New activity centres, new opportunities.
Why are commuters willing to sacrifice hours daily to access work, education, entertainment and specialised services, often bypassing options within their own or neighbouring suburbs? Imagine a suburb that served all our daily necessities work, schools, groceries and healthcare. Now what if this was constrained to a fifteen minute walk or ride? Enter the 15-Minute city.
Credited to French-Colombian urban planner Carlos Moreno, the 15-Minute City focuses on a decentralised model of multi-purpose neighbourhoods that contain all the amenities needed for living and working12. Reduction in car reliance, commute times and increased quality of life are all promised benefits of the scheme.
Supporters of the 15-Minute City will credit the success of Paris or Barcelona and propose that a similar result can be achieved in Melbourne. Melbourne, however, in the most part expanded post-car and maintains a strong centre-periphery divide3. In reality, our outer suburbs are now
sometimes evolving with little urban planning input; they are not always highly walkable, and they are often completed long before transport infrastructure can catch up.
In reality our CBD and inner city suburbs are alluring centres of activity, diversity and culture each with unique identities and specialities; in other words they are operation-based places4. It is perhaps their density, centralisation, busyness and relative exclusivity that maintain their desirability as places to be.
It is difficult to imagine a reality, in our local context, where we could forgo the offerings of the inner city, for the comforts of the local neighbourhood, 100 percent of the time.
Victoria is already adopting a progressive scheme for (sub)urban regeneration- through the Activity Centre. Unlike the 15-Minute City, the Activity Centre leans towards an operation-based unique mix of major retail, community, government, entertainment, cultural and transport services. Scale and density is proposed relative to the vision for the node. These nodes are currently being developed in areas like Chadstone, Moorabbin and Ringwood.
What becomes clear is that the activity centre concept needs a rebrand. A catchy name and marketable, memorable vision would help to keep it within the broader public conversation as a viable tool for regeneration alongside the 15-Minute City. It is likely that these schemes will need to work in tandem to serve the specificity of our context. It is exciting to think how public conversation could help to shape the future evolution of activity centres, to ensure they stay relevant, populated and thriving.
Haroula Karapanagiotidis-Cooray
Graduate Architect and Mapping Analyst
