Visualizing and assessing the 15-minute city facility configuration of city region A study on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration

Abstract

The desire for a more liveable, highly interconnected and people-oriented city is driving a surge of interest in the ’15-minute city’, an intuitive, adaptable and popular vision of urban living that already takes place around the world. Elements of the 15-minute city have helped to manage urban life effectively globally by offering a way to build on positive changes to boost local economies and deliver lasting health, well-being, equity and climate benefits. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold and health concerns remain paramount, the strategy are already supporting cities towards recovery. As an important engine of global urbanization, the future development of China’s cities is threatened by increasing air pollution, traffic congestion, social inequalities and other pressures. In May 2021, the Ministry of Natural Resources of China released The Standard of Spatial Planning Guidance Community Life Unity to offer technique support for future 15-minute city construction. Taking a 15-minute walking distance as the space scale, the Guidance configures various functions and facilities required for basic living of residents, ad provides a construction reference for healthy, energetic and low-carbon lifestyle, which satisfies urban residents’ yearning for a better life. Furthermore, the Guidance offers a detailed spatial assessment framework of 15-minute city facilities deployment including a variety of parameters. Based on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration, this paper evaluates the integrated performance of 13 cities in the Agglomeration by using the framework of the Guidance for visualizing and exploring facilities’ POIs on POI-type semantic space. The compare of 15-minute community construction between different cities is rendered as a “mode map” by POI counts on various types, providing a vivid information delivery method for urban planners and POI-related urban studies and applications.