The 15-Minute City in Toronto: Insights from Lefebvre and Fanon

This major paper examines the spatial and political project of the 15-minute city by drawing on the insights of Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon. This research paper interrogates the 15-minute city urban vision and explores the social and spatial implications of the model. This analysis explores the different contexts where this plan is being promoted, highlighting local dynamics of socio-spatial inequality, state policy, and expectations of social life in urban areas. It applies a conceptual framework that foregrounds the works of Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon which offers insight into the ways that areas can be spatially organized into hierarchical relations and be impacted by racialized and gendered dynamics of everyday life. This paper also examines the 15-minute city in Toronto within existing popular planning discourses and in the context of neoliberal policies and dynamics of socio-spatial inequality. I am engaging in a contextual reading that looks particularly at the role of the state and everyday life in influencing spatial and social relations. The aim of this research is to challenge the underlying assumptions around desirable social life and urban space and to highlight the colonial, capitalist, and neoliberal dimensions of the 15-minute city.