Aretian Urban Analytics and Design co-founders, Jeremy Burke and Ramon Gras Alomà, wrote an article for Urban AI, the first Think Tank dedicated to researching the potential of AI applied to the Science of Cities and Urbanism. The article depicts the science behind the novel concept of the 15-Minute City as a means to address the future challenges cities will face such as population migration, housing shortage, transportation and unemployment, among many others. The 15-Minute City is a multi-hub city that provides individuals with equal access to housing, places of work, recreation, and efficient transport within locally-oriented neighborhoods defined by proximity. In the public eye, the 15-Minute City has recently gained a lot of interest for its positive qualities on urban life, but it can be difficult to understand the process to achieve the results without a city science-driven, quantitative analysis to assist in planning and design changes.
The Aretian Team, a Harvard University research-focused firm, designed a geospatial City Science methodology for evaluating the relationship between city form, urban dynamics, and urban performance. They identified 10 fundamental city form typologies that structure the urban fabric and then determined how the different city form typologies impact the performance of every urban area by deploying geographic clustering and machine learning classification techniques. Each of these typologies presents specific features and characteristics, thus fostering or hindering the ability for those urban environments to achieve the quality standards of the 15-Minute City. Representative cities include Seattle, Marseille, Bogotá, Moscow, Brugge, and many others.
Read the full article here.
Aretian’s research revealed interesting patterns and performance results. One of the ten city types that is worth looking more closely at is the Fractal City. The fractal city is constructed with a series of hubs (city/neighborhood centers) that are strategically spread throughout the city providing access to important amenities to residents and businesses alike. Some good examples of fractal cities are Savannah (Georgia, USA), La Plata (Argentina) and Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain).
In summary, the 15 Minute City quality standards are rarely met by cities and urban areas today, although they are feasible, attainable and desirable. Keep on following us for more information on our research and achievements!
