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The 15-minute city quantified using human mobility data

Nature Human Behaviour volume 8, pages 445–455 (2024)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 02 April 2024

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Abstract

Amid rising congestion and transport emissions, policymakers are embracing the ‘15-minute city’ model, which envisions neighbourhoods where basic needs can be met within a short walk from home. Prior research has primarily examined amenity access without exploring its relationship to behaviour. We introduce a measure of local trip behaviour using GPS data from 40 million US mobile devices, defining ‘15-minute usage’ as the proportion of consumption-related trips made within a 15-minute walk from home. Our findings show that the median resident makes only 14% of daily consumption trips locally. Differences in access to local amenities can explain 84% and 74% of the variation in 15-minute usage across and within urban areas, respectively. Historical data from New York zoning policies suggest a causal relationship between local access and 15-minute usage. However, we find a trade-off: increased local usage correlates with higher experienced segregation for low-income residents, signalling potential socio-economic challenges in achieving local living.

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Fig. 1: Example of measuring access and usage within a 15-minute walk with SafeGraph data.
Fig. 2: Local trips in the United States.
Fig. 3: Local trips by income levels.
Fig. 4: Access and local trips.
Fig. 5: First-stage and reduced-form relationships between historical zoning regulations and current access to local services and 15-minute usage for New York neighbourhoods.
Fig. 6: Local trip behaviour and experienced segregation.

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Data availability

The main dataset of mobile device locations was obtained from SafeGraph. The authors do not have permission to share these data. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The code to replicate the results in the paper can be obtained from the authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grant no. 69A3552348325 from the Center for Climate-Smart Transportation to T.A., C.H., S.S., A.S.-M., P.S. and C.R. We also thank Dubai Future Foundation, UnipolTech, Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria, Volkswagen Group America, FAE Technology, Samoo Architects & Engineers, Shell, GoAigua, ENEL Foundation, Kyoto University, Weizmann Institute of Science, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Imperial College London, Universitá di Pisa, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, AMS Institute and all the members of the MIT Senseable City Lab Consortium for supporting this research. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Timur Abbiasov, Cate Heine, Sadegh Sabouri, Arianna Salazar-Miranda, Edward Glaeser.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Senseable City Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Timur Abbiasov, Cate Heine, Sadegh Sabouri, Arianna Salazar-Miranda, Paolo Santi & Carlo Ratti

  2. Instituto di Informatica e Telematica del CNR, Pisa, Italy

    Paolo Santi

  3. Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Edward Glaeser

  4. Department ABC, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy

    Carlo Ratti

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Contributions

T.A., E.G., C.H., S.S., A.S.-M., P.S. and C.R. designed the research. T.A., C.H., S.S. and A.S.-M. conducted the data processing and performed the analysis. T.A., E.G., C.H., S.S. and A.S.-M. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Arianna Salazar-Miranda.

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Supplementary Fig. 1 and Tables 1–9.

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Abbiasov, T., Heine, C., Sabouri, S. et al. The 15-minute city quantified using human mobility data. Nat Hum Behav 8, 445–455 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01770-y

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