The 20-minute neighbourhood is a design problem, not a slogan

Proximity alone does not make a neighbourhood walkable. Shade, safety and something worth walking to matter more than the radius on the plan.

The 20-minute neighbourhood has become planning shorthand for a good life within walking distance. It is a useful idea, and it is routinely misapplied — reduced to a circle drawn on a plan and a tally of amenities inside it.

In practice, people do not walk radii. They walk routes. And a route is only used if it is shaded, direct, overlooked and interesting. We have surveyed streets where the shops are 400 metres away and nobody walks, and streets where they are 900 metres away and everybody does. The difference is almost never distance.

Design the route first: continuous canopy, crossings at desire lines, active frontage at the corners where people hesitate. The amenities will find the walkers.