The urban utopia of Anne Hidalgo

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Shops, parks, offices… The socialist mayor wants to make Paris a “quarter-hour city”. So what is this project that appeals to sores so much?

By Kevin Badeau

VAre you tired of those hours lost in transport to get to the office, the supermarket, the doctor, the park or the cinema? If so, close your eyes and imagine a city in which these everyday places would all be within a fifteen-minute walk or bike ride of your home. Now open your eyes: you have traveled, for the time of a dream, in the “quarter-hour city”.

This urban utopia, which seduces intellectual circles, owes its paternity to the Franco-Colombian academic Carlos Moreno. This city expert has imagined a concept to make “time available” to city dwellers, to contribute to “energy sobriety” and to the “fight against global warming”. His idea seduces all over the world. Milan, Du…