Quantifying walkable accessibility to urban services: An application to Florence, Italy

2025-04-17

AI Summary

This study investigates spatial inequities in pedestrian accessibility to essential services within a 10-minute walk from residential areas in Florence, Italy, and examines their implications for urban spatial structure, functional community formation, and quality of life. Method: It pioneers the integration of walking accessibility into network-theoretic analysis, combining OpenStreetMap (OSM) and ISTAT open datasets, graph-theoretic modeling, Dijkstra’s shortest-path algorithm, k-means clustering, and a novel multi-scale accessibility index to delineate service-sharing functional communities. A new metric—“functional redundancy”—is introduced to quantify service supply resilience. Contribution/Results: The analysis reveals pronounced spatial disparities in accessibility, identifying six distinct functional community types. Empirical results confirm a strong positive correlation between high functional redundancy and socioeconomic advantage. The framework provides a reproducible methodological toolkit and evidence-based spatial governance insights for empirical “15-minute city” research and equity-oriented urban policy design.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Graph Mining, Social Network Analysis & Community
• Search and Optimization: Evaluation and Analysis

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Community question answering
• Social Networks and Social Media: Social media analysis through the lenses of networks
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Algorithms and analysis for incomplete, noisy, or partially observed Web-related graphs

Abstract

The concept of quality of life in urban settings is increasingly associated to the accessibility of amenities within a short walking distance for residents. However, this narrative still requires thorough empirical investigation to evaluate the practical implications, benefits, and challenges. In this work, we propose a novel methodology for evaluating urban accessibility to services, with an application to the city of Florence, Italy. Our approach involves identifying the accessibility of essential services from residential buildings within a 10-minute walking distance, employing a rigorous spatial analysis process and open-source geospatial data. As a second contribution, we extend the concept of 10-minute accessibility within a network theory framework and apply a clustering algorithm to identify urban communities based on shared access to essential services. Finally, we explore the dimension of functional redundancy. Our proposed metrics represent a step forward towards an accurate assessment of the adherence to the 10-minute city model and offer a valuable tool for place-based policies aimed at addressing spatial disparities in urban development.

Problem

• Measuring walkable access to urban services in Florence
• Evaluating 10-minute accessibility using spatial analysis
• Identifying service-based urban communities via clustering

Innovation

• Spatial analysis with open-source geospatial data
• Network theory framework for accessibility clustering
• Metrics for functional redundancy assessment