HAS at the dawn of confinement, in March 2020, I launched an appeal in the columns of World, to rethink our urban and territorial model. Four years later, the Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst, forcing a profound reassessment of our life patterns, particularly with regard to urban planning. Spreading around the world since then, in France, it has highlighted the urgent need for increased accessibility to services and infrastructure, whether in urban or rural areas.
In this context, the concept of the quarter-hour city that I have vigorously supported since 2016, by guaranteeing access to all essential services in low-carbon proximity, is emerging as an adaptable approach to urban development that meets ecological imperatives. , economic, social and urban diversity. This concept, found in the extension of the commitment of thinkers and actors of the living city such as Clarence Perry, Jane Jacobs, André Barey, Jan Gehl and many others, is revitalized in the contemporary context, offering with the happy proximity an innovative vision for territorial development and the development of citizens.
It is now crucial to accelerate and extend this vision to offer all French urban and territorial strata new proximity. This year, France can truly move towards the realization of half-hour territories on a national scale, an approach that could contribute to the overhaul of French territorial space.
The global expansion of this approach has also had its developments in France. Since 2020, many municipalities have undertaken the transition to the quarter-hour city, the half-hour territory.
Happy proximity
The City of Paris, under the aegis of the mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has launched urban redevelopment programs focused on the creation of friendly local spaces and the promotion of soft mobility modes, thus contributing to making services accessible to on foot or by bike in many neighborhoods.
Other cities, such as Lyon, Toulouse, Nantes, Bordeaux, Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), Roubaix (Nord), Béthune (Pas-de-Calais) and its community of communes, Sète (Hérault), Vandoeuvre-lès- Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle), Labège (Haute-Garonne), are also working to rethink their urban planning to align with the principles of happy proximity, of a city within reach, as the incarnation of the city quarter of an hour.
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