Are 20-minute Cities a Solution to Melbourne’s Housing Crisis?

Considering the rental and housing crisis, Natalie Heslop investigates the potential of 20-minute cities as a vital urban strategy to alleviate this problem.

The drive to Werribee stinks. Without fail, whenever I drive on the M1 freeway towards or away from Melbourne’s Westgate, I instinctively close the car’s air vents or switch to internal circulation mode. It’s my signal I’m heading towards that part of town – a suburb in Melbourne, Australia.

I refuse to let the foul stench of sewage invade my senses. I wish my journey to Soho Village hadn’t begun on this note, but here we are. After adjusting the air vents, I embark on the 29-kilometre drive ahead. I remind myself of Australian Jessica Dargan, an environmental planner, who said a “20-minute city seems very reasonable.” She said a city where all the amenities “you would expect to find in a city are within 20 minutes of where you live.”

I arrive at a parking lot boxed in by towering multi-level dwellings. Their design resembles something out of a Roblox game, with a strikingly neutral palette and shape. As I take in the scene, I can’t shake the feeling that this could be a setting straight out of Twin Peaks, ripe for a scene in one of David Lynch’s future episodes, or perhaps it could serve as inspiration for a modern remake of The Stepford Wives.

I’m determined to find the Soho in this village. Soho Village is in Point Cook, a suburb in the City of Wyndham, which lies in the outer south-western suburbs of the Melbourne metropolitan area. According to the last census taken in 2021, the city spanning 542 square kilometres had a population of 292,011.

After five minutes of walking around Soho Village, I uncovered a small-town square consisting of a childcare centre, a church, a grocery store, beauty clinics, bars, and takeaway joints. The one visual relief was the creek, home to native birds and ducks, being close to a park created for future generations to indulge in.   

Soho Village certainly isn’t up to Manhattan’s standards because this is a 20-minute city case study, not the result of a fully developed 20-minute city. I couldn’t connect with the urban architect of Soho Village, Dean Landy from Clarke Hopkins Clarke, who, together with MASBuild, created this village in 2014. Landy is working on breaking the cycle of poverty in Nigeria under his foundation, One Heart.

Walking away from the buzz of Soho Village, I couldn’t help but wonder why teenagers haven’t been acknowledged in this text-case city. Toddlers and retirees have been considered, but not those of a precarious age group. On my way back to the car, I noticed one teen seated on a timber chair peering down on his phone. 

I am curious to know whether teenagers will find the freedom to carve out their identities in these sustainable realms. Has enough consideration been given to this precarious age group? I needed to know more, so I spent a day deep-diving to connect the dots. The discovery of the United Nations 2030 Agenda very quickly connected with this new 20-minute urban paradigm.

Thanks to LinkedIn, I noticed an event held in New Zealand that covered 20-minute cities, so I emailed a key attendee. That evening, I received a friendly phone call from Jason Jacobs in New Zealand, head of the Australasian Chamber from Catalyst 2030. Catalyst 2030 is a global movement committed to achieving the 17 sustainable United Nations 2030 Agenda development goals, SDGs.

Can sustainability solve the housing and rental crisis in Melbourne? Jacobs got to work after receiving my email earlier in the day. He told me to contact Asha Murphy, co-founder of the Australasian Catalyst 2030 chapter, to arrange a group Zoom call. A week later, Jacob started our Zoom call about sustainability with a Māori prayer to invoke spiritual guidance: “Tuku te wairua kia rere, ki ngā tuamata hei ārahi.” Allow one’s spirit to exercise its potential,” he translated the prayer to me. 

I am grateful for all the spiritual guidance I can get as I navigate these sustainable realms. Jacobs and Murphy generously gave their time to speak about the sustainability goals achieved through Catalyst 2030. Both individuals come from extensive business backgrounds and have come together to head the Australasian chapter of Catalyst 2030. 

From my understanding, Catalyst 2030’s systems change approach is taken seriously, and there is a strong interest in working towards a common goal within communities. Murphy highlights the effectiveness of social enterprises such as STREAT. STREAT is a Melbourne organisation dedicated to supporting the youth through its hospitality businesses and leadership programs. It is an ideal blueprint for applying a systems change approach in communities.

