Two cents on 15 minutes

Advocates of the so-called 15-Minute City should spend more time in New York. In some respects, the idea, which in recent years has gotten increasing traction among city planners and well-meaning liberal politicians, is a nice one. Everyone who lives in a metropolis should be able to buy quality, affordable food within a reasonably short walking or biking distance of their home. They should have access to well-kept parks and playgrounds, decent child care and good schools. And public transit.

But in a giant ecosystem like New York, lots of amenities and even some necessities are always going to be out of that arbitrary orbit. As it should be. A nanny from Southeast Queens needs to be able to get to employment in brownstone Brooklyn. Doctors, nurses and patients need to access world-class hospitals that are almost always more than a stone’s throw from where they live. A young person studying design has to be able to get to FIT or Parsons or Pratt from wherever they rent an apartment.

Those who love art and theater and film know they need to travel a little to get to museums and Broadway and niche art-house movie theaters. It’s a welcome journey, not a burden, to take a trip to Flushing for great dim sum or to Sunset Park for tacos. And in the summer, the beaches at the edges of a big city are natural magnets for people throughout them.

In fact, it’s fair to say that while our neighborhood street life is unparalleled, it’s what’s beyond the 15-minute radius that makes New York inimitable, a place of endless and unpredictable possibility.

In recent weeks, opponents of the 15-minute city have worked themselves into a full lather, howling at the tops of their lungs that the concept is a globalist conspiracy to limit economic growth, ban cars and track people’s movements. That’s insane. But if New York ever truly tries to reinvent itself into a cluster of 15-minute cities, well, then it will cease to be New York.