5.1. Creating ‘proximity city’ starting from Neighbourhoods and people

5.1. Creating ‘proximity city’ starting from Neighbourhoods and people

The initials findings and synthesis show that the cities are transitioning from car centric cities to match the ideals of ‘compact’ and ‘Networked city’ long established in theoretical discourse. ‘Compact city’ and ‘Networked urban system’ is also adopted across various cities in the western world, especially in European context. (Hall & Pain, 2012) The cities have adopted different visions to achieve these theoretical ideals depending on various local issues and future goals. For example, Portland envisions an equitable city and address the issue of inequality and racial segregation that exist and is increasing at an alarming rate. Melbourne is focussing on creating a ‘healthy’ city arising primarily due to lifestyle preferences of its population and car-oriented behaviour of people. On the other hand, Paris intends to increase social cohesion and reduce isolation in the city. Overall, these the underlying agenda of these cities is to make a more ‘liveable’ city. To achieve these ‘local’ visions, these global cities have emphasised on walking and biking as the priority mode of access in cities. While Moreno doesn’t differentiate between these slow modes, the cities have defined walking as a primary mode of transport. It is justified since ‘walking’ is most equitable mode of transport. Overall, slow modes of transport have many co-benefits such as social cohesion, health of citizens, reducing environmental pollution, cost reduction on infrastructure provision, etc. (Claris et al., 2016) In this bigger scheme of cities, FMC is a policy related to creating compact (dense), integrated (connected to public transit) and walkable neighbourhoods. Cities are treating ‘proximity (by walk)’ under the bigger umbrella of ‘Sustainable access’. Thus, from these observations, we can now reinterpret the statement of FMC, from,

to, ‘Providing people everything within 15 minutes by walk or bike,

‘Providing access to (basic) amenities and services within 15/20-minute walk (neighbourhoods) to all citizens’

This reinterpretation aligns with the ‘Arguments in favour’ described in chapter 2. The Rhetoric’s claim of ‘by providing amenities and services close to people, we can reduce commute’ is well embraced and supported in the planning fraternity. For example, Ewing & Cervero (2010) in their study of time and built environments concluded that provision of high-quality amenities in neighbourhoods helps promote walkability and reduces commute thereby increasing liveability of people and reducing pollution. Moreover, Barbé (2014), giving the example of Grand Paris region states that only 30% of car trips are job related and there has been an increase in non-job trips overall. Anyways, it is obvious from looking at the case studies and the restricted role of ‘FMC Rhetoric’ which is limited only to neighbourhoods, that this issue is more inclined towards

an issue of governance (of how to provide basic amenities) rather than challenging the spatial planning concepts as previously assumed in this thesis. From a spatial perspective, it relates to question of how to transform existing cities into compact city, which, through inward densification and diversification, promotes proximity of (quality) services and walkability at neighbourhood scale, at the same time, from a socioeconomic perspective, it relates to question of how to reduce ‘time poverty and commute’ for citizens by providing ‘amenities’ they need in the neighbourhood. This requires governing at local scale and building compact and proximate cities from neighbourhoods based on accessibility of its users. In other words, it requires, governance of, 1. the service provision that densification and diversification of compact city entails in a free market, and, 2. matching it to the service provision that the local community need. These two statements can be divided into two types of strategies of accessibility at local scale.

1. Strategy of Enabling service localization in Neighbourhoods (in free market economy) 2. Strategy of Defining and providing services to people

It should be noted that the proposition of these two types of strategies is suggestive and interrelated. It is made to ease the understanding of the complex phenomenon of Accessibility. Access is a contextual phenomenon and is based on social and economic function that occur in the space of cities [For example, location of residents (social dimension) with respect to location of jobs (economic dimension) in the city (spatial dimension)]. Thus, in order to simplify the governance of making compact neighbourhoods based on access, the first type of governance relates to making of space that enables proximity to amenities (i.e. making ‘compact neighbourhood/ city’) and other relates to the socio-economic function (i.e. people and what they need). They both share similar approach to city making i.e., building neighbourhoods with people through a place-based approach. However, few distinctions can be made regarding the two.

The first Strategy, as mentioned before, prioritises spatial dimension over socio-economic dimension, and focuses on creating compact cities from bottom up. It primarily relates to the structural actions on spatial characteristics of the neighbourhood and intends align it to the ideal of compact (dense, diverse and walkable) and integrated modules (connected to the city network by public transit and streets). These features shall automatically enable localization of services in the neighbourhoods within a free-market economy setup. Example: Building density near transit nodes, creating pedestrian environment and promoting mixed land-use, promoting construction of mixed-use buildings with active ground floor retail spaces.