The 15-minute city is not a circle: a proximity manifesto for lived accessibility

The 15-minute city has become a persuasive planning idea because it translates complex urban goals into a simple promise: everyday needs should be reachable close to home. This viewpoint argues that this communicative clarity is also its main analytical danger. A circle around services does not prove access. In hot, unequal, car-oriented or governance-fragmented contexts, a nearby school, clinic, park, mosque, transit stop or grocery store may remain difficult to reach, use or benefit from. The argument is therefore not against proximity, but against treating proximity as a completed accessibility outcome. The paper proposes a proximity manifesto built around three tests: reach, use and benefit. X-minute urbanism should be judged by whether nearby opportunities become safe, shaded, affordable, socially usable, inclusive and institutionally maintained. The future of proximity planning should be situated, differentiated and governed, not reduced to a universal time-distance threshold.