The phrase running errands is a bit of a euphemism in the 21st century United States.

If we need to go to work, stop by the post office, get our teeth cleaned, pick up a loaf

of bread and hit the ATM at the bank all in the post office, get our teeth cleaned, pick up a loaf of bread and hit the

ATM at the bank all in the same day. Most Americans have little choice but to drive,

becoming both victims of and contributors to traffic and the emissions and frustrations

that come with it. But what if there were another way? What if just about every essential

place you needed to get to within easy walking distance of where you live?

Urban planners call it the 15-minute city.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

The idea is not that communities be limited to walkable footprints overall, but that they would

contain multiple zones easily crossed on foot or by bicycle in which it truly wouldn't

be necessary to own and maintain a motor vehicle. Sounds intriguing, right? But as my guest will tell

us, such self-contained, self-sustaining neighborhoods sound to some like utopia and to others like a

perfect recipe for segregating cities by income to a greater extent than we've ever seen before.

Natalie Whittle is a writer, editor, and freelance contributor to the Financial Times.

Her book is called Shrink the City, the 15-minute urban experiment and the cities of the future.

Natalie, welcome to think.

Thank you so much for having me odd. It's great to be here.

So 15-minute cities aren't necessarily small cities, right?

They can be collections of a whole lot of 15-minute neighborhoods all clustered together.

That's absolutely right.

And I think going back to some of the earliest experiments in this area,

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