Exploring socio-economic inequalities in access to the 15-minute city across 200 Swedish built-up areas

In recent years, the 15-minute city has gained prominence as a vision for urban development, aiming to create attractive and vibrant neighborhoods where essential services are within a 15-minute walk. However, its implementation raises concerns about socio-spatial segregation, as the potential increase in desirability of these neighborhoods—combined with various underlying factors—can lead to increased housing prices, potentially excluding economically vulnerable groups. Despite its popularity, few studies have thoroughly explored how access to the 15-minute city varies among different socio-economic groups and across different cities and towns, highlighting a significant research gap. This study aims to explore potential socio-economic inequalities in 15-minute city access across the 200 largest built-up areas in Sweden. Specifically, our study compares average incomes among residents living in neighborhoods that either meet or do not meet various 15-minute city criteria within each built-up area. These criteria are designed to operationalize the proximity dimension of the 15-minute city by capturing which residents that have access to different sets of non-work urban social functions (e.g., healthcare, restaurants, retail) within 1 km from their homes. Two research questions guide the study: Are there differences in access to the 15-minute city, in terms of proximity to non-work urban social functions, across different income groups in Swedish built-up areas? How do variations in the types of functions included in the 15-minute city model, as well as differences in built-up areas characterized by population size, density, land use mix, and the proportion of older buildings, affect these outcomes? Findings reveal significant impact from both the definition of the 15-minute city and across different types of built-up areas. When the 15-minute city only encompasses basic functions such as a grocery store, school, restaurant, etc., average incomes are lower, irrespective of population size. However, mean incomes are notably higher for residents who can locally access many different urban social functions, indicative of larger cities with a higher population density and jobs-to-worker ratio. This highlights a cautionary aspect for cities and planners implementing the 15-minute city vision, as the city characteristics strongly correlated with effective adherence to the 15-minute city may also contribute to excluding lower-income groups.