Perceived 15-minute accessibility and active living: the role of neighbourhood types in physical activity in the Vienna metropolitan area, Austria

Proximity-based planning and the “15-minute city” aim to support everyday wellbeing by bringing services, mobility options and recreational opportunities closer to where people live. However, evidence remains limited on how perceived neighbourhood accessibility relates to domain-specific physical activity. We examined perceived 15-minute walking access to everyday destinations and its relationship with physical activity among residents of the Vienna metropolitan area, Austria. An online panel survey incorporating participatory GIS elements (n = 451) combined perceived access to 14 destination categories with self-reported physical activity assessed using the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire. Access to services, public transport, and green spaces was associated with higher activity indicators. Leisure-time activity showed clearer differences according to access to recreational and nature-related amenities; median leisure-time activity was 1,440 metabolic equivalent minutes per week among respondents reporting access to sport facilities and 720 among those without such access. An exploratory k-means typology identified three neighbourhood accessibility profiles along a low-to-high gradient. The results show that physical activity patterns differ across neighbourhood accessibility profiles, particularly for leisure-time activity. In the adjusted model, leisure-time activity was 171% higher in the high-amenity than the low-access profile (p = 0.002). These findings suggest that perceived accessibility was associated with how physical activity was accumulated across daily-life domains rather than with total activity. Moving beyond composite walkability indices, the study provides a more nuanced understanding of how perceived proximity relates to activity composition. The profiles also indicate uneven perceived opportunity structures, supporting socially inclusive and equity-oriented proximity planning.