Chapter 3. Exploring the Empirical Application of FMC

The chapter concerns with case study descriptions of Portland, Melbourne and Paris. The learnings from this chapter shall be analysed and interpolated to create findings in next chapter according to the research objectives. The qualitative exercise is structured into three parts,

1.General introduction of the city:

This section sets the contextual background of the city highlighting its general features as well as socio-economic and spatial dynamics to better understand the ‘state of being’ to situate the rational for specific modelling of FMC concept by the city.

2.Ideation, FMC definition and features:

The section starts by briefly describing the documents analysed and their overall strategic frameworks. It elaborates on the adopted definition of the

FMC concept and its spatial metric. The section shall be useful to answer the normative oriented sub-question RQ1 and RQ2, ie ‘How do cities define the

FMC concept and how do they treat different urban activities (or as defined by the proponents of FMC, urban social functions)?’ and ‘How does the spatial metric of proximity in 15–20-minute city module differ from the neighbourhood concept If yes, what are its prescriptive components and how is it different?’

3.Strategies for Spatial proximity:

A thorough analysis of various actions-policies and project plans was undertaken to answer the RQ 3; How do cities treat the socio-economic differential across the city to achieve proximity for all?

The intention of the analysis was to identify and highlight key determinants of the FMC concept from a spatial planning perspective. The content analysis method relied not only interpretating the explicit visions, actions and policies but also implicit references to implementation measures (Charbgoo & Mareggi, 2018). Apart from the normative documents like comprehensive plans, the planning procedures imbibed in annual or staged reports helped in creating a deeper understanding of the subject and case in hand.