About the Speaker:

Kwan Ok Lee is a Professor and Deputy Head in the Department of Real Estate at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School. As an award-winning educator and prolific researcher, she specializes in housing and urban neighborhoods. Professor Lee serves as Editor, Co-Editor, or Associate Editor for four prominent journals in housing and urban planning, including Housing Studies, and has an extensive history of collaboration with international organizations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Urban Land Institute.

Abstract:

The concept of the 15-minute city, which emphasizes neighborhood self-sufficiency, has gained widespread attention among urban planners, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has encouraged shorter-distance travel and increased remote work. This talk revisits the ongoing discourse on the N-minute city by addressing two key questions: (1) Should N-minute city indices adopt a dynamic choice framework that accommodates spatiotemporal variations in travel costs and locally essential amenities—accounting for neighborhood residents’ preferences when selecting destinations for specific amenities—rather than relying solely on physical distance to predefined POIs? (2) Could planning parameters, such as the balance between commercial and residential land use, provide a more meaningful indicator of neighborhood self-sufficiency than simply POI density? Drawing on big data from cell phone-based mobility patterns in New York City and subway ridership in Singapore, this talk offers insights into more effective ways to measure and apply N-minute city principles in diverse metropolitan settings.