Application of the 15-Minute City Criteria to a Metropolitan Area: A Case Study of the Metropolitan City of Cagliari, Italy

The climate crisis and the post-pandemic scenario underline the interaction of urban structure and land use organization. The study focuses on the “15-minute city” concept as a significant model for urban adaptation to improve equity, sustainability, and economic vitality. The objectives are to evaluate levels of compliance to 15-minute city criteria of the metropolitan city of Cagliari, in Italy, and to understand relations among access to amenities and mesoscale factors of urban form. The findings underline disparities across the metropolitan area, the emergence of a multi-level structure of metropolitan and local centers, and the significant relation among urban form factors and access to amenities. In particular, R2 values for linear regressions of access to amenities on population density, road intersection density, and local integration range respectively from 0.742 to 0.975, 0.634 to 0.952, and 0.545 to 0.952. The study identifies density, permeability, and centrality as central targets of urban regeneration policies.