Frankfurt: the perfect ‘15-minute city’
This article is part of a guide to Frankfurt from FT Globetrotter
“The idea is that cities should be designed or redesigned so that within the distance of a 15-minute walk or bike ride people should be able to . . . access work, housing, food, health, education, culture and leisure.” So goes the credo of academic Carlos Moreno’s philosophy of urban design, one that has been seized upon by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, among others.
Watching Moreno’s TED talk one day last year, it dawned on me that I already live in his ideal metropolis: Frankfurt am Main.
Logistics, of course, are not everything. When it comes to culture, there is nothing in Frankfurt to draw visitors from London or Paris. But with the Städel, whose 2019-20 Making Van Gogh exhibition was one of the highlights of my time here, and the Schirn and MMK galleries, there is just enough art to keep one interested. Frankfurt also has a smattering of decent museums, the best of which, in my opinion, is the newly redesigned Jewish Museum, housed in the Rothschild banking dynasty’s former riverside mansion. The music scene is disappointing, with classical concerts more or less confined to the Alte Oper or the local public broadcaster’s recording venue, although singers and acts such as Elton John and Coldplay recently played the football stadium (I’m told).
Satisfy any pangs for Americana barbecue fare at Chicago Williams . . .
. . . including a classic Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich & Pastrami with mash & gravy
Food is another area in which, in my experience, Frankfurt fails to shine. Other than satisfying my Americana pangs with Chicago Williams’ excellent barbecue fare, I cannot recall any meals — including those in Michelin-starred restaurants — that I would cross oceans to experience once again. The coffee scene is better: Hoppenworth & Ploch’s flagship café in Frankfurt’s old town has been the recipient of a significant part of my monthly salary, as has my local, Oheim, which makes the best tarts in the Teutonic world.
Frankfurt’s coffee scene: a caffeine hit at Hoppenworth & Ploch’s café I now move back to New York, where I will doubtless forget many of Frankfurt’s low-key creature comforts. But something about living in a 15-minute city — especially during a pandemic — changes one permanently. Stripped of FOMO, you learn to appreciate each experience for what it is, not for what it will look like on Instagram. Your plans need not be set in stone either. Freed from the restrictions of geography, spontaneity becomes an option. When you do visit a teeming city like London (easily done over a weekend before Ryanair abandoned Frankfurt Airport and prices shot up), you find yourself savouring cultural events taken for granted by jaded inhabitants.
Browse through some LPs at No 2 Records . . .
. . .or stop for a beer at Nox Wasserhäuschen.
While I will mourn leaving behind the physical-health benefits, it is abandoning the serenity of Moreno’s utopian 15-minute city that I fear most. If there is anything that could bring me back to Frankfurt, it would not be the chance to play in its stellar sports facilities once again, or the housing stock, but the thought of lazy afternoons spent reading in the Liebieghaus sculpture museum’s vaulted-ceiling café, browsing through old LPs at No 2 Records or drinking a beer at the Nox Wasserhäuschen. Excitement, I have learned, is rarely worth the commute.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Joe Miller
