Typologies of 20-Minute Neighbourhoods, Active Transport Use, and Spatial Spillovers

Abstract

Findings 20-minute neighbourhoods aim to promote active transport (AT) use by providing amenities locally. Using compactness and directional distribution of amenities, threshold population, and street patterns, this study derives five different typologies of 20-minute neighbourhoods: 1) Isolated and circular; 2) Semi-compact and semi-linear; 3) Compact and linear; 4) Organic; and 5) Semicompact and circular. Spatial autoregressive models show that all types of 20-minute neighbourhoods promote people to use AT to work. However, Typology 5 has the largest effects, directly encouraging 7% more people to use AT locally and indirectly leading 18% more people to use AT in the neighbouring areas.

Urban Planning in the 15-Minute City: Revisited under Sustainable and Smart City Developments until 2030

“…Net density, in particular, is significantly understudied when compared to gross density [14]. Neighborhoods may be part of a mono-or polycentric urban system, and either approach may successfully meet FMC goals [12,16,17]. In any case, urban density should be distributed in such a manner that spatial structures enable human capital networks to grow organically and adaptation measures to be developed more rapidly [14].…”

“…Accessibility by proximity. The type, distribution, and number of amenities within an FMC neighborhood are a key determinant of its success [12]. As the key characteristic of an FMC is to support local access and living, basic amenities and services should be offered in close proximity, thus making urban planning and design in a mixed-land-use Planning in neighborhood units of appropriate size and characteristics is the cornerstone of the FMC.…”

“…There are a host of variations of the FMC model, ranging from the one-minute to the 20-minute city, with the most common timeframes being 15 or 20 min. For instance, the optimal radius for a 20-minute neighborhood is 800 m (the distance the average human walks in that time) [12,15], which corresponds to an average area of two square kilometers. In parallel, while urban density is inarguably an important determinant of urban livability and is positively associated with better and more balanced availability of infrastructures enabling healthier urban environments, further research is needed to determine optimal density ranges in the FMC [14].…”

“…As the key characteristic of an FMC is to support local access and living, basic amenities and services should be offered in close proximity, thus making urban planning and design in a mixed-land-use regime a necessity [15]. In the FMC neighborhood unit context, existing research posits that essential urban services should be available within a distance of 500 to 800 m from a place of residence [12,15], and while urban planning based on mixed land use in appropriate variations is more or less an established value in achieving sustainable urban environments, the FMC highlights an additional characteristic that can complicate the situation: providing local access to the workplace [2]. Workplace localization is especially important if we consider the socioeconomic benefits of reducing commuting to and from work [21].…”

“…Bringing the two strands of research together, the purpose of the present paper is to uncover the repercussions of emerging developments, as identified in RRI2SCALE [11], on the increasingly popular FMC concept [2]. Our focus is on the urban planning and design principles of the FMC, since there is limited knowledge about precisely what they are [12]. In terms of structure, the paper begins by meticulously breaking down the urban-planning premises of the FMC model (Section 2).…”