside and we have a bar/restaurant and 2 Bus stops and that’s it.
Everything where I live (Austrian city), except for the hospital. That would be 20min.
Replace the walking with bicycling and that would be everything (the Netherlands, so cycling is the default mode of transportation), except the mall, we don’t do malls.
Replace walking with bicycling and you get the entire Oslo within 30 minutes distance. Just don’t stop anywhere or your bike will probably get sabotaged.
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars
Everything on the list, except for a shopping mall and a movie theatre, is within a twenty minute walk.The bus route is a three year pilot project - a subsidized shuttle from the regional transit hub [ 1 hr South of us ] to the small city one hr north of us.
No university nor college though highschool has night-school uni credit courses.Mid-sized village (around 10k inhabitants) in Germany:
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4 grocery stores
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2 pharmacies
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Bus stop (and train station)
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5 or so restaurants
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Post office
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Bank
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Gas station
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Elementary school
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2 Kindergartens
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2 barber shops
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Bar
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Sports field (calling it an arena would be a bit much)
Alas, no university or hospital, but I think for a village it’s pretty good.
I moved to a tiny village (1.2k inhabitants) at the outskirts of the Paris metro. We got:
- 1 supermarket that also doubles as a post office
- 1 bakery
- 1 pastry chef
- 1 pizzeria
- 1 fancier restaurant
- 1 pharmacy
- 1 kindergarten (mandatory school for 3-6yo) and 1 primary school (for 6-10yo)
- about 20 child-minders for the 0-3yo with working parents
- 1 tennis, basket, football field
- 1 gym for indoor tennis
- 1 public library
- 1 train station next town with direct trains to Paris in 40min
- 6 bus stops along the Main Street with one line going to the train station
- a church that only opens once a year for a concert of Christmas carols
- 1 castle
- we are next to a river so we got a ton of public paths along it where we jog, bike or just walk as well as a water reserve thing for animals where we go hiking
Considering the size of the village and how many people live there, I’d say we’re pretty good on the 15 minutes thing.
I have a lot of these here in the US, even an interesting house called a “castle”, but have no idea to where there might be a bakery or pastries, depending. Grocery has a lot of baked goods, and places like Starbucks has pastries. Do those count?
My experience with Starbucks here in Europe is that it’s industrialized processed shit. Tastes good every once in a while but isn’t really healthy nor are the ingredients ok. On the other hand, in France, even the smallest supermarket has its own baker and pastry chefs who do daily fresh loafs of bread and baguettes / tradition and pastry. I like American bread that you get in your stores but consider it more of a cake as it’s quite sugary. Like slap some salted butter and jam on top of it, an espresso shot on the side and you’re set for a nice breakfast unless you’re diabetic.
This feels like the type of thing open street maps could provide a service for where you put in your postcode and it returns the services within a 15 mins walk.
Osmand does that, search or tap a PoI and it lists similiar in the area, nearest first.
I assume you mean point of interest?
I don’t see this option in the web based version, also, “similar in the area” != within 15 mins walk.
From where I live in my small Swedish town (about 8k inhabitants), so pretty much the whole town
2 grocery stores
2 convenience stores
2 bus stops (5 lines)
At least 10 resturants including a burger joint, a thai and a chinese. Most pizza places though
1 hardware/home appliance store
1 hardware/gardening store
2 home appliance stores
3 clothing stores, of which one for babies and one for sports
4 (?) Hairdresser
2 pharmacies
3 second hand stores
3 gyms, one of which at the sport centre
A sport centre with swimming hall, general sport hall, bowling alleys, gym and fields for outdoor sports
Two large schools and a couple of daycares
Church
2 graveyards
Police station
Municipal services
2 Opticians
1 library
Think that may be it
To be fair, 10k is a small city here.
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@fuck_cars @ajsadauskas there should be more hospitals than hair dressers/barbers said no one ever.
I have all except the hospital and university are about 10 mins drive. My bank is about the same, but I haven’t walked into a bank for about a decade. I live in a city that’s had a focus on modern design, though. The result is everything is a walk away. Super boring. I get in the car and head to the mountains every chance I can get so I can feel like I’m not in a retirement village and still have some sort of constitution. Ya know, in case of the zombies.
I’m gonna make a few assumptions: One is that this is just a neighborhood in my hypohetical ideal world (or rather, near-ideal). Second: we’re talking about high qualiy versions of these places, and not the “just barely good enough to not go under” versions that abound. Last: “should” means “necessity” and not “luxury.”
Groceries are a no-brainer.
Parks — hell yes. In fact, I’d prefer if everyone had access to all kinds of nature within “walking” (walking + public transportation) distance: parks, woods, botanical gardens, community gardens, wildlife reserves.
Pharmacies should be obsoleted: drugs should be devriminalized and un-gatekept. People should have the freedom to put whatever stupid, life-altering substance they want to into their body (with caveats like informed consent and heavily recommended medical professional supervision). Distributors could be home-delivery through the post and the over-the-counter section in your local grocery store.
Bus stops… Yes for some neighborhoods, but ideally more trains or trams, especially in suburbs.
Post offices are dying out. Letters and spam are the kinds of things people should have access to in their immediate neighborhood, but are becoming obsolete thanks to the internet (which should be a public utility instead of run for profit). I’m about 50/50 on whether there should still be home-delivery for everyone and all packages, or if there should be local holding centers for most (although, once again, any delivery network should be considered a public service instead of a few companies monopolizing the role), and at-home delivery for the most important packages/incapacitated people.
Banks are a no. Credit union, yes. Or maybe no and just let money become the digital currency it’s slowly been turning intobfor the past 40 years. Ideally, society (and by extension this ideal neighborhood) would function without capital.
Gas stations: hell no. Convenience stores yes (or just all-in-one grocery stores). Maybe EV charging stations… Maybe.
Having a barber is way more convenient than people give it credit, and it doesn’t benefit from centralization. At the very least, everyone should have a neighbor who cuts hair well.
Bonus round: things that should be within a 30-minute commute (by transit)—mall, movie theater, hospital, elementary school, day care, university, restaurants, bars.
No to stadiums, but yes to sports fields in the parks.
Things not on the list that should be: museums, clinics, dentists, optometrists, psychiatrists, veterinarians, pools, gyms, community centers/general use indoor halls, fire stations, makers spaces… probably others that I’m forgetting.
Sorry that this 15 minute walk is turning into a jog.
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars In a Brussels suburb we’ve got all of those things within max 15min walking except a gas station, a sports arena and a movie theatre.
As someone who has lived within 5 minutes to a football stadium my whole life across multiple cities, I’d argue it’s a positive to not have it that close. Too much noise.
Missing a gym, physio, and doctors clinic.
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars There’s a couple of weird things missing there I would definitely include, like a doctor’s office, a library and a gym.
I’m in a city in the UK and a lot of those are in 15 minutes walk from me. Some, like a hospital, university, cinema, shopping mall and sports arena and I think a bank I’d have to go into the city centre for, but that’s only about 30 minutes walk, 10 minutes on the bike, or a short bus or metro ride. I’m generally pretty lucky in my location.
