Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte announced that the Quezon City government is looking into implementing the ‘15-minute city’ strategy, an urban concept aimed at making all necessary services easily reachable within a 15-minutes brief walking or bike ride from the residents’ homes.
The 15-minute-city concept was first coined by Paris-based urbanist Carlos Moreno. It is about having an ideal neighborhood wherein the people or citizens can have easy access to basic essentials in the community, such as food, housing, work, cultural activities, or education.
“When we went to Paris for the Plastic Treaty Forum, we were amazed by their 15-minute city sites, as all the basic services for the people are within their reach. We want to replicate this setup here in Quezon City to make urban development people-centered and to further improve the quality of life of every QCitizen,” the QC mayor stated.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of the 15-minute city concept and its potential advantages for the community, Mayor Joy Belmonte has enlisted a team of researchers from different departments, including the Office of the City Administrator, Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Department, City Planning and Development Department, City Architect Department, Parks Development and Administration Department, Transport and Traffic Management Department, as well as the Barangay and Community Relations Department.
Belmonte shared that “the city has also started mapping villages through the centralized geographic information system to visualize their geographic data and determine what basic services are most needed in each community.”
It will decentralize the traditional city life services and bring them down to communities, boosting the local economy, cutting down car emissions, promoting urban biodiversity and inclusivity, and providing people with easy access to healthy food options and quality green spaces, Belmonte underscored.
Head of Quezon City’s Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Department, Andrea Villaroman said that, “Apart from making services accessible to residents, the 15-minute city concept is also a way of conserving and protecting the environment. It supports the city’s goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.”
Villaroman also reveals that following a thorough analysis of geographical data pertaining to different barangays, the local government plans to actively engage with residents to discern their primary requirements and identify the essential services needed in each community.
If this initiative will be pushed through, Quezon City will be the pioneer of embracing the concept of having “a walkable, sustainable and people-friendly urban design.”
