Evaluating the potential of a "beta" x-minute city in a Metropolitan Area
Creators: name: Colaço, Rui
name: de Abreu e Silva, João
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of urban and transportation planning. The 15-minute city concept was introduced in the context of sustainable local living (Moreno et al. 2021), and while it has gained traction, it has also been the target of criticism. For example, the 15-minute city amenities may increase social and spatial segregation or create an "archipelago" of neighbourhoods (Glaeser 2021). Its effectiveness in reducing motorized travel has also been discussed (Abbiasov et al. 2022). Moreover, by directing funds to promote the "fully featured" 15-minute city[1], we may be compromising the funding of "20-minute suburbs"(SOM 2023) or, more generally, "x-minute" cities (Logan et al. 2022), which may eventually turn out to be a more inclusive way of implementing chrono-urbanism.
Therefore, a reflection should be made on how different the 15-minute city is from previous solutions such as Clarence Perry's "neighbourhood unit", whose unintended consequences, namely sprawling, auto-dependency, and lack of diversity among residents, have been extensively debated (Lawhon 2009). Hence, we propose that a "beta version" of an x-minute city should be tested before embracing yet another way of "fixing" the cities. This beta version would have just some features of the concept, namely green and public spaces, access to transport and some local commerce (for example, cafes acting as "third places"). The aim would be minimizing gentrification and financial and environmental costs while maximizing social interaction and the potential of chrono-urbanism.
To explore this idea, a "landscape of "beta" x-minute cities" is devised in Lisbon's Metropolitan Area. OpenStreetMap provides data on shops and amenities in general. A travel survey (INE 2018) is used to evaluate travel behaviour, namely travel distance and modal share within and outside the 15-minute city. This will contribute to the debate on the effectiveness of the 15-minute concept in reducing travel distances and promoting active travel. Ultimately, complementing the centres' 15-minute policies with suburbs' "beta x-minute cities" may be a robust starting point to (re)introduce proximity-based policies in urban and transportation planning, while being less expensive. Moreover, it might help contain gentrification and contribute to devising more diverse and sustainable cities.
 
REFERENCES
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Moreno, Carlos, Zaheer Allam, Didier Chabaud, Catherine Gall, and Florent Pratlong. 2021. "Introducing the '15-Minute City': Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities." Smart Cities 4 (1): 93–111. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4010006.
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[1] By "fully featured we refer to the six essential urban social functions proposed by (Moreno et al. 2021): (a) living, (b) working, (c) commerce, (d) healthcare, (e) education and (f) entertainment.