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Ciara

Apparently there’s a conspiracy theory that 15-minute cities are urban prisons where residents must wear QR codes that track their restricted movements. As opposed to the reality: mixed-use neighbourhoods so handy that signposts can use walking minutes as the unit of distance to the library, theatres, cafés, community services, museums, parks and shops.



Fingerpost signs in mixed-use city centre Aarhus. They are nicely designed - dark green with white type. They point in different directions with the names of nearby residential apartment complexes and to facilities including the library (21 minutes - that's a careful strolling speed) and Theatre (13 minutes) and Aros art museum (10 minutes). There are also signs to underground car parking - cars are not forbidden in the city centre; it's just nicer and quicker (and free or cheaper) to walk and cycle or take public transport to get around.
Fingerpost signs in a mid-city mixed-use area with old and new buildings and with busy pedestrian routes to offices, shops, service companies, museums, recreational facilities, residential areas, the historic café district etc. Distance to facilities like the open-air museum and the university and the buzzing shopping & café district The Latin Quarter is given in minutes. 
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Ciara

Another sign that a 15-minute city is a lively mixed-use place: a hardware store opened on a main city square in the shadow of the cathedral.

It's the kind of flagship space where you’d usually find a designer bag store. It rents drills, sack trolleys and tools by the hour. That can only make commercial sense when a city centre is not just for businesses and the rich, but for ordinary people living just around the corner in ordinary homes.


‘Lille Torv’ – ‘the little square’ – part of the main city square in the heart of Aarhus. Behind us, unseen, Aarhus Domkirke – Aarhus Cathedral. We are looking at an historic, landmark corner property made of lovely brickwork. It’s on a corner with cobbled streets and the square around it. A traditional hot dog stand is seen to the right. It’s early morning, so not many people around. The shop name ‘Silvan’ – a chain hardware store - is on the door. Outside, wooden street display shelves with plants and other stuff the hardware sells. And parked in the middle of the square, a bright orange sack trolley my friend & I rented for a few hours to move some heavy furniture. In a city centre that’s not full of flats and homes that inspired a hardware to move in, there’d be no handy way to get something like this right in the heart of the city because hardwares like these were farther out and suburban and you’d need a car.
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Ciara

A visitor from abroad was surprised to discover that you can borrow an electric cargo bike at the hardware store if you need to carry bulky stuff home.

The first two hours are free. After that, you pay 99 kr. (about €13) per hour. Another nice sign, I think, of the advantages of walkable, bikable cities.


Around the back of a Silvan hardware store in the centre of Aarhus, Denmark. Paved area with wooden pallets stacked up. In a bike shed, a row of cargo bikes with the Silvan logo on them. A sign with a cargo bike logo says 'el-ladcykel udlejning'. 'Electric cargo bike rental.' On the cargo bikes themselves, it clarifies that you can borrow them for free at first, then pay for longer hours.
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rhempel

@CiaraNi Silvan does this too - I miss Denmark.

Public
Ciara

@rhempel Yes, that is Silvan in the picture.

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rhempel

@CiaraNi I forgot that they rebranded just before we left. The one in Vejle was just down the hill from our place.

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