Proximity-centred accessibility

Urban Demographics · 11 months ago · 119 views

I’m glad to share a new paper where we surveyed 1300 transport and planning practitioners from 22 countries to ask their understanding and normative views of proximity-centred accessibility. The full data set of the survey is available as open data here. To me, the most amazing results that emerged from this paper are that: There is a seemingly universal understanding of “proximity” (up to 1600 m), with small variations depending on city size and country. Despite context and cultural differences across countries, there is also a consensus that the “adequate distance” to activities related to basic needs and caregiving is consistently shorter, even though the “reasonable access time” varies significantly across activities. ps. this was a great collaboration with over 30 authors, but with the fantastic lead of Cecilia Silva and Benjamin Büttner. Silva, C., Büttner, B. et al. (2025). Proximity-centred accessibility–A conceptual debate involving planning practitioners worldwide. Cities, 167, 106376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.106376 Abstract In recent years, the concept of proximity has garnered increasing attention in both transportation research and practice, albeit under various terms and interpretations. Among these, the concept of the 15-minute city has catalysed attention in planning practice, with recent evolution to the x-minute city and city of proximities. In research, proximity-centred accessibility has been offered as an umbrella term to express the ability to reach activities and destinations at short distances. Regardless of the terminology used, the essence of proximity lies in the ease with which one can access desired activities and destinations within reasonable travel times, independent of speed-enhancing transport modes most notably through walking. This research investigates the nuanced meanings ascribed to proximity-centred accessibility by planning practitioners globally, spanning diverse regional and local contexts. For this, we used an online survey, disseminated among over 9000 practitioners from 22 countries across 5 continents, which generated over 1300 responses. The survey explored the preferred terms for proximity-centred accessibility and their definitions, specifically emphasizing time and distance thresholds and the identification of relevant activities. By juxtaposing our findings with an earlier survey of accessibility researchers, this study also contributes to the groundwork for a conceptual framework for proximity-centred accessibility. Our findings affirm a relatively consistent interpretation of proximity among global planning practitioners, predominantly extending up to 1600 m, in accordance with earlier results for accessibility researchers. Despite some relevant dissimilarities among practitioners from megacities compared to their smaller city counterparts, or in specific countries (most notably the Netherlands), the distance that is considered proximate is the attribute that generates the most consistent results across different contexts. Also consistent was the relevance of short distances (up to 15 min walking) for activities such as primary and pre-primary schools, playgrounds, parks, food shopping, and pharmacies, reinforcing the importance of proximity to basic and caregiving activities. No term was found to be consistently meaningful across different contexts, although terms like local and neighbourhood accessibility and walking/pedestrian, or cycling accessibility, show higher preference in the global sample.