🏙️🌆 Two years ago began a new and exhilarating chapter in our ‘big city’ living experience here in Warsaw.
🏫 When we first moved to Warsaw, I had my oldest child in a school in one district and my youngest in a school close to my home Institute in another district- neither being our home district.
🚏🚍🚊 Mornings were intense rituals of 1.5 hour+ walking and public transport odysseys to get everyone where they needed to be. I was (and always will be) grateful for the dynamic and flexible public transit system that exists, but it was a lot, especially with two young kids in early morning & crowded rush hour commutes.
👏 But 2 years ago, a big shift happened.
💡💡💡We moved both our kids to schools in our neighbourhood (for a few reasons including that I was increasingly working remotely and at home). The shift meant going from an approximately 1.5 hour morning commute to get everyone to their different locations, to a 5 MINUTE WALK down the street to school.
🥰 I was on walkability and mama cloud 9!!!! What a change!!!
😍 My kids were also in a whole new frame of mind and being, with the ease of a short walk to school, playing, running and laughing along the way.
🌳🌳🌳While I have experienced a 15-minute city lifestyle in other cities, this was really the beginning of cultivating that reality at neighbourhood level here in Warsaw.
🤔 I notice some critics of the 15mC concept often getting very hung up on the number ‘15’. They’re mistaken in their rigid interpretations of what this means.
🧑🦽🚶🏻♀️🚶♂️🚶🏽🚲A vibrant, healthy, well-planned urban neighborhood with the essence of the 15-minute city has many options, often in even less than a 15-minute walk. Diversity is key and the concept also emphasizes inclusivity, social cohesion and the ease to walk, cycle and roll at a neighborhood level for daily needs. It’s the essence of good urban planning and a way of life that should be priortized for truly sustainable development and urban life that is not degraded by congestion, long commutes and lack of neighborhood amenities.
📷 I snapped this photo earlier this week, walking home with my youngest child, one of her school friends and his mom. While walking, the fellow mum and I shared small talk about life here while our children, absolutely giddy to share a walk home with a classmate and friend, dashed ahead of us, to and fro, making an absolute adventure of the walk home.
~Annika