Imagine having most of your everyday needs just minutes from home: a café, restaurant, shop, gym, park, and maybe even a place to work or study. Would you really need to leave the neighborhood often?

This idea is beginning to take shape in new real estate developments that bring homes together with services, retail, and entertainment in one place, in what’s known as mixed-use development.

One example is a preliminary agreement between Roshn Group and TMG Saudi to explore a partnership to develop a mixed-use project in Riyadh. According to initial studies, it is expected to include more than 55,000 housing units, as well as retail, hospitality, entertainment, health, and education facilities, and public spaces. The project is still under evaluation, with the next steps including the preparation of a detailed master plan and a feasibility study.

From Housing to Lifestyle

The idea isn’t entirely new, but it reflects a shift in how neighborhoods are designed. Rather than being places to live alone, neighborhoods become places where residents can shop, exercise, dine, and spend their free time.

This brings the concept closer to the idea of the “15-minute city,” which aims to put essential needs and services within easy reach of residents.

But do we really need all our needs to be close by?

On the one hand, proximity can mean less time in the car and easier journeys. On the other, some people may prefer the variety of the city and enjoy going elsewhere to seek out different places and experiences.

Does Time Have a Price?

When a shop, restaurant, or gym is close to home, we save not just distance, but time too.

That’s where proximity takes on a different kind of value. Someone might prefer a home in a fully integrated community because it saves them a few minutes of travel each day, even if another option is available at a different price.

For developers, the picture is a little different. Providing these services requires space, investment, and operating costs, which raises another question: Will residents use these services enough to make them sustainable?

Having a shop or restaurant just steps from home may be an appealing feature, but its real value emerges when it becomes more than a service that’s simply available—and residents actually use it.

So, Is This the Future?

Perhaps the goal isn’t for people to live their entire lives within a single neighborhood, but to have their essential needs close by while keeping the wider city within reach.

So the question we ask when choosing a home may shift from:

“Where will I live?”

to:

“What will my life be like around the place I live?”

Ultimately, the success of the integrated-neighborhood concept may depend not on how many services it offers, but on a simpler question:

Will people actually use them?