Chrono urbanism as a planning guideline – 06/29/2023 – Claudio Bernardes

What if we started to measure distances in cities in minutes, and no longer in meters or kilometers?

“Time”, in general, has been neglected in reflections on planning and development of cities, in favor of reflections on infrastructure and social policies. Many studies on urban planning focus on space, but few on time, or on spatio-temporal relations.

It is necessary to rethink the relationship between the city and its users in terms of time and space, that is, to structure thinking models that reflect urbanism based on distances measured in time scales. Likewise, it is worth thinking about a “temporal urbanism”, which would focus on the partial ways of occupying space and time in the city. The temporal view of space can imply the prediction of multiple uses for the same place, according to the time of day, allowing greater flexibility and adaptability to urban needs.

As the planning focused on temporality and mobility advances in the structuring of the city, a decentralized model of organization becomes necessary, to take “time” into account in urban planning. The concepts involving chrono urbanism allowed the development of the idea of ​​the 15-minute city, which became popular among urban thinkers.

Therefore, changes are needed in the distribution of land uses, in order to achieve an integrated and compact urban fabric, where the allocation of activities allows mixing businesses with affordable housing, restaurants with shopping and service centers, schools with office buildings, and all connected with the local public, and with transport services. This mechanism must be accompanied by the flexibility of the use of spaces, through the possibility of transforming monofunctional urban areas into multifunctional ones.

Another important aspect is to strengthen the economy within the local neighborhood unit. This involves promoting commercial corridors or shopping centers where convenience stores and services can be operated, serving multiple users locally. In addition, it is important to establish incentives so that residents prefer to shop and use services as a priority in their neighborhood.

Improving public space is another important action. Investing in infrastructure improvements for the safety and comfort of pedestrians and cyclists also enables modal integration with mass public transport, facilitating connections with places of work, study, commerce and services. These actions include improving existing public spaces and creating new ones that can contribute to improving mobility and community social life.

The relationship between chrono urbanism and mobility can and should be explored more objectively. Optimizing the use of public transport has been considered by assessing the distance that people must travel to access mass transport axes. However, this distance can be measured not in meters, but in minutes, exploring more efficiently the space-time relationship existing between public transport users, the position of transport axes and the location of residences or workplaces. . For the purpose of efficient urban mobility, the time it would take users to access mass transit stations, walking or cycling, seems more relevant than the actual distance to be covered.

Starting to think about temporal and non-metric distances in city planning may initially seem strange, but further studies in this regard will show the success of the paradigm shift. Accessibility will therefore, in many situations, become more important than location itself.

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