The 15 Minute City and the Role of AI Technology in Building Them

Preparing for Rapid Urban Growth

There are currently more than 8 billion people in the world, and according to The World Bank’s Urban Development Overview, 50% of the population lives in urban areas. With this number expected to increase to 6 billion by 2045, city planners are struggling to keep up with the many challenges of city growth in the short and long term. As a result, leading cities across the globe are turning to smart city ideology for strategic inspiration for how to accommodate city services and infrastructure in the face of population expansion. The question however remains: are these efforts enough to not only meet the current demand for safe, accessible cities, but also lay the groundwork for sustainable future growth? The “15-minute city” has garnered significant support in response to this question as people scramble for effective, sustainable, and out of the box solutions for our cities.

A People Centric Concept

The concept of the “15-minute city” was developed by Carlos Moreno of Pantheon Sorbonne University in Paris, in a revolutionary attempt to design cities for people, instead of designing cities that people are forced to adapt to. In his TED Talk, Moreno explains that cities should be designed, or redesigned, so people can live what constitutes as the essence of urban experience – access, work, housing, food, health, education, culture and leisure — within the distance of a 15-minute walk or bike ride. At its heart, the 15-minute city is one that meets and responds to the needs of its inhabitants, so they have a heathier, more sustainable life.

New Principles for a New Kind of City

The 15-minute city is not looking to transform the dynamic, creative, and innovative nature of cities into something more rurally minded. The goal, however, is to make cities more agile, healthy, flexible, and even pleasant. Moreno claims that the 15-minute city boils down to 3 key characteristics:

1. People-centric flow: The rhythm of the city should follow human patterns instead of humans following transit patterns.
2. Optimized space utilization: To fit critical services into walking and biking distances, every space needs to serve multiple purposes. For instance, schools can transform into neighborhood centers after school hours.
3. Minimized commuting: Cities should be designed so that people can live, work, and thrive without the need to constantly commute.

Technology and the 15-Minute City

Whether a city is looking to initiate smart city transformation or build a 15-minute city from the ground up, current and emerging smart city technology, like AI driven video analytics, can be leveraged by municipal leaders and urban planners to affect people centric change.

Urban Planning:
Planning is at the heart of any municipal transformation or creation, and planning requires quantifiable, actionable data about patterns and trends. Historically, this data was provided through anecdotal observations from various city agencies. However, now, urban planners can glean information from advanced technology like video analytics to inform their decision-making.

By extracting operational intelligence from video surveillance, urban planners can track public transit usage patterns, vehicular and pedestrian traffic trends, and evaluate historical data to predict when and where to expect deviations from normal behavior. By visualizing video metadata to uncover how city spaces and resources are used, urban planners can make data-driven decisions to make city infrastructure, public transit access points, and even green spaces, more people centric.

Traffic Flows:
Traffic is a frustrating reality of city living. It is important for municipalities to understand when and where roadways, bike lanes, or pedestrian paths are experiencing bottlenecks so they can identify ways to make repairs or improvements for smooth navigation. Video analytics is one helpful technology that can provide understanding of bottleneck sources, identify root causes, and mitigate future traffic jams with appropriate planning and action. For example, video analytics can be leveraged to identify areas with high rates of pedestrian traffic violations. Data backed insight into pedestrian behavior patterns can help cities determine the infrastructural changes needed to optimize the safe and efficient flow of traffic.

Even if an existing city cannot transform to a 15-minute city, video intelligence software can still support smarter decision making around improving traffic flows. Video analytics aggregates and visualizes video data to reveal trends so operators can proactively benchmark traffic norms, configure rule-based alerts based on those benchmarks, and identify traffic violations, unexpected congestion, and traffic formation with agility and ease. Once established, notifications will trigger when predefined thresholds are surpassed, enabling operators to remain responsive to situations as they unfold in real-time and improving the quality of life for residents by reducing frustrating congestion.

Space Utilization:
Video analytics can also support space utilization efforts and translate the vision of a 15-minute city into a reality. If, for instance, a city is moving towards the 15-minute city model, video analytics can provide planners with heat and common pathway maps to inform planners of foot traffic patterns. If data shows that the corner dance studio is busy from morning until evening, it won’t be a great idea to utilize the space for community tutoring after school. However, if a cafe’s traffic is nonexistent after 2 o’clock, it would be logical to utilize the space for community needs in the afternoon.

Smart cities can use the same tools to maximize the use of their green spaces. For instance, cities could use heatmap and traffic data to understand traffic patterns around existing green spaces. Frequent patterns of crowding could indicate the need for an additional or expanded park and consequently support the strategy with data to resolve the problem. If the analysis shows that a green space is being underutilized, they can easily determine the cause to maximize the utility of the space. For example, if a high number of children are passing by a green space but never enter, planners can weigh the benefit of adding a playground or other sport equipment to draw more traffic and increase utility.

Returning Cities to the People

Moreno wisely states in his TED talk, “The 15-minute city is an attempt to reconcile the city with the humans that live in it.” Addressing the challenges that we face as city dwellers in an innovative way empowers smart cities – whether in transformation or development — to offer us an improved quality of life. Cities, like technology, were made to work for us, to make our lives better. Let’s keep that in mind as we forge the future of city living, now.