Resilient and Sustainable Cities: Research, Policy and Practice

By Zaheer Allam and Carlos Moreno

The role of Cities in driving global economies has been well covered, and their impact on the larger ecosystem is well documented. Resilient and Sustainable Cities: Research, Policy and Practice explores how cities can be transformed into sustainable fabrics, while leading to positive socio-economic change.

The topics include urban policy and covers the challenges cities experienced during the pandemic and resulting urban responses from federal, state, and local levels. This includes a transdisciplinary perspective dwelling on the city narrative, including Resources, Economics, Politics, and others.

Resilient and Sustainable Cities serves as a valuable resource for leaders and practitioners working in Urban Policy and academia, as well as students in urban planning, architecture, and policy undergraduate and graduate level programs.

• Explores the impacts of COVID-19 on cities and its socio-economic impacts
• Provides regenerative avenues for cities in a post-pandemic context
• Introduces the concept of the "15-Minute City"
• Underlines urban regenerative avenues, including financing needs, for cities in the global south

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9780323986243

Book preview

Section I

The ‘15-minute city’ concept: sustainability, resilience, and inclusivity

Outline

Chapter 1. Coworking and the 15-Minute City

Chapter 2. The theoretical grid. An antifragile strategy for Rome post-COVID mobility

Chapter 3. Measuring the 15-Minute City in Barcelona. A geospatial three-method comparison

Chapter 4. The Paris urban plan review : an opportunity to put the 15-Minute City concept into the perspective of the Parisians desire for nature

Chapter 5. Exploring the relationship of time keeping and urban morphology within the economic renaissance and the postmodern era

Chapter 6. Enter the 15-minute city: revisiting the smart city concept under a proximity based planning lens

Chapter 7. On proximity-based dimensions and urban planning: historical precepts to the 15-minute city

Chapter 8. Financing the 15-minute city concept and its infrastructural ecosystem in developing nations through fiscal mechanisms

Chapter 9. Redefining investable infrastructure in developing nations in a postpandemic era: the case of the 15-Minute City

Chapter 1: Coworking and the 15-Minute City

Guillaume Chanson ¹ , and Evelyn Sakka ²       ¹ PRISM Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France      ² PhD Finance, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

Abstract

Purpose

—Housing and working constitute two of the main social functions of a city, and the distance between them is a critical challenge. A 15-Minute City (or the city of the quarter of an hour) is a concept for a city in which citizens can access their daily necessities by foot or by bike within 15min. The concept was developed by Carlos Moreno to help tackle car hegemony and create more sustainable human-centric urban environments. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate how coworking space proximity may be a solution to materialize this challenge, especially nowadays given the worldwide rethinking of how we move and work in the city due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

—This chapter presents an overview of different research streams concerned by this research question: the 15-Minute City Concept, the third places, the coworking, and the amenities. It is completed by an empirical study of the Parisian situation in 2019 based on a census of coworking spaces derived from the Cartoviz database (of the Institute of the Paris region). Their presence is (one by one) precisely measured through localization into cadastral sections (coherent urban areas) and assessment of walking distances. The relationships with subway stations and real estate prices are analyzed, thanks to the Demande de Valeur Foncière database.

Findings

—This research reveal four different results:

Following the principles of the 15-Minute City, more and more high-skilled workers value their commuting time and would prefer to work in a coworking space located within walking distance than in a conventional office (approx. 70mn is the average daily commuting time in Paris).

Since these workers will often switch companies in their life, their housing location choice is hard. If they are reluctant to telecommute from home (deprived of social interactions and knowledge spillovers), coworking spaces constitute third places and neighborhood amenities (as restaurants, movie theaters, or subway stations). This amenity status is observed in the real estate prices surrounding.

The number of coworking spaces in Paris has now exceeded the number of subway stations. Most Parisians live within 500m from a coworking space.

They constitute a dense network unevenly distributed. Because most of them are privately owned, they are over-represented in the rich downtown arrondissements, whereas they could balance the spatial inequality in employment.

Originality

—Most of the urban economics literacy dedicated to the relationship between workplace location and household location consider traditional commuting time to conventional office through urban transport (especially individual cars, subway, and bus networks). But in the 15-Minute City, another way of working should be considered, since it is not possible to reach any districts of Paris in 15min, even if the transport system is improved. Working within walking distance is the most fruitful way to materialize the 15-Minute City.

Keywords

15-Minute City; Amenity; Commuting time; Coworking; Third place

1. Working in the 15-Minute City: the commuting time issue

1.1 Theoretical perspectives

1.2 Empirical data: the commuting time in Paris

2. Coworking: the development of a new way of working

2.1 Theoretical perspectives

2.2 Empirical data: the development of coworking spaces in Paris

3. The new urban functions of coworking: third place and amenity

3.1 Coworking as a third place

3.2 Coworking as an amenity

4. The location of coworking spaces: a spatial network

4.1 Theoretical perspectives

4.2 Empirical data

5. Conclusion

References

Almost a century after the Athens Charter (1933), there is an evident need of a new vision of the city for the 21st century. In 2003, the New Charter of Athens (European council of Town Planners, 2003) proposed a renewed approach of a connected city, based on polycentric networks of cities relying on communication technologies. In 2016, the French-Colombian scientist Carlos Moreno developed another urban planning the 15-Minute City according to which citizens can access their daily necessities on foot or by bike within 15min.

In this chapter, we focus on the commuting time (between home and work) that constitutes the biggest issue, when it comes to the time citizens spend on their social tasks. It constitutes one of the main challenges for the town planning. Reducing the use of cars in the city cannot be sufficient to reach the 15min goal, which would be very difficult to achieve, even by improving public transportation. Then, this chapter addresses an original lever to reduce drastically the commuting time: the coworking spaces. How the network of coworking spaces could contribute to the success of the 15-Minute City?

