Practicality and Quality-of-Life Impact of 15-Minute Cities

Determine the practicality of implementing the 15-minute city concept—defined as ensuring access to essential services within 15 minutes by non-polluting transport such as walking or cycling—and ascertain its consequential impact on residents’ quality of life across diverse urban contexts.

Background

The paper assesses global urban accessibility under the 15-minute city framework, introducing a Proximity Time metric and an algorithm to redistribute Points of Interest based on population density. While it quantifies current accessibility and explores optimal redistribution scenarios, the authors explicitly note that the broader practicality of the 15-minute city and its effects on residents’ quality of life remain unresolved.

This uncertainty is particularly salient given the strong heterogeneity of accessibility within and across cities and the dependence of feasibility on local population densities and urban form (compact vs. sprawling). The paper’s empirical focus leaves open a general evaluation of real-world implementability and actual social outcomes, motivating this stated open question.

References

The practicality of the 15-minute city still needs to be determined, as well as its consequential impact on the resident's quality of life.

— A universal framework for inclusive 15-minute cities  (2408.03794 - Bruno et al., 2024) in Section 1 Introduction