Fifteen-minute cities for whom? Planning futures of queer liveability

The climate crisis has brought sustainability to the forefront of urban planning, with the 15-minute city (FMC) being promoted as a model for equitable and liveable urban futures. However, concerns remain about its potential to perpetuate social exclusion, particularly for populations whose urban experience is already affected by discrimination, such as LGBTQI+ and BIPOC communities. This commentary critically examines the FMC through a queer lens, asking whose ways of being are made liveable by current planning frameworks and whose futures are enabled. By shedding light on the cisheteronormative assumptions embedded in FMC discourse and practice, I argue that queerness challenges assumptions about stable residency, unfettered access to services, and universal essentials. I also suggest that failing to consider the needs of queer residents not only excludes LGBTQI+ people from current planning processes but also denies them a legitimate place in the future city envisioned by these plans. To mobilise planning as a transformative practice that breaks from the constraints of heteronormativity, I propose that FMC frameworks should expand beyond their current focus on the quarter-hour and city scale. This would situate FMC residents within broader historical and global dynamics while confronting the structural erasure of dissident spatialities and temporalities. Finally, I outline pathways for queering proximity planning, foregrounding lived experience, belonging, and commoning queer essentials as steps towards supporting the well-being and futures of LGBTQI+ communities.