To answer this question, this chapter will present through theoretical and empirical lenses the commuting time issue (first part), the development of coworking (second part), the new urban functions of coworking (third part), and the spatial network of coworking (fourth part).

1. Working in the 15-Minute City: the commuting time issue

1.1. Theoretical perspectives

In 1933, Le Corbusier (1941) published the Athens Charter (with other architects and urban planners). Through this modernist manifesto, they were proposing a new vision of the city of the future, which had a major influence on urban planning. Considering four functions of the city (dwelling, recreation, work, and transportation), they propose to separate industrial sectors and residential sectors. The separation of functions has quickly emerged as responsible of the dormitory towns (Albers & Papageorgiou-Venetas, 1985). A century later, the sustainable development requires a new vision for Cities in the 21st century.

A 15-Minute City is a concept for a city in which citizens can access their daily necessities by foot or by bike within 15min. The concept was developed by French-Colombian scientist Carlos Moreno to help tackle car hegemony and create more sustainable human-centric urban environments. Based on six social functions (living, working, commerce, healthcare, education, and entertainment), this approach proposed a mixed-use development of neighborhoods, opposite to the separated functions of the Charter of Athens. Working close to home constitute a daily necessity. Thus, commuting time is a crucial factor in choosing housing location.

The commuting habits depend on several microeconomic factors such as gender, age, level of education, personal income, presence and number of children, home ownership, or car availability/ownership. On the one hand, some of those factors have a positive relationship with commuting time such as personal income (Dargay & Clark, 2012; Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau & Van Ommeren, 2012; Östh & Lindgren, 2012; Sandow & Westin, 2010), education (Östh & Lindgren, 2012; Sandow, 2008; Susilo & Maat, 2007), home ownership (Deding et al., 2008; Groot et al., 2012), and car ownership (Dargay & Clark, 2012; Schwanen et al., 2004). On the other hand, there are other factors that have a negative relationship with commuting such as age (Dargay & Clark, 2012; Östh & Lindgren, 2012; Susilo & Maat, 2007) and children (Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau & Van Ommeren, 2012; Sandow, 2008). In addition, women generally have shorter commutes than men (Dargay & Clark, 2012; Groot et al., 2012; Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau & Van Ommeren, 2012). However, this gender difference in commuting decreases when income and occupation are taken into consideration, but it does not disappear (Hanson and Johnston, 1985; Sandow & Westin, 2010).

Moreover, commuting habits are affected by land use and geographical variables. There are several studies that demonstrate a negative relationship between commuting and population/residential density (Dargay & Clark, 2012; Sandow, 2008; Schwanen et al., 2004; Susilo & Maat, 2007) and job density (Johansson et al., 2002; Rouwendal & Nijkamp, 2004). However, there are factors that can positively affect the commuting behavior of individuals such as the urban/rural residence (Schwanen et al., 2004; Susilo & Maat, 2007; Östh & Lindgren, 2012), residential region (Pucher and Renne; 2003; Sandow & Westin, 2010), housing price (Rouwendal & Nijkamp, 2004), and intensity of land use (van Acker & Witlox, 2011).

Despite commuting time playing an important role in households' residential location decisions, most people are willing to accept longer commute times to live closer to amenities (Ng, 2008). For example, Merriman and Hellerstein (1994) observe that factors other than accessibility, such as school quality and population density, have an impact on the choice of residential and job location. Rouwendal and Meijer (2001) show that Dutch workers are willing to accept longer commutes in order to achieve specific housing types and neighborhood settings (e.g., small-town or country).

1.2. Empirical data: the commuting time in Paris

The commuting time for the majority of European workers is less than 30min (Eurostat, 2019). Before the start of the COVID crisis, more than half of employed persons in the EU-27 traveled less than 30min from home to work, that is, commuted one-way and without any detours (61.3% in 2019). Their average commuting time was 25min. Finally, only 4.3% of employed persons did not need to travel at all to get to their main place of work. Nevertheless, the situation is quite different in metropolises (Fig. 1.1). Due to longer commuting distances (the area is wider) and the traffic congestion, the commuting time is much higher in large cities.

Figure 1.1  Average daily commuting time for different European metropolises. The figure represents the average daily commuting time for different European metropolises. From Eurofound. (2016). What makes capital cities the best places to live? European Quality of Life Survey. Source: Eurofound. (2020) ‘What makes capital cities the best places to live?’, European Quality of Life Survey 2016 series. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

With approximatively 70mιn each day, Paris occupies the second place among the European Union capitals behind Budapest (Eurofound, 2020) in terms of high commuting time, despite having one of the most developed transport networks in Europe. This network cannot be the solution to the 15-Minute City challenge. As a matter of fact, the average amount of time people in Paris spend commuting with public transit, on a weekday is 50min (Moovit Public Transit Index, 2021). The average amount of time people in Paris wait at a stop or station for their Light Rail, Metro, Train, Bus and RER line on a weekday is 11min (Moovit Public Transit Index, 2021). Then, if one considers the time to reach the station, the waiting time at the station, the travel time (sometimes including interconnexions), and the time to reach the workplace, this model cannot support the principles of the 15-Minute City.

The percentage of people in Paris who wait for over 20min on average for their transit line every day, for example to and from work is 32%. The average distance people in Paris usually ride in a single trip, for example to or from work, with public transit including Light Rail, Metro, Train, Bus and RER is 9.9km. The percentage of people in Paris that usually travel for over 12km in a single direction, for example to or from work, each day with public transit is 55%. The average distance people in Paris walk every day in one direction, for example on their way home or to work is 9.9km. The percentage of people in Paris who walk for over 1km each day to reach a specific destination, for example to or from work is 55%.

