15 Minute Cities Research

Client Research and Innovation
Location London, UK
Years 2021 - ongoing
Services Geospatial Analytics, Urban Design

During the Covid-19 pandemic our day-to-day world shrunk. Many of us would previously have spent hours each day travelling to and from our place of work. We might have spent a similar amount of time travelling on weekends to see friends, go shopping or visit the theatre. During times of restrictions our homes became our offices whilst our theatres are our streaming services.

This has led to a change in the way we experience our cities and consequently think about planning them. Encapsulating many of these changes, the 15-minute city model has gained significant traction with planners, architects, and governments.

Through Steer’s internal Research and Innovation programme, DfM developed a paper, to be presented at the 2021 European Transport Conference, that considered the role of the 15-minute city in the UK through a comparative investigation of two of the UK’s biggest cities – London and Glasgow. Our research began, by considering what makes a 15-minute neighbourhood.

We determined the services that residents need to access including schools for various ages, health facilities and food shops. We also determined what amenities are needed to support physical and mental health through accessibility to leisure, green space, and entertainment as well as accessibility to local and strategic public transport.

Our methodology was underpinned by geospatial analysis using network analysis to assess at a local neighbourhood level how many of these services could be assessed. The methodology is adaptable to work with open data such as Open Street Map or client held data.

Outputs of the analysis not only focus on the accessibility analysis but also begin to explore how the quality of a place may impact how likely someone may walk to these locations by assessing local air quality, crime, road collisions, deprivation, measures of job accessibility and population segmentations.  This provides a robust evidence base to understand the different demographic and place-based challenges and opportunities local areas face in improving accessibility to local services.

Our research paper can be accessed on the European Transport Conference website here.

Following our research, we have deployed our analysis on client projects in several London Boroughs, Glasgow City Council and Southend-on-Sea.