Abstract
The 15-minute city presents a novel approach to sustainable urban environments; however, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. This paper proposes a methodological framework that classifies 15-minute cities by overall performance and relative performance across facility categories. The study of 339 Chinese cities identifies four distinct city types: high-performance livability-oriented, high-performance consumption-oriented, medium-performance essential service-oriented, and under-served. More affluent cities with more dispersed population and facilities generally perform better. City performance is associated with facility provision profile, with high-performing cities investing more in quality-of-life amenities, while others focus on meeting residents’ basic service needs. These findings support tailored development strategies, suggesting that cities should first ensure access to essential services, before progressively developing livability and consumption-oriented amenities that satisfy more diversified needs. By linking city typologies to facility provision profiles, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of differentiated urban development strategies and provides actionable insights for planning 15-minute cities.
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Data availability
The original POI data for Chinese cities collected from Amap [https://www.amap.com/] and the national road network data obtained from OpenStreetMap are not publicly available due to licensing and privacy restrictions, but may be obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Population data were obtained from the open dataset by Chen et al. [https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24916140.v1]. The City Construction Statistical Yearbook 2021 was sourced from China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development [https://www.mohurd.gov.cn/gongkai/fdzdgknr/sjfb/tjxx/jstjnj/index.html], and the China City Statistical Yearbook was obtained from China Statistics Press [https://www.zgtjcbs.com/].
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52478061, 42330510, 52478060, 42501230) for supporting this research.
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Z.R. and S.Z. are acknowledged as co-first authors of this work, signifying their equal and primary contributions in accordance with the editorial board’s criteria. S.Z., Z.R., and Y.K. conceptualized and designed the study. Z.R., S.Z., and X.F. implemented the method and empirical case study. S.Z., Z.R., and X.Q. provided data acquisition. Z.R. and S.Z. wrote the main manuscript text. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript. S.Z., Y.K., X.Q., and F.Z. contributed to funding acquisition. F.Z. provided supervision.
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Ren, Z., Zhang, S., Kong, Y. et al. The classification and determinants of the 15-minute city across 339 Chinese cities. npj Urban Sustain (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-026-00384-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-026-00384-3
