European policies acknowledge cities’ major roles in building greener and just urban habitats. When rethinking cities’ spatial organisation, the call is for creating better liveability conditions at the level closest to citizens. In this frame, research into the impacts of COVID-19 has led to a revival of neighbourhood planning and the 15-Minute City has been proposed as a successful model for cities’ recoveries in the name of regained proximity to collective facilities. This article questions the long-lasting neighbourhood image that the 15-Minute City refers to, by exploring recent experiences that renewed its application. We begin with a literature review, and then develop an evidence-based approach to a deeper analysis of policy design and implementation focusing on the Italian city of Milano. Discussion and conclusions highlight critical issues and potentials of the 15-Minute City. If the threat is that of a simplified and rhetorical use of this idea, its ability to gather plural actions under an appealing flagship can be a powerful driver for urban regeneration policies. However, being more than just a reproducible spatial model, the 15-Minute City needs to be handled as a complex planning device, whose effective implementation depends on the specific characteristics of the urban environments it applies to and on the strong intertwining of different policy fields and tools.

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Looking at the various types of contemporary urban configurations, town and city centres continue to represent a resource and potential for structuring of a centralised system and for the organisation of more densely urbanised areas. While in the past the recognisability and individuality of town and city centres have been a sign of their uniqueness in an ‘insular' urban design, today they form part of an more varied ‘town centre' which runs across the entire urban range, the protagonists of a project to change the composition of towns and cities. As themes or systems of urban restructuring, town and city centres become a planning construct used to make selections from the materials of the existing town or city of those which, on the basis of their differentiating qualities which express their importance, are candidates for interpretation in a new role, with permanent and long-term profiles.

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<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The Italian Plan for Cultural Heritage Education identifies in the training related to cultural heritage the possibility of contributing to the cultural and social improvement of the life of every person, also developing, through a conscious use, the sense of belonging to one or more cultures and territory.</p><p>Given these potentialities, the document reveals a lack of responses to training needs and underlines how the launch of educational courses that put school and university in synergy in the places of culture are among the priorities to be achieved in the period 2016-2018. The Italian Digital School Plan also stresses the importance of a renewed educational approach and effort to promote heritage and provides that all students are offered courses on the digital management of Cultural Heritage. The interest in the heritage, after all, is identified by European policies as part of the right of every citizen to freely participate in cultural life.</p><p>The ScAR (School Activates Resources) project, aims to respond to these requests with an experimental and methodologically innovative action, set in a context rich in critical issues and on a fragile and ScARcely recognized heritage such as that of a part of the Milanese urban periphery. The aim of the project is to promote the shared knowledge of the latent urban patrimony and increase, especially in young people, the sense of belonging to the neighbourhoods, the sense of active citizenship and the responsibility in the common good’s care. Another priority is to provide schools with tools for educational innovation, inclusion, and technological update, to limit early school leaving.</p>