2.1.2. FMC and Planning for resilience

related planning policy frameworks in the global cities. (Ferri et al., 2020; Florida et al., 2020; Sassen et al., 2021)

Richard Florida (Florida, 2020) while observing the change in the North American context states that the newly embraced work from home dynamic shall extend beyond the pandemic as reflected in the decision making of big companies like Amazon and Facebook which have adopted permanent work from home policies allowing the work to disconnect from its space (understood here as CBDs). Thus, it shall create a competition among cities to attract these knowledge workers and thus revenues. (Florida,2021 as interviewed in Johnston, 2021)

He also suggests that cities should be prepared for adopting to this change, citing his contribution to ‘creative classes theories’ that these knowledge workers when working from their homes, need bigger houses (and thus need to rethink architecture) and shall spend more time in the locality. Their needs for high quality amenities should be channelised to mobilise local retail which in turn shall help create local jobs. A view confirmed by the consumer city theory put forward by (E. L. Glaeser et al., 2001) Florida also states that this changing geography of work is an opportunity for cities administrations should utilise for making the city centres, that are often observed to house corporate headquarters of knowledge economy-based companies and the ‘elites’ (sic) of the city and serve the global consumers like tourists, more affordable for people and thus their increase access to high quality amenities and services. (Florida et al., 2021) Urbanist Jan Gehl (2020) has put forward similar thoughts on making (European) city centres much about production and not just consumption which aligns with the founding pillar of ‘Diversity’ put forward in FMC. In Europe, similar thoughts are captured by researchers working on European Cost Action CA18214 research program working on research entitled ‘New working spaces’ (Pacchi et al., personal communication,19 March 2021) Italian social innovation experts Enzo Mazzini extends a similar line of thought of taking advantage of this changing work patterns, and emphasis the cities socio-economic policies should emphasis at the local scale of neighbourhoods. He recalls the role of (physical) proximity for which create formal and informal networks among firms which flourishes the innovation and circulation of ideas. He insists that after establishing large networks (interpreted here as global networks among cities, institutions, and firms), in the post globalization era, cities need to focus on extending those networks to hyper-local scale. He has synthesised this phenomenon as ‘cosmopolitan localization’. (Ferri et al., 2020; Manzini, 2020)

2.1.2. FMC and Planning for resilience

The Pandemic enforced a new urban life which revolved around the scale of neighbourhoods across the cities. (Batty, 2020; Sharifi & Khavarian-Garmsir, 2020) A ‘shared fundamental approach’ of the cities has been to control the pandemic by limiting the population movement in public places. The extent of this limitation in