Murphy said Melbourne had signed up to the 20-minute city conglomerate. The Victorian State Government’s Department of Transport and Planning confirms Melbourne is well underway with the 20-minute city planning. In 2018, The Heart Foundation and the Victorian Government created key hallmarks to abide by for 20-minute city planning:

• Safe and accessible for all pedestrians and cyclists to encourage active transport. It is appealing to the public and open spaces.
• Provide all amenities and lifestyle services to support local living.
• Easy access to all public transport to help connect people to jobs. 
• Ensure mixed housing densities are incorporated. 
• Provide guidance and support to local economies.

I am given the impression that good intention underpins the foundation of sustainability when planning 20-minute cities, from businesses to consumers. Jacobs refers to former actress and now-turned-entrepreneur Jessica Alba because of her systems thinking regarding her business, The Honest Company. As Jacobs puts it, Alba is paying attention to her social contract with the universe.

With questions from Jacobs as deep as ‘What is your social contract to the universe?’ I knew all my questions would not be answered in this one phone call. But with a welcomed push in the right direction to Jacob’s connection, Professor Dr Iain White, the universe was conspiring with me to get to the bottom of it. 

While driving around the south-eastern suburbs of Victoria, I noticed a new village called M-City just off the Princess Highway in the Clayton suburb. All the same qualities and characteristics of Soho Village at M-City were recognisable, the convenience of having a supermarket, gym, beauty boutiques, cinema, and mixed residential housing all in one square.

M-City has a hotel and almost all the desirable living conveniences in one realm. This time, some consideration for teenagers is evident with a game arcade. Could the 20-minute city now be condensed to a five-minute city? A few clicks online confirmed that urban designer and professor Scot Hein has conceptualised a five-minute town in Vancouver. Hein visualises the city divided into 120 “community catchments,” each holding all the essentials required to run a city, i.e., schools, a mix of housing, etc.

One conspiracy circulating on X from a recent candidate in the London mayor elections, Shyam Batra, a property and finance broker, is a video of Batra talking in an interview. You won’t be able to drive a petrol or diesel car in a 15-minute city. You’ll have to buy electricity. Batra continues, “If you want food, this is what you can have today, and if you violate any of these things, they’ll freeze your bank account…that is the next step”. Who are they, you may ask? According to Batra, they are the World Economic Forum signed up with the mayor of London. 

Batra is determined to abolish the WEF plans for London. Batra didn’t win the 2024 London mayoral election. Reuters news agency has since debunked Batra’s misleading statements. Also, Carlos Moreno, an urbanist featured on Reuters, acknowledges that the 15-minute model “is a proposal of happy proximity, not a prison,” which could “free up’ time and travel choice for city residents.”

There are only “versions of 15-minute cities” in Paris and Melbourne. There is no intention to lock down. Jacobs’s connection, University of Waikato professor Dr Iain White, proposed the 20-minute city concept to the city of Hamilton in New Zealand in 2020; he says, “Planning should always be about the people,” and this planning isn’t anything new, “providing self-contained areas reducing the need to travel between them.” 

White says, “The planning can contribute to many different agendas, for example, the need to use land efficiently, reduce carbon emissions, or encourage active travel for health reasons. In part, the confluence of these different agendas has helped different agencies or stakeholders champion the 20-minute city.”

White says, “Paris is probably the global leader at the moment, partly due to the high political profile, but Melbourne is also at the cutting edge.” One new village closer to my end of town that has applied this way of thinking is Realm Caulfield Village, which caters to students by providing accommodation and housing convenient to nearby Monash University. Realm Caulfield Village ticks off all the sustainability boxes.

Realms Caulfield Village exemplifies this paradigm shift towards more sustainable living arrangements. By catering to specific needs, such as student accommodation near universities, they offer a glimpse into a more holistic approach to urban planning. A glimmer of hope emerges on whether 20-minute cities can solve the housing and rental crisis.

My investigation feels incomplete as many questions hover in the ether to unresponsive figures of authorities on the housing and rental situation. One email was sent to smartcity@wyndham.vic.gov.au requesting updates on installing a smart city in what appears to be the very progressive Wyndham City. According to their site, the latest update was published in 2022 and features the tagline Wyndham Tomorrow Realised.  

In Jacobs’s closing prayer, “The life force of us combined, restrictions are moved aside so the pathways are clear to return to everyday activities, to draw together, together as one.”

(Featured image: Medium-sized dwellings pictured side by side in Soho Village on Thursday, May 9. Soho Village is a text-case 20-minute city. NATALIE HESLOP)