As we saw in the first part of this chapter, following the 15-Minute City concept, commuting time plays an important role in households' decision. For most Europeans, there is no issue of commuting time in their daily life. Nevertheless, Paris, like many other metropolises, is affected by this issue, despite a highly developed transportation system. Coworking constitutes a way to address this challenge.

2. Coworking: the development of a new way of working

2.1. Theoretical perspectives

There are several definitions for coworking. According to DeGuzman and Tang (2011), coworking refers to the set-up and dynamics of a diverse group of people who do not necessarily work for the same company or on the same project, working alongside each other, sharing the working space and resources, such as Internet connection, office equipment, and coffee. Spinuzzi (2012) considers coworking space as a place to get work done—specifically, knowledge or service work that originates outside the site in other intersecting activities. Although coworkers work together, that work involves different, contradictory objectives, attached to and pulled by the network of activities in which each coworker engages. These intersecting activities perturbed the development of the object at each coworking site. Gandini (2015) describes coworking spaces as shared workplaces utilized by different sorts of knowledge professionals, mostly freelancers, working in various degrees of specialization in the vast domain of the knowledge industry. According to Waters-Lynch et al. (2017), a coworking space is a shared physical workspace and (often) intentional cooperation between independent workers. Summarizing, the common of those definitions for coworking is that they refer to individuals who work together with other people of differing attributes and places that are shared by the working people.

Coworking space proximity is an appeal of the 15-Minute City concept, especially nowadays given the worldwide rethinking of how we move and work in the city due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Coworking spaces not only provide flexible office space and infrastructure, such as information technology and furniture, but also facilitate access to a wealth of know-how and networking opportunities (Jakonen et al., 2017). In particular, they benefit firms seeking an environment that fosters social support, innovation, creativity, knowledge sharing, and collaboration (Bouncken et al., 2020; Fuzi, 2015). Finally, the concept of coworking space helps people discipline themselves and maintain work-related routines (Cook, 2020; Reichenberger, 2018).

2.2. Empirical data: the development of coworking spaces in Paris

In Paris, the first space opened in 2008. In 2011, there were only 40 coworking spaces in France, while in 2017, there were 600. In 2019, the number has tripled, and there were 1700 coworking spaces. Coworking is a growing part of office real estate: in 2019, coworking monopolized nearly half of the deals on areas of more than 5000m². The 35% of coworking spaces of France are located in Paris and Île-de-France. In 2019, the average price for a closed office workstation is 470 euros in Paris, with a very wide price range, from 350 euros in small spaces, to 1000 euros in the most premium spaces.

Moreover, the profiles of coworkers are evolving over the years. Initiated by startups and freelancers, coworking is now attracting mid-size companies and even a few large groups. These companies see it as an opportunity to benefit from the synergies and dynamism of these work environments. Many entrepreneurs are turning away from traditional offices (lease 3, 6, 9) to move toward the flexibility that coworking offers. Contracts typically have a minimum term of one to 3months, although some companies offer longer terms and others offer shorter terms, including pay as you go services. In general, short-term leases are thought to reduce the investment risk associated with the fixed costs of traditional leasing arrangements (Foster, 1989; Harrison, 2002). In addition, these services can provide access to strategic, attractive, low-cost, or prestigious locations that would be too expensive for individual users to lease privately. The opportunity to reduce these costs arises from the economic fact that the space and amenities are shared by multiple users, what is referred to in economic theory as the club good (Buchanan, 1965; Cornes & Sandler, 1996).

3. The new urban functions of coworking: third place and amenity

Coworking, conceived originally as a solution for independent workers, has experienced a rapid development. This development has urban impacts that will be analyzed in the next parts of this chapter.

3.1. Coworking as a third place

The third space concept has been proposed by Ray Oldenburg. Oldenburg and Brissett (1982, p.269) defined it as places where people gather primarily to enjoy each other's company. Etymologically, third place derives from the French concepts of the third world and the third state. The third state was used during the French Revolution to designate every person who did not belong to the first state (clergy) or the second state (nobility). In the same way, Oldenburg considered third places as urban spaces not devoted to the home (first place) or the workplace (second place). In this original meaning, cafes, parks, or churches constitute emblematic third places, as anchors of community life where unrelated people relate (Oldenburg, 1989).

The start of coworking phenomenon began in 2005 in the United States, and it is credited to Brad Neuberg, who organized a coworking 2days a week in the Spiral Muse (a collective feminist space) in San Francisco (Botsman & Rogers, 2011). The San Francisco Coworking Space and the other pioneering coworking spaces (The Hat Factory and Citizen Space) were conceived as a place where independent workers could work with other persons and avoid social isolation. In this way, coworking initially corresponds to the third space concept where unrelated people relate. Εven if its development through private companies differs from the idea of a public setting accessible to its inhabitants and appropriated by them as their own" Oldenburg and Brissett (1982, p.269).

3.2. Coworking as an amenity

Considering its social impact (create relations between people and reduce commuting time), it might be interesting to consider coworking spaces as neighborhood amenities. Here, we follow the definition of amenities proposed by Goe and Green (2005, p.95) as qualities of a locality that make it an attractive place to live and work. Previous research studies have considered various instances of amenities: for example, schools (Sah et al., 2016), rail-transit system (Billings, 2015), or bars, clubs, and restaurants (Moeller, 2018). These amenities constitute determinants of the attractivity of a neighborhood for residential location and work location.

In this way, coworking spaces appear as amenities, since they increase the attractiveness of the places to live and work. As far as work is considered, they foster social interaction and knowledge spillovers (compared to telecommuting). Regarding residential location, they represent a way to eliminate commuter travel (compared to conventional offices), since it is far easier for a resident to have a coworking space within walking distance than an office of his/her employer.

