Towards Neighbourhoods as Minimum Units of Resilience?

COVID-19 restrictions have changed the perception of space: travel limi-tations and diffusion of remote activities have narrowed the spaces of everyday life, leading to a rediscovery of proximity. We are both witnessing a re-appropriation of the domestic environment and re-discovering the neighbourhood and those small portions of the city often neglected. This rediscovery is evident in the use of nearby public spaces and in transport, with the decongestion of many urban areas following the reduction of commuting. Even if this is a contingent situation, it is reasonable to think that part of these changes will persist at the end of the emergency. For these reasons, there is a need to focus on neighbourhoods’ quality, spatial organization and adaptive capacity towards both emergencies such as the pandemic and the great urban challenges towards resilience and sustainability. Essentially, sub-local scale must be rethought to meet not only the ordinary needs of its inhabitants but also health or other issues. In this sense, the potential of spatial units based in the concepts of proximity and walkability is explored, giving an interpretation that starting from the 15-min city and the superilla models explore the perspective of “minimum units of resilience” for facing pandemics.