Book Review: Carlos Moreno's "The Fifteen Minute City"

I recently read Carlos Moreno's The Fifteen Minute City in 2 sessions across 2 days (it's a fast read) and I wanted to share some thoughts about the book. I don't think this is the must-read for urbanism enthusiasts I had hoped it would be, but it's also a good book. It just has very strong differentiation between sections, as I'll specify below:

1. The book starts slow

When I first started reading The Fifteen Minute City, I was disappointed. I thought I would be reading about the concept of the fifteen-minute city and coming to a better understanding of what it was and what the logic underpinning it was. Instead, the first 100 pages (give or take) of a 250 page book is basically, from my perspective, fluff: it's deeper history of urban planning and general details about how the idea of the fifteen-minute city came to be, including Moreno's intellectual journey, but it's not particularly in-depth and a lot of it feels repetitive. It feels more or less like a slide deck turned into a book: the illustrations don't add much and aren't really integrated, and the text itself is more about where Moreno has been intellectually than about the actual concept.

2. The middle is OK but important 

The next fifty or so pages are fine. He does finally turn to the actual fifteen-minute city concept, and explain a bit about what it means, but frankly this section reads like it should have been the start of the book, not the middle. It doesn't really need what came before. And also, it really assumes that you're already familiar with the concept, and just interested in how and why it spread, rather than in any actual detail about why it was developed the way it was. The key lack is an explanation of the complement to the fifteen-minute city idea, the thirty-minute territory. This is mentioned again and again but basically explained never. How is it different from the other concept? How do they interact? The book is fundamentally unclear on these points.

However, this section is valuable as a grounding for what comes next.

3. The book absolutely rocks the last third

The section of the book that justifies the rest comes once Moreno has finished the throat-clearing and engages with individual case studies. Starting with Paris and moving through the usual urbanist suspects but also some more surprising and unusual ones, Moreno gives brief but compelling descriptions of how the concept is informing urban growth and planning in a multi-continental set of cities and even towns. These could still use a bit more specificity--how is Melbourne's 20 minute city distinct from the 15 minutes of the title? Does the distinction matter?--but that's a minor quibble. This is the meat of the book and the best part, and I highly recommend it.

In many ways the sheer profusion of examples is what carries this section: comparing the various reads on the concept from different cities and politicians allows the flexibility and value of the concept to shine through. There is plenty here, but of course there could always be more. And that is perhaps the greatest strength of the fifteen-minute city concept as illustrated in the book: the sheer number of ways it can actually come into being in a practical way, and the range of places it applies to.

Overall, the book is well worth a read; just be aware, as I was not going in, of how much the strength of the book lies at the end.