A perspective on emergency response and healthy living.
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The 15-minute city is a trendy urban planning concept now, where residents can access essential services - work, education, healthcare, and leisure – within a short walk or bike ride. By promoting mixed-use development and reducing car dependency, this model aims to enhance sustainability, mobility, and quality of life.
However, while much attention has been given to environmental benefits and convenience, a critical aspect often overlooked is emergency response, as expressed in a recent paper named Emergency response in smart 15-minute cities: the space-time compression, in Urban, Planning and Transport Research journal.
There are trade-offs to be considered when thinking only exclusively about how fast a fire, ambulance, and police responder can get to one’s premises in the event of an emergency. Planners highlight how compact, walkable urban design reduces carbon emissions, traffic congestion, and commuting stress. These factors can, over time, considerably mitigate health issues and risks intrinsic to urban areas.
But one can have these qualities on the fringes of cities, with the possibility, in the event of an emergency, that responders take more time to get to you. When seconds and minutes could mean the difference between life or death, salvage or destruction, there needs be a consideration about such variables.
But even if you live in the city, right next to a hospital, it does not mean you will get faster responses. All major cities in Norway are coastal, surrounded by hills, mountains, forests, rivers and fjords. Norway is sparsely populated, and on top of this, housing – like in Stavanger – is generally low density and sprawling.
Research has shown that low density neighbourhoods, even close to major highways, can increase responses times considerably. Proximity, density, accessibility, and demographics mean this is more than just a numbers game.
Studies (in this article) show that dense, mixed-use neighbourhoods improve emergency response times by shortening distances per person for responders. It also encourages slower traffic thus reducing accidents and the severities of accidents. There are more “eyes of the street”, meaning there are more people to report incidents. This, combined with a high uptake of smart home security in Norway, means there is an equilibrium of safety returns in denser, greener neighbourhoods.
So, from a health and safety point of perspective, dense, mixed-used planning, combined with pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, will give residents – in theory - the best of both worlds: faster emergency response and long-term health returns.
The idea of smart cities, information communication technologies, and artificial intelligence will further add quality to life from this perspective.