As seen in this part of the chapter, coworking spaces constitute third places and amenities, due to their social role. They play an important role in the possibility of a 15-Minute City. These two statements encourage us to analyze the location of coworking spaces.

4. The location of coworking spaces: a spatial network

To our knowledge, there are no empirical studies that have analyzed the location of coworking spaces in a city to understand the spatial network they represent. In the absence of a public policy, their position results from the location decision made by the coworking companies. There may be two competing goals for these companies in their location decisions: avoid competitors and benefit from localization externalities.

4.1. Theoretical perspectives

Since the pioneering work of Hotelling, geographical economists have investigated the determinants of firms' location strategy according to the customers' location. Depending on various factors, such as complete information or transportation and consumer storage costs (Ingene and Ghosh, 1990), a firm may choose a location close to or far from other competitors. In the case of transportation costs, an isolated location provides captive demand and the ability to fix higher prices than competitors as long as the price difference remains lower than the cost for a customer to switch providers. In the 15-Minute City approach, one can consider that the users opt for coworking spaces very close to their home. Following the transportation costs argument, one should expect the coworking spaces to open spaces in every neighborhood so as to benefit from the captive demand.

However, since the original work of Alfred Marshall at the end of the 19th century, economists have also considered externalities due to localization (Brounen & Jennen, 2009). When a firm is established in a dense neighborhood of economic activities, it may benefit from a pooled market for specialized workers (limiting the risk of labor shortage) (Krugman, 1991). It may also benefit from input sharing and knowledge spillovers. This is especially relevant for coworking, as social interactions are one of the main expectations for customers. Considering real estate strategies (Chanson 2022) and following localization externalities, one should expect the coworking spaces to open more particularly in central business districts to benefit from knowledge spillovers.

4.2. Empirical data

We use the database Cartographies interactive- CARTOVIZ of the Institute of the Paris region, which provides data for the name and the address of the coworking spaces in each arrondissement of Paris. The location of each coworking space is depicted in Fig. 1.2.

Figure 1.2  Map 1. Location of coworking spaces in Paris. The map represents the location of coworking spaces in Paris.

Moreover, we use the database Demande de Valeur Foncière (DVF) of the French government, which provides data of all real estate transactions in France for the year 2019. The DVF database contains 34,994 transactions for apartments in Paris for the year 2019. Based on the selling prices and other information relative to the property for each transaction, we exclude the transactions with missing data and multiple transactions. Moreover, we remove transactions lower than 5000€ per m² and we eliminate transactions with surface lower than 9m², which are not considered as apartments according to the French law. Most of them constitute attic rooms. Our final sample consists of 26,331 transactions for apartments. Finally, DVF provides data for the coordinates (latitude and longitude) of the real estate transactions.

Knowing the coordinates of the real estate properties and coworking spaces, we can locate them in the arrondissements and cadastral sections (subdivisions of arrondissements) and calculate the Euclidean distances. Table 1.1 shows the maximum distance between coworking and apartments. This maximum distance should be compared to the maximum distance that can be covered in 15 minutes on foot (1.2km or 0.75 miles) or bicycle (4.8km or three miles) (Duany & Steuteville, 2021). Thus, the access to each coworking space is possible within walking distance in each arrondissement in Paris following the 15-Minute City principles.

We have seen that a dense network of coworking spaces has emerged in Paris (like in many other metropolises) in approximatively 10 years. This development could be compared with the first six lines of subway constructed in Paris between 1900 and 1910. Two differences could be noted: first, the development of this network has been completely realized by private actors without any public momentum. Second, the actual coworking spaces are the survivors of a long process of Darwinian selection. These specific features explain that this development results more from a business competition than from an urban logic. Consequently, one could expect more spatial inequalities than in a public network conceived through an urban planning.

Table 1.2 shows spatial inequalities in coworking proximity. Rich downtown arrondissements (second and eighth) often have 10 times more coworking per 100,000 habitants than cheap arrondissements of the outskirts (13th, 14th, 19th, and 20th). We find similar results for the number of coworking per companies.

Regarding real estate prices, we have first assessed the property price per m² for each cadastral section (CS). Then, we have calculated in each arrondissement the average price per m² of all cadastral sections with and without coworking spaces.It highlights the impact of the coworking proximity on real estate prices by comparing prices per m² in cadastral sections with or without coworking spaces. This reveals a contrasting situation. Considering all arrondissements, the average ratio price per m² in cadastral sections with/without coworking spaces is 0.99. However, this apparent absence of global impact reveals different effects depending on the arrondissement. There is a premium real estate price for coworking proximity in poor arrondissements on the outskirts. For example, in the cheapest arrondissements (19th and 20th), there is a premium price of 3%–10% for real estate prices in cadastral sections with coworking spaces.

Based on these results, we show that the network of coworking spaces established in the last 10 years has significantly impacted the urban structure of Paris. In the poor arrondissements of the outskirts, the opening of a coworking space revitalizes a neighborhood. It attracts people eager to work within walking distance. Independent and white-collar workers are the more affected.

Table 1.1

This dynamic contributes to a gentrification process. This concept coined by the German sociologist Ruth Glass in the 1960s could be defined as a transformation process of working-class neighborhoods, through the arrival of better-off households (Clerval, 2008). Laska and Spain (1980) describe gentrification as a back to the city movement of middle-class suburbanites wanting better proximity to jobs and the kind of cultural and recreational infrastructure that were hard to find on city peripheries. Such a movement should be considered for Paris, which has been hit by a declining population. Through the network of coworking spaces erected during the last 10 years, Paris has built the foundations for the 15-Minutes City. This network offers the possibility to almost anyone to work within walking distance of their home, on condition that the work could be done remotely.

