Urban Planning

Focus on Key Corridors and High-Impact Mobility for Better Cities

Cities are complex: roads, transit, housing, parks, utilities, businesses, and countless daily journeys. But if you observe how people actually move and live, you’ll notice that a small number of places, routes, and decisions shape most of the urban experience. That’s the 80/20 Rule inside urban planning.

Applying Pareto thinking to urban planning means focusing resources and attention on the critical few: key corridors, essential services, high-impact neighborhoods, and policy levers that most influence livability, equity, and sustainability – rather than trying to make everywhere perfect at once.

The 20% of City Space That Shapes 80% of Daily Life

Most people’s daily routines center around home, work or school, a few commercial areas, and main transport routes. If those work well, a city feels functional and pleasant. If they don’t, frustration spreads.

• High-impact urban elements:
  • Main transit corridors and road arteries.
  • Key job centers and commercial districts.
  • Dense residential areas.
  • Essential public services (hospitals, schools, administrative centers).
• Real-life example: A city that invested heavily in improving one major bus rapid transit corridor – with frequent service and priority lanes – saw dramatic benefits in commute times and satisfaction for tens of thousands of residents, more than small tweaks on many minor routes would have achieved.

8020 move: Identify the top corridors and hubs where most trips and activities concentrate, and prioritize infrastructure and service improvements there first.

Focusing on High-Impact Mobility Improvements

Mobility is central to urban life: how easily people can get where they need to go. Yet a few choke points – congested intersections, missing links, unsafe crossings – can cause most delays and safety issues.

• Use data (GPS traces, traffic counts, transit ridership) to find where delays and accidents cluster.
• Prioritize fixes like signal timing, dedicated bus/bike lanes, safer intersections, or added connections.
• Real-life example: A mid-sized city reduced travel times and crash rates significantly by reconfiguring a handful of dangerous intersections and adding bus priority on a small number of key routes, rather than trying to widen many roads.

8020 move: Concentrate transport investments on the worst bottlenecks and most-used routes before making marginal upgrades elsewhere.

Housing and Zoning: Small Changes, Big Effects

Where and how housing is allowed has enormous impact on affordability, commute patterns, and neighborhood vitality. A few zoning decisions often determine whether a city grows outward in sprawl or inward with more accessible, walkable neighborhoods.

• High-leverage zoning moves can include:
  • Allowing more “missing middle” housing (duplexes, small apartments) near transit and amenities.
  • Reducing parking minimums where good alternatives exist.
  • Encouraging mixed-use areas instead of strict separation of housing and commerce.
• Real-life example: By allowing accessory dwelling units and small multifamily buildings in more neighborhoods, some cities have gently increased housing supply in existing areas, easing pressure without massive new developments.

8020 move: Target zoning reforms in locations where additional housing would most reduce long commutes and leverage existing infrastructure.

Public Space: A Few Good Places People Love

People judge cities partly by their public spaces: parks, squares, waterfronts, and streetscapes. A small number of high-quality, well-located public places can transform how residents and visitors feel about a city.

• Focus on making a handful of spaces:
  • Safe (good lighting, visibility, activity).
  • Comfortable (seating, shade, access to food/restrooms).
  • Accessible (easy to reach by walking, transit, or biking).
• Real-life example: The revitalization of a single central plaza or waterfront, with car-free zones and amenities, has transformed the reputation and daily life of many cities – becoming a “living room” that serves both residents and visitors.

8020 move: Invest in creating or upgrading a few flagship public spaces rather than spreading resources thinly across many small, underused parks.

Equity and Inclusion: Targeted Interventions Where Need Is Highest

Not all neighborhoods experience the city equally. Some face concentrated disadvantages: poor transit, limited services, environmental burdens. 80/20 thinking applied to equity means directing extra attention and investment where gaps are largest.

• Use data on income, health, pollution, and access to services to identify high-need areas.
• Prioritize these for improvements in transit, parks, safety, and essential facilities.
• Engage residents in co-designing interventions that meet their needs.
• Real-life example: A city targeted safe-street redesigns and park upgrades in neighborhoods with high crash rates and low access to green space, yielding outsized benefits for public health and safety compared to uniform investments everywhere.

8020 move: Make a conscious choice to allocate a portion of planning and capital budgets to the neighborhoods where marginal improvements will most reduce inequality and hardship.

Data and Pilots: Learning Before Large-Scale Changes

Urban planning decisions are hard to reverse once concrete is poured. Small-scale pilots and data collection offer 80/20 leverage: you can learn a lot before committing fully.

• Use temporary measures: pop-up bike lanes, weekend street closures, pilot bus routes, tactical urbanism projects.
• Measure usage, satisfaction, and unintended effects, then refine designs.
• Real-life example: A city tested a protected bike lane using removable barriers on one corridor. After counting a large increase in riders and improved safety, they made it permanent – and used lessons to plan a wider network.

8020 move: Whenever possible, prototype urban changes at low cost and small scale first, learn, then scale up what works.

Urban Planning as Continuous, Focused Improvement

Cities are never “finished.” But with the 80/20 Rule, urban planning becomes less overwhelming: you focus on core corridors and hubs, critical housing and zoning choices, a few great public spaces, targeted equity interventions, and learning through pilots.

By repeatedly investing in the parts of the city that most shape people’s daily lives – and by listening closely to residents about where those leverage points are – planners and communities can create environments that feel more livable, just, and resilient, without needing to fix everything everywhere all at once.