The practice of settling and enacting strategic guidelines for climate adaptation in spatial planning: lessons from ten Swedish municipalities

Storbjörk, Sofie; Uggla, Ylva

doi:10.1007/s10113-014-0690-0

Cited by 55 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(88 reference statements)

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“…Property developers, the targeted private actors in our study, are faced with the possibility of restricted future access to land with development potential due to climate change (Hertin et al, 2003;Loucks et al, 2008;Taylor et al, 2012;Mazmanian et al, 2013) as well as increased public regulation to climate-proof urban development by measures supporting energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, improved storm-water management, limiting allowed percentage of paved ground and regulating lowest allowable floor elevation (Lund et al, 2012;Storbjörk & Uggla, 2015). The property development industry is often portrayed as consisting of actors with considerable financial, political or technical resources (Taylor et al, 2012) that are assumed to foster innovative design practices in both mitigation and adaptation (Hertin et al, 2003;White, 2015;Shearer et al, 2016).…”

Section: Conceptual Framing and Analytical Distinctionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, existing research illustrate that expectations are not met in practice. Studies of European flood management (Meijerink & Dicke, 2008;Loucks et al, 2008) and Swedish urban planning (Storbjörk & Hjerpe 2014;Storbjörk & Uggla, 2015;Hrelja et al, 2015) demonstrate that planners see problems with reluctant property developers and politicians who comply with demands from the property development industry in a way that reduce the impact of climate considerations. However, few studies specifically target the voices of property developers.…”

Section: Conceptual Framing and Analytical Distinctionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘We cannot be at the forefront, changing society’: exploring how Swedish property developers respond to climate change in urban planning

Storbjörk

Hjerpe

Isaksson

2017

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

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It is increasingly expected that private actors play the role as entrepreneurs and frontrunners in implementing climate measures, whereas empirical studies of the position, role and engagement of private actors are scarce. Situated in the context of urban planning, a critical arena for triggering climate transitions, the aim of this paper is to explore how Swedish property developers respond to climate change. Qualitative analyses of corporate policy documents and semi-structured interviews with property developers reveal a vast divergence between the written policies, where leadership ambitions are high, and how the practice of property development is discussed in interviews. In the latter there is little evidence of property developers pursuing a forward-looking or cutting-edge climate change agenda. Instead they are critical of increased public regulation for climate-oriented measures. Explanations both confirm previous studies, highlighting lack of perceived customer demand, uncertainty of financial returns and limited innovations, and add new elements of place-dependency suggesting that innovative and front-runner practices can only be realized in the larger urban areas. Municipalities seeking to improve their climate-oriented profile in urban planning by involving private property developers need to develop strategies to maneuver the variance in responses to increase the effectiveness of implementation.

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Section: Conceptual Framing and Analytical Distinctionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conceptual Framing and Analytical Distinctionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘We cannot be at the forefront, changing society’: exploring how Swedish property developers respond to climate change in urban planning

Storbjörk

Hjerpe

Isaksson

2017

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

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“…Cities are also highly vulnerable to the consequences of a changing climate, signaling the urgency of urban responses to climate change and intensified research endeavors targeting urban practices [9][10][11]. Urban planning becomes a key arena for managing both the causes and effects of climate change in cities [12][13][14]. Additionally, in this context, improving interaction between public and private actors is deemed critical [15,16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Take It or Leave It”: From Collaborative to Regulative Developer Dialogues in Six Swedish Municipalities Aiming to Climate-Proof Urban Planning

2019

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Enhancing legitimacy and effectiveness of climate policy requires improved interactions between and within administrative levels, the latter including horizontal public–private coordination. In the heavily decentralized Swedish urban planning process, developer dialogues are used to enhance collaboration and thereby increase the climate-proofing of new housing districts. In practice, municipalities struggle with identifying what types of collaborative arrangements best support the realization of climate goals, in light of strong property developer interests and bargaining. Based on qualitative interviews with coordinating planners, this paper illustrates lessons from repeated collaborative practices in six Swedish municipalities. We analytically characterize a shift between first- and second-generation developer dialogues. In first-generation dialogues, coordinators attempted to ensure jointly agreed upon principles, priorities and commitments, which instead resulted in troublesome negotiations. In second-generation dialogues, coordinators used mixed approaches to ensure more competitive and climate-proof urban development by mechanisms of indirect command and control. Principles of collaborative interaction were abandoned to regain control over urban planning. This documented shift contrasts heavily with theoretical assumptions from the climate governance literature, where enhanced collaboration assumedly increase effectiveness of climate policy implementation. Acknowledging the practical implications of using developer dialogues to climate-proof urban planning in different settings is critical for improved policy implementation.

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“…The use of MCP as strategic spatial planning will, potentially, increase in the light of new policies linked to climate change and the ongoing unsustainable use of natural resources (Elbakidze et al, 2015;European Commission, 2013;Storbjörk & Uggla, 2015), and will facilitate the integration of local, regional and national sustainability issues. The original purpose of MCP was to decentralize planning and increase its relevancy to local conditions and residents, to produce greater legitimacy of planning and decisions (Larsson, 2011;Prop., /1986Prop., :3, 1985Prop., /1986.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between protocol and reality – Swedish municipal comprehensive planning

Bjärstig

Thellbro

Stjernström

et al. 2017

European Planning Studies

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Between protocol and reality: Swedish municipal comprehensive planning. Spatial planning using a landscape approach has been recognized as being essential for reconciling ecological, cultural and socioeconomic dimensions in sustainable development (SuD). Although embraced as a concept, there is a lack of planning tools capable of incorporating multi-level, multifunctional and multi-sectoral perspectives, especially in a rural context. The departure point in this paper is the legal requirements for municipal comprehensive planning (MCP) in Sweden and an e-mail survey about incentives, stakeholder involvement, policy integration and implementation in MCP in all 15 Swedish mountain municipalities. The purpose of this explorative study is to examine whether MCP could be a tool in planning for SuD. Results indicate a general lack of resources and a low status of MCP that affect, and even limit, stakeholder involvement, policy integration and implementation. However, legal requirements for MCP are targeted at SuD, and municipal personnel responsible for planning appreciate the potential of MCP. Therefore, there is potential to develop the MCP into an effective landscape planning tool. To accomplish this, the status of an active planning process has to be raised, the mandate of the local planning agency has to be secured, and residents and land users have to be involved throughout the planning process. European Planning StudiesARTICLE HISTORY

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The practice of settling and enacting strategic guidelines for climate adaptation in spatial planning: lessons from ten Swedish municipalities

Cited by 55 publications

References 56 publications

‘We cannot be at the forefront, changing society’: exploring how Swedish property developers respond to climate change in urban planning

‘We cannot be at the forefront, changing society’: exploring how Swedish property developers respond to climate change in urban planning

“Take It or Leave It”: From Collaborative to Regulative Developer Dialogues in Six Swedish Municipalities Aiming to Climate-Proof Urban Planning

Between protocol and reality – Swedish municipal comprehensive planning

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