Table 1.2

5. Conclusion

In the last decade, many metropolises have built a dense network of coworking spaces. In comparison with the construction of the subway network, few observers have noticed it, because of the iterative nature of the openings of private coworking spaces without any public momentum. Nevertheless, this network provides a powerful basis for the 15-Minute city, in terms of work. This issue has previously been theoretically analyzed through the lens of the commuting time. With an average daily commuting time of 70mn (second place among the European Union capitals), Paris is particularly concerned by this issue. This network enables 100% of Parisians to have a coworking-home distance inferior to 1.250m corresponding to the 15-Minute City concept. A more detailed analysis highlights the differences between arrondissements, contrasting rich arrondissements in the city center and cheap arrondissements in the outskirts. In the latter, the coworking proximity attracts independent and white-collar workers, contributing to a gentrification process.

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Chapter 2: The theoretical grid. An antifragile strategy for Rome post-COVID mobility

Mario Cerasoli ¹ , Chiara Amato ¹ , and Chiara Ravagnan ²       ¹ Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy      ² Department of Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Abstract

Mobility represents a central issue for sustainable urban planning and regeneration processes in large cities, concerning the impact on environmental quality, equity, and social inclusion. However, the pandemic has strongly affected mobility trends, influenced by international and national social distancing measures and new safe lifestyles. Thus, many cities have been adopting mobility emergency strategies for urban resilience.

In this context, as a result of a research developed in the framework of a collaboration between Roma Tre University and the Sapienza University of Rome, this essay proposes an antifragile strategy for Rome's post-COVID mobility, adaptable to other European metropolitan contexts, based on an integrated approach to urban planning and mobility.

The research methodology is articulated in three phases: the analysis of the main scientific references related to urban resilience and antifragility concerning the relations between urban form, ways of living and mobility models in pre- and postpandemic scenarios, the study of the main ongoing practices in European cities and the proposal for an antifragile strategy for the city of Rome based on the theoretical grid.

The theoretical grid is an urban grammar that proposes a model of reorganization for the city based on elementary urban units and defines an integrated strategy for the reorganization of mobility, the reconfiguration of local flows, and the regeneration of public space. This grammar is declined in specific ways according to the different urban fabrics, within an articulation in four cities, the historical city, the consolidated city, the modernist city, the peripheral urban fringes.

Keywords

Antifragile strategy; Mobility; Post-COVID; Theoretical grid; Urban regeneration

1. Introduction. Context, methodology, and goals of the research

2. Urban form and mobility models. An integrated approach in the post-COVID era

2.1 Urban forms, ways of living, and mobility models

2.2 Urban mobility and pandemic

2.3 Postpandemic urban scenarios: sustainability, resilience, and antifragility

3. Mobility post-COVID emergency planning in great European cities. Experiences and strategies

3.1 For a polycentric, compact, and complex city. The case of Barcelona

3.2 For an inclusive, vital, and integrated city. The case of Milan

3.3 For a sustainable, intermodal, connected city. The case of Bologna

4. The theoretical grid. Guidelines and experimentation

4.1 A grammar for the reorganization of urban mobility: the theoretical grid

4.2 Guidelines for the theoretical grid

4.3 An experimentation for post-COVID mobility in Rome

5. Conclusions. Perspectives of the proposed strategy

6. Author’s contributions

References

1. Introduction. Context, methodology, and goals of the research

Since March 2020, we have been experiencing a pandemic that has been having a long series of indirect effects, in addition to the direct consequences sadly reported in the news in terms of hospitalizations in intensive care and deaths. In the last months, the most effective remedy, together with the vaccines, seems to have been the social distancing, to reduce contagions and, consequently, the spread of the virus.

In particular, social distancing measures and a growing mistrust of people have strongly influenced urban mobility, especially public transport. This has prompted many cities in Europe and in the rest of the world to adopt mobility strategies to increase urban resilience, even implementing tactical urbanism interventions. Such measures have been taken to face this crisis by the reorganization of urban mobility infrastructures and flows, with a glance at prevention of an unsustainable massive return to private transport in the postacute COVID phase.

The rethinking of urban mobility has thus raised a new awareness of authorities and citizens on a necessary paradigm shift about mobility systems, to overcome the cultural and technical references that have conditioned the forms of our cities, the ways of living them, and especially the ways of moving (Cerasoli et al., 2022).

We are now projected into a post (post) COVID phase that will have to lead us to a new normal. A phase in which it will be necessary to seize the opportunity for an urban and social transformation capable of strengthening and rebalancing that complex system, which is the city.

In this context, the research illustrated in this essay, developed in the framework of a collaboration between Roma Tre University and the Sapienza University of Rome, aims to propose an antifragile strategy for the Rome post (post) COVID phase. This proposal, adaptable to other contexts of large Italian and European cities, is based on an urban grammar, the Theoretical Grid, an integrated approach to urban planning and mobility within the broader urban regeneration concept.

The research methodology Fig. 2.1 has articulated the activities into three phases:

• The first phase includes the analysis of the phenomena and main scientific references. The study, related to urban resilience and antifragility (Taleb, 2012), highlights the importance of promoting new relationships between urban form and mobility models in order to adapt to global and climate changes and to foster sustainable lifestyles.

Figure 2.1  Research methodology. Own elaboration.

• The second phase relates to the study of the main practices on mobility in the European context, both pre and post-COVID. These practices show a convergence on regeneration models, which focus on sustainable mobility, on the construction of new geographies of proximity, and the reappropriation of public space in order to achieve cities for people (Gehl, 2010).

• The third phase develops the guidelines for an antifragile strategy of urban regeneration based on mobility, an operational hypothesis based on the Theoretical Grid (Cerasoli, 2008; Vittorini, 1988) and experimentally applied to the City of Rome. The guidelines, which point out goals and actions to reorganize models of mobility and public spaces, are declined for different types of urban settlement forms, in consistency with the references to resilience and antifragility.

In the closing reflections, this essay outlines the scenarios of the experimentation illustrated, underlining the fundamental interrelations between research, experimentation, and didactic activities, in the framework of an ongoing open lab carried out by the Roman Universities.

2. Urban form and mobility models. An integrated approach in the post-COVID era

2.1. Urban forms, ways of living, and mobility models

There is a close link between forms of the city and ways of living (Cerasoli, 2008) and, at the same time, between forms of the city and models of mobility (Cerasoli & Pandolfi, 2019, pp. 641–648). This dual relationship, which has characteristics of circularity and bidirectionality, was highlighted by the rapid demographic and socio-economic transformations that have taken place since the nineteenth century in the Western world, with the affirmation of the Industrial Revolution.

The spread of new means of transport, first the train and then above all the car, were at the origin of changes in contemporary cities.

Urban transformations that have characterized European and western cities since the mid-nineteenth century, starting with Haussmann's Grand Travaux in Paris, have been prompted by the need to refunctionalize their historic urban fabrics and to connect them with the railway stations. At the same time, realizing new urban expansions, characterized by a regular grid and wide-sized streets, new urban typologies such as avenues and boulevards, destined to accommodate the new social classes, industrial bourgeoisie, and workers.

In the twentieth century, however, the massive diffusion of the car, starting from the end of the Second World War, is closely connected to new settlement models. On the one hand, those linked to the urban forms proposed by the Modern Movement. But, on the other hand, precisely in opposition to the housing models of the modernist city, new, often spontaneous, forms of low-density settlement are beginning to spread, and inexorably surround the large western cities—and beyond. This process of suburbanization and metropolization (Indovina, 2005), inspired by North American culture, spread almost in real time due to the simultaneous diffusion of television (Cerasoli, 2016) leads to a decisive change in the traditional city—in addition to the continuous need, by urban studies, to find new definitions, from urban sprawl to city-region (De Carlo, 1962), from diffuse-city to dispersed-city, up to the com-fused city (Abramo, 2012).

On a global level, all this has accompanied the exponential growth of the world population living in urban areas, which since 2006 (UN-Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2019) has exceeded that living in rural areas, however recording two extreme phenomena: on the one hand, the concentration of entire populations in urban areas with ever-higher densities [1], and, on the other hand, territories that have been emptying (the so-called Aree Interne, inner areas, in Italy, or the España Vacía, empty Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula), marking the disappearance of all those economic activities historically linked with those territories.

Contemporary cities are the result of these processes, where these low-density territories have merged with the nineteenth-twentieth-century urban suburbs and historic centers, generating a multiplicity of contiguous settlement forms, with different levels of density of uses and flows of people and goods. This complex and stratified settlement system is characterized by increasing air pollution and energy consumption, by the rise in urban temperature, by the reduction of public space in favor of spaces for mobility and parking. These pathologies (Campos Venuti, 1987) require a general strategy of urban and metropolitan regeneration, aimed at common sustainability goals and, at the same time, specific solutions for the resilience of different urban contexts based on the forms of settlement and the relationship with the mobility systems (Amato et al., 2019). A strategy that must be quickly activated and declined for specific contexts because the COVID pandemic has precisely undermined those models of living and mobility.

In order to define this strategy, we can recognize four forms of city in contemporary Europe: the Historic Center, the Consolidated City, the Modernist City, and the Diffused or Spread City. Each of them represents the synthesis between settlement models (ways of living) and mobility models (ways of moving).

The Historic Center is characterized by a dense network of narrow streets and traditionally by a functional mixité, a result of the transformations that have taken place over many centuries. In the large cities, this urban part has always been characterized as an urban barycentre in terms of importance and representativeness. Here, the main institutional, economic, and commercial activities, the main cultural, touristic, and recreational initiatives, and most of the city's social exchanges are concentrated. However, in the last decades, old towns have suffered, on the one hand, processes of abandonment or expulsion of the original resident population, and, on the other hand, divestment of spaces, building complexes, and equipment.

In these fragile contexts of the city, originally built on a human scale, the issue of mobility has become progressively complex, reaching critical levels with the exponential increase of cars, more visible than elsewhere; moreover, the effects of the overuse of means of transport powered by fossil fuels brought congestion, in terms of loss of pedestrian walkability, air pollution, and urban decay.

The Consolidated City is that portion of the existing city that was formed starting from the mid-nineteenth century, up to including the urban expansions of the first half of the twentieth century, as implementation of urban plans. It is characterized by regular urban fabrics and medium and wide-sized streets, by new urban typologies such as avenues and boulevards that burst into the design of cities. The relative distances do not expand but the population density increases; therefore, the functional complexity of the city is intensified.

Despite this part of the city taking its origin before the massive diffusion of the private car, nowadays, all different mobility patterns (pedestrians, bicycles, public transport, and private cars) could coexist if roles and spaces are regulated. However, the Consolidated City largely presents forms of degradation due to high population densities, lack of public space, services, and traffic congestion, and where public transport has been relegated into an anachronistic and secondary urban role.

The Modernist City spreads with the post-war urban plans in Italy and many European cities. A dilated city was built, following the theories of the Modern Movement, which criticized the height growth of the old towns and consolidated city to increase the settlement capacity after the Industrial Revolution.

In this part of the city, large mono-functional buildings are in contrast with big green spaces, both held together by a large road network. In the Mediterranean European countries, the modernist extensions of the cities have been made by putting aside public transport, considered anachronistic and not adequate for a modern city [2].

Thus, the increased distances and the mono-functional concentration have progressively enhanced the need for private mobility—to detriment of walkability. Today, the failure of these theories is unequivocally visible through the constant congestion of traffic and the siege of cars.

Finally, the Diffused or Spread City, mainly located in the recent peripheral areas of large (European) cities, is characterized by low-density buildings, inspired by North-American suburb culture (single-family homes or buildings with a small number of units, whit private garden.

In these (mainly residential) contexts, the car has turned from a dream of freedom into a mandatory means of transport (Cerasoli, 2011) because of the morphological conformation and the distance from the work, study, commerce, leisure, and public facilities places. Here, the public space has lost its role of urban structure and is dominated by cars, forgetting walkability, and pedestrians. Streets are occupied by vehicular mobility, with cars moving or parked, lacking sidewalks.

From the Spread (monofunctional) City, every day, a huge number of workers are forced to move toward the workplaces, concentrated in the historic and consolidated city, using private means of transport, congesting the road axes that penetrate consolidated urban fabrics and consequently the entire city (Petruccelli, 2017).

2.2. Urban mobility and pandemic

Now, the post-COVID scenario offers us the opportunity to change these unsustainable paradigms.

Mobility was one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic, highlighting the weaknesses of public transport in large cities, with particular reference to the chronic pathologies in Italian cities. The need to maintain social distancing and a relevant collective mistrust have led to the use of individual means of transport, avoiding the use of trains, metro, and buses for long and urban journeys.

On the one hand, many cities have registered significant increases in the use of bicycles and urban micromobility; on the other hand, local railways, subways, tramways, trolleybuses, and buses have suffered the reduction of capacity of passengers (initially 50% of the normal, recently increased to 80%) as well as the reduction in frequencies (LEGAMBIENTE, 2021).

In the emergency period, strategies and actions have been put in place to face the problems arising from the social distancing and pandemic containment measures (Katrakazas et al., 2020; OECD, 2020a, b; Saatchian et al., 2021; UN-Habitat, 2020), focusing on the neighborhood level.

The reduced possibility of movement had effects on the collective perception of the city and on the citizens' rediscovery of the neighborhood dimension, based on local services and proximity movements. On the other hand, public bodies, local authorities, and institutions have recognized neighborhoods as potential laboratories for innovative approaches covering all fields of urban development (UN, 2021).

From this perspective, the issue of an integrated approach to urban and mobility planning has turned into a central topic within the post-COVID debate [3] (Cerasoli & Ravagnan, 2020; Moreno, 2020b; Venco, 2021).

The lines of action of the new mobility strategy in the post-COVID phase should converge, on the one hand, on the reorganization and strengthening of public transport and sustainable mobility infrastructures. On the other hand, a relevant issue is the reconfiguration of mobility spaces, including low-cost tactical urban design practices characterized by temporary, extendable, and replicable uses of spaces and transport lines.

According to some of the most recent studies, the search for an answer to the demands of the Right to Mobility (Amato, 2021) raises the question of mobility as a transversal issue to the main regeneration strategies (Moreno, 2020a). It should also be emphasized that the perspective of a new model of equitable and ecologically oriented development should not be a long-term option, but must take advantage of the role that crises have in shaking models and visions hinged on our society, encouraging changes that move toward a sustainable and above all antifragile urban model.

2.3. Postpandemic urban scenarios: sustainability, resilience, and antifragility

Metropolitan cities are, thus, at the frontline against global challenges between metropolization, climate change, economic crisis, and pandemic, as confirmed by the new Leipzig Charter (EU, 2020), which points out the transformative power of cities and the mandatory attention to integrated and multiscale approaches to sustainable urban and mobility planning.

Within the urban strategies, a resilient integrated regeneration based on mobility is an answer to guide cities and communities across long-lasting issues (UN, 2021) and temporary emergencies (OECD, 2020a, 2020b; UN-Habitat, 2020).

According to the literature review, the framework of urban resilience should be related to wider sustainability challenges, including climate change and natural hazard threats, unsustainable urban metabolism patterns, and increasing social inequalities in cities (Chelleri, 2012; Chelleri et al., 2015; D'Onofrio & Talia, 2015; Frantzeskaki, 2016; Poli & Ravagnan, 2016).

Urban Resilience is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience.

Rockefeller Foundation. (2013). 100 resilient cities. Report. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/100-resilient-cities/.

Resilience, deepened in the framework of an ecosystemic perspective (Acierno, 2015), is thus related to the concept of anti-fragility (Blečić & Cecchini, 2016; Taleb, 2012) that fosters the capability of adaptation to external perturbations, facing vulnerability and preventing risks, offering multiple and coordinated actions and ways of interventions that enable improvements of systems within rapid stresses and long-lasting changes. This concept thus fosters a proactive character of dynamism and adaptation of transformation choices to environmental, economic, and sociocultural challenges and pays attention to the uncertainty of the scenarios, the vulnerability of urban systems, and the scarcity of resources as well as the need for flexibility and reversibility of the network's organization. At the same time, it affirms the importance of being rooted in the milieu, focusing on place-based and participatory approaches, to enhance the overall and multiscale quality of the physical, cultural, economic, and social networks of the city.

To this end, it is evident that urban resilience can be improved by regeneration strategies based on mobility and urban planning, paying attention to specific goals:

• An integrated approach to urban and mobility planning in order to reduce territorial imbalances and social inequalities through a widespread urban and local accessibility,

• A reconfiguration of the mobility network and hubs, sensitive to the morphological, spatial, and cultural characteristics of urban fabrics and the contemporary challenges for public space,

• An eco-friendly and flexible transport system to mitigate environmental, health, economic, and social risks and promote smart and healthy lifestyles.

3. Mobility post-COVID emergency planning in great European cities. Experiences and strategies

The reflections and strategies proposed in the emergency and subsequent phase also follow these three strands, requiring an assessment of the concepts of a dense city, public space, and sustainable mobility and their role in the construction of an antifragile strategy.

These strategies foster integrated ways for the construction of a polycentric city, with specific reference to the strategies of transit-oriented development, of modulation of building capacity and functional mix concerning the accessibility of the city, and through interventions on the model of the Spanish Superilles or the French Ville du quart d'heure (Moreno, 2020a), focusing on practices of désenclavement of the neighborhoods and revitalization of the local network of public spaces interpreting the infrastructure as an integrated ecological connector for a complex of smart mobility and intermodal actions.

3.1. For a polycentric, compact, and complex city. The case of Barcelona

Within the reflection on the historic and consolidated city, some analyses of the impact of the pandemic have concluded that the highest incidence of the disease relates to highly dense urban areas.

A more careful analysis could probably determine how the quantity of this incidence of the virus is a direct consequence of the density or is simply related to interaction in urban centers because of the concentration of services. In the same way, we should evaluate the relationship with the socio-economic level of the population, which often concentrates the most disadvantaged groups in the most deprived neighborhoods of large cities.

Pending the final approval of the Pla Director Urbanístic (PDU) of Barcelona, in July 2020, the Urban Policy Development Area of the AMB (Barcelona Metropolitan Area) conducted an extensive reflection, published in: "The PDU, Covid 19 and the healthy city" (2020a). The goal of the document is to legitimize, in the face of the emergency, the choices of the plan, stating that "the metropolitan urban model that inspires the PDU is a polycentric model whose initial premise is to respond to needs based on the capabilities of the territory," and focusing precisely on the dense city as best choice for urban transformation, in the framework of the Metropolitan Territorial Plan of Barcelona PTMB 2010, which aimed at a transit-oriented development through the definition of nodal development axes (Acierno, 2012).

This practice seems an interesting example since the city of Barcelona represents a model concerning the right density: the Plan of Cerdà, as well as the newest expansions, has maintained morphological and formal criteria that have shaped a city of quality and flexibility. Regeneration is based on mobility and public space, starting from the implemented Superilles to the prevision of the Avingudas metropolitanas of the PDU (Fig. 2.2).

The conclusions reached by the document absolve the model of the dense city, confirming these necessary criteria for urban quality, even in the era of the pandemic. Density must be considered a goal of planning in post-COVID, first in the ability to respond to crises, since the cohesive and complex city of proximity, with accessible local facilities, has been able to give a rapid and effective response to the health demand. Furthermore, from the point of view of sustainability, the dense city avoids land consumption, high individual mobility based on motorized means of transport, greater consumption of water and energy, as well as the fragmentation of the natural and agricultural environments. On the contrary, these are the pathologies of the widespread city model, which also fosters a greater need for infrastructures, damaging the territory.

Figure 2.2  Barcelona. Regeneration and mobility strategies. Source: Own re-elaboration from https://www.amb.cat/s/home.html.

3.2. For an inclusive, vital, and integrated city. The case of Milan

In the context of pandemic, public spaces have been the subject of debate and experimentation, as they are considered the spaces where some of the activities that before took place in closed spaces can be transferred.

The rediscovery of the neighborhood public space has led to a renewed desire on the part of the communities to be involved in the development of the urban context in which they live. In this sense, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, referring in particular to the experiences of Milan, Madrid, Edinburgh, and Seattle during the pandemic, published a report about the 15-minute city. The report emphasizes the importance of involving the urban community, experimenting with new participatory mechanisms to intervene adequately on infrastructures for soft mobility, with the aim of reorganizing mobility and spreading services throughout the territory (2020b).

Milan, which had recently endowed itself with a territorial governance plan (PGT), focused on sustainable urban regeneration and mobility issues, and an urban plan for sustainable mobility (PUMS), also stood out for its programmatic approach to the emergency, through the document "Milano 2020. Strategia di adattamento" (2020c).

This document has been open to the city's contributions that provided a vision supported by strategies and actions. In particular, concerning the topic of Public Space, the Municipality intended to regain the space for physical activity through a series of actions: adaptation of pavements to social distancing measures and identification of protected paths for the vulnerable groups of citizens, a temporary and widespread pedestrianization (Play Streets for children) in the neighborhoods with lacks of green spaces, the reconfiguration of traffic flows in parks, the adaptation and extension of open spaces for commercial activities, including on parking areas. This topic also involves the use of public open spaces for cultural and sports events, providing facilities, and simplification of procedures to allow organizers to comply with the criteria and quotas for the use of open spaces and manage it without excessive costs. The document highlights for each theme some priority actions of immediate feasibility, i.e., for the topic public space, the reactivation of parks, centers, and sports facilities, open squares in every neighborhood, and open spaces for commercial activities and catering.

Furthermore, concerning the mobility topic, the Municipality envisages a series of actions to decrease trips, acting on the mobility demand by favoring remote work and intervening on the city's timetables, improving, and diversifying the mobility offer, in particular public transport and sharing mobility. It also introduces restrictions for the presence of public transport and fosters walking by implementing 30km/hour zones, establishing residential streets, and developing tactical urban planning projects. In addition, the introduction of innovative methods of access to the different mobility services is planned, by integrating LPT and other systems (Mobility as a Service model) which flexibly facilitates individual travel planning. Concerning this topic, the priorities are those related to public transport quotas, mobility measures (updating rules on traffic and parking policies), the promotion of the Strade Aperte (open streets), and the systemic cycling program