Research
Subject
Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Tailoring the 15-Minute City for Levelling Up Through Multi-Scale Mobility Insights
First and second supervisors
Abstract
The 15-minute city (15mC) concept, aimed at fulfilling residents' daily needs through local trips, resonates with sustainable mobility and reducing disparity in Levelling Up (L-UP). Significant challenges remain, however, particularly in adapting the concept to diverse urban settings. Furthermore, the scalability of these local efforts remains ambiguous, affecting its broader implications for L-UP.
Recently, advances in fine-granularity urban mobility data offer chances to tailor 15mC to more context-sensitive, equitable planning.
The proposed project combines human mobility, urban planning and network science to co-create a transdisciplinary framework for context-sensitive implementation of 15mC in enhancing local L-UP initiatives across the UK.
The project concentrates on three main tasks:
- Develop taxonomies of neighbourhoods based on multi-modal mobility patterns to identify essential local amenities and to reduce long trips.
- Evaluate impacts of 15mC as local L-UP strategies on travel behaviours, accounting for socio-spatial variations in local contexts.
- Create a predictive model to estimate multi-scale social and mobility outcomes for future L-UP projects.
Partnering with Locomizer, the project will analyse mobility data across diverse UK cities, generating context-sensitive insights for policymaking. Findings will guide practitioners in retrofitting diverse areas into inclusive places for daily needs and active travel, effectively reducing city-wide disparities.
Biography
Xiuning is a trained urban planner and designer. He received his B.Eng. and M.Eng. in Urban Planning from Tongji University, Shanghai with distinction honours in 2020 and 2023 respectively.
His primary research interests lie in urban mobility, complex network and socioeconomic inequality, with a particular focus on the scalability and interactions of urban systems and the impact of interventions such as planning and design, all examined through the lens of complexity science. He is also interested in the predictive modelling for planning support.
His PhD project will focus on integrates large-scale urban mobility insights and complexity science techniques to implement the 15-minute city concept in enhancing local Levelling Up initiatives across diverse urban settings in the UK.
Professionally, Xiuning has served as an assistant editor for the journal Frontiers of Urban and Rural Planning, where he contributed to the organisation of theme issues.
Publications
- Zhang, X. et al. (2024) ‘Mapping heterogeneity: Spatially explicit machine learning approaches for urban value uplift characterisation and prediction’, Sustainable Cities and Society, 114, p. 105742. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.105742.
- Wu, Z., Zhang, X., Gan, W., et al. (2024). Theory of urban ‘blooming’: Extract dynamics, drivers and laws of uplifts with network analysis. City Planning Review. (to be published, in Chinese)
- Yang, F., Zhang, X., & Wang, J. (2023). Spatial provision and policy of public housing in global cities: A quantitative comparison framework. Shanghai Urban Planning Review, 5(1), 74-79. (in Chinese)
- Wu, Z., Zhang, X., Lu, F., et al. (2021). Emerging technology and planning: A new data-informed paradigm. Planners, 37(19), 5-10. (in Chinese)
- Hu, Y., & Zhang, X. (2018). Optimization design for connection space between urban complex and rail transit station. Housing Science, 12(1), 1-8. (in Chinese)
Funding
- UBEL ESRC DTP