(We originally posted this in January 2021. You can read more of our original ideas in our archive.)
Problem: Cities are so sprawling that everything you need to live is quite far where people physically live.
Subscribe here to get access to the first 500 ideas from our blog. For just one coffee a month, you can have access to more than $500 billion dollars of ideas. What's not to love?
Solution: A company dedicated to city planning and city creation for the sake of enabling more compact cities, or as was summarized by Bloomberg on November 12 a “15-minute city".”
“The 15-minute city represents the possibility of a decentralized city,” says Carlos Moreno, a scientific director and professor specializing in complex systems and innovation at University of Paris 1. “At its heart is the concept of mixing urban social functions to create a vibrant vicinity”—replicated, like fractals, across an entire urban expanse... [with] almost all residents’ needs can be met within 15 minutes of their homes on foot, by bike, or on public transit. (Excerpt from: Paris’s 15-Minute City Could Be Coming to an Urban Area Near You - Bloomberg)
This, arguably, is the future of smart cities: cities that can not only adapt to individuals and populations, but also are self-sustaining while being compact enough to navigate. This conception of cities specifically is focused on creating a mosaic of neighborhoods rather than “living zones” and “working zones” and “entertainment zones.” The benefits include more street space (due to cars not being as necessary), less pollution, more space for amenities (gardens, bike lanes, sporting facilities, etc.), and more walkable neighborhoods.
So who would be the competitors in this space? Most are in the world of government:
Leaders in Barcelona, Detroit, London, Melbourne, Milan, and Portland, Ore., are all working toward similar visions. They’ve been further emboldened by the pandemic, with global mayors touting the model in a July report from the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group as central to their recovery road maps.
…
The 15-minute city calls for a return to a more local and somewhat slower way of life, where commuting time is instead invested in richer relationships with what’s nearby.
…
It’s a utopian vision in an era of deep social distress—but one that might, if carried out piecemeal, without an eye to equality, exacerbate existing inequities. Skeptics also wonder whether a city that’s no longer organized around getting to work is really a city at all.
Walkability in a city is not uniquely new. In fact, dozens of individuals have ideated on this in the past. Thus, there are quite a few theoretical resources to understand spanning back as far as 3,000 years including:
Le Corbusier’s Voisin Plan for Paris (1925)
Jane Jacobs’ novel “Death and Life of Great American Cities” from 1961
Jeff Speck’s Walkable Cities: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time (2012)
So why is this a billion-dollar idea? Because of the growing wave of green energy, city-based technology, and sustainability.
The smart cities and city planning market is infamously large, an unsurprisingly so. As described by Mordor Intelligence, “The smart cities market was valued at USD 624.81 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach a value of USD 1712.83 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 18.30% over the forecast period 2020-2025. The increase in adoption of green technology will drive the market in the forecast period.” These same estimates are shared by Allied Market Research which argues that “global smart cities market was valued at $517,629 million in 2017 and is projected to reach $2,402,123 million by 2025, registering a CAGR of 21.28% from 2018 to 2025.”
Of course, the 15-minute city may not be the unicorn idea in the future of smart cities, but it is a great jumping off point for potential pivots in the future.
Monetization: Selling contracts to cities.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)