Is GIS the difference between success and failure for 15-minute neighbourhoods? Alex Zirpolo, principal GIS consultant at Lanpro, argues it is.

For planners and communities alike, few urban concepts have attracted as much public interest - and misunderstanding - as the 15-minute neighbourhood.

While lauded by planning professionals for its potential to improve quality of life, 15 (or 20) minute neighbourhoods (or cities) have been marred in debate, especially since the post-pandemic introduction of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs): in Oxford in February 2023, 2,000 pro-car protesters clashed with police over plans to split the city into six self-contained districts.

The 15-minute City

First proposed by French academic Carlos Moreno in 2016, the vision was simple: that city residents could enjoy a higher quality of life by accessing work, school, shops, healthcare and leisure within a 15-minute walk or cycle from home. Compact, well-connected communities reduce car dependency, improve health outcomes, support local economies, and contribute to net zero goals.

Beneath the rhetoric, however, lies a serious planning challenge. Designing neighbourhoods that are not only walkable but also truly functional, inclusive and sustainable is not straightforward. Proximity to amenities is only the beginning. It’s in the balance of competing priorities – affordability, connectivity, land availability, environmental sensitivity and long-term resilience – that the real complexity lies.

If affordable homes are a 15-minute walk from a GP surgery but 45 minutes from reliable employment, or if cycle paths end at busy junctions with no safe crossings, the vision falls apart.

Furthermore, an uncomfortable truth about city living generally is that their suburbs tend to be divided along income lines. A US-based study involving millions of mobile phone data points found that people walked more 15-minute trips if their local services were better. But crucially, getting people to travel shorter trips could also mean a more segregated metropolitan area where poorer people meet fewer rich people. It concluded that 15-minute cities may also exacerbate the social isolation of marginalised communities.

The Importance of Coordination

Success requires coordination across a wide range of services, land uses, and constraints – both physical and policy-driven. In this respect, the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can make the difference between success and failure.

As a digital platform that captures, stores and analyses spatial data, GIS is already well established in environmental management and infrastructure planning. When paired with a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) methodology in the context of masterplanning or providing amenities for an edge-of-settlement development, it becomes a particularly powerful tool.

MCE allows planners to combine numerous and diverse datasets – on land use, transport infrastructure, amenities, environmental constraints and more – into a single analytical framework. Each dataset can be weighted and scored to reflect local priorities and national policy objectives. The result is a composite map that visually identifies areas best suited to development, refurbishment or conservation.

MCE is already being used in site-finding analysis across the UK, helping authorities and developers identify opportunities that meet planning policy criteria while aligning with both existing infrastructure and potential development as outlined in Local Plans.

With GIS, planners can evaluate locations against a wide range of variables: topography, flood risk, proximity to roads and rail, ecological sensitivity, and existing settlement boundaries. Socio-economic data, such as deprivation indices, population density, and access to schools or healthcare, can be incorporated into the MCE. Travel times by different transport modes can be modelled, adding another layer of insight.

The process once reliant on time-consuming desktop studies, can now be completed in hours. That not only shortens the time from initial scoping to strategic decision-making – it also reduces the likelihood of costly and time-consuming challenges later in the planning process, enabling homes and communities to be delivered sooner.

A Game-Changer for Local Authorities

For local authorities under pressure to deliver housing targets without compromising green space or community cohesion, this is a game-changer. It allows for development decisions that are evidence-led, spatially informed and publicly defensible. For developers, it can highlight underutilised opportunities and reduce the risk of speculative proposals being rejected on policy grounds.

As the political discourse around 15-minute cities continues to generate noise, professionals within local government – as well as those of us in the planning and development sector – have a responsibility to cut through that noise with clarity and purpose. GIS gives us the tools to do so, not just by visualising the present, but by modelling the future in a way that is rigorous, scalable and responsive to real-world conditions.