Delivering the 20-Minute Neighbourhood Plan

Victoria's "20-minute neighbourhoods" policy (https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/strategies-and-initiatives/20-minute-neighbourhoods) aims to ensure residents can access most daily needs within a 20-minute trip from home. But when we improve one element — say, adding a bus route or opening a community centre — how can we identify and understand the cascading effects throughout the neighbourhood, which represents a highly complex system?
Current 20-minute planning often focuses on direct impacts: build a bike path, increase cycling access. Add a train station, improve transport connectivity. Open a health clinic, reduce travel time to healthcare. But neighbourhoods are complex systems where these changes trigger ripple effects we don't fully understand or predict. These second and third-order effects often determine whether 20-minute neighbourhood interventions actually improve residents' lives or create unintended consequences. It also becomes increasingly easy to leave behind vulnerable populations and communities that can easily be overlooked without a systems-level approach.
We need better ways to map these ripple effects and predict how systems-level changes will cascade through communities.

Your goals is to develop insights and find ways we can use these to co-create solutions that make Victorian neighbourhoods more accessible, vibrant, and connected for all residents.