The 15-minute city

is an urban strategy launched by Paris in 2020 to reorganize city life around spatial and functional proximity. It aims to ensure access to six key urban functions—housing, work, food, health, education, and leisure—within 15 minutes on foot or by bike.

In response to climate, social, and mobility challenges, the initiative promotes compact, mixed-use neighborhoods, reduced car dependency, and greener, more inclusive public spaces. Actions include the “Rues aux Écoles” programme, transforming streets around schools into pedestrian-priority, climate-adaptive, and neighbourhood-oriented public spaces, combining pedestrianisation, greening, public space redesign, active mobility, and school-environment transformation. Other actions include open courtyards, expanded cycling lanes, local commerce support, and the reuse of public infrastructure.

Beyond a planning tool, the 15-Minute City represents a vision of a polycentric city, where urban density enables critical mass and gives meaning to proximity, social cohesion, and a more livable daily life. It also repositions schools and their surrounding public spaces as neighbourhood-scale social infrastructure, extending the role of educational environments within everyday community life and local public space networks.