Innovation in Public Planning: Calculate, Communicate and Innovate [1st ed.] 9783030461355, 9783030461362

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Innovation in Public Planning Calculate, Communicate and Innovate Edited by Aksel Hagen · Ulla Higdem

Innovation in Public Planning

Aksel Hagen  •  Ulla Higdem Editors

Innovation in Public Planning Calculate, Communicate and Innovate

Editors Aksel Hagen Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences Lillehammer, Norway

Ulla Higdem Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences Lillehammer, Norway

ISBN 978-3-030-46135-5    ISBN 978-3-030-46136-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Maram_shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

As planning researchers, we have long recorded that planners and politicians have used the concept of innovation for many years to inspire and improve their practices. Over the last 15 years, the body of literature on innovation in, for and about the public sector, including public planning, has expanded substantially. Innovation has become an imperative for the public sector including planning. In planning theory, discussion of the innovation concept is less common than might be expected given the public sector’s overall level of theoretical interest in the topic. If planning theory still aims both to describe and to prescribe planning, then it is our view that innovation also must be given more theoretical attention. This book aims at contributing to the discourse on innovation in planning theory. Our efforts have led to the introduction of a theoretical framework for how to understand innovation in planning today by building on other scholars and the several contributions of this book. A central inspirational force for this book is the planning theorist John Fiedmann, who introduced innovative planning in 1966. The main initiating force to realise a book on innovation and planning was Palgrave Macmillan, for which we are thankful. We would also like to thank all the contributors for joining us in this adventure in a positive, disciplined and innovative manner.

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Finally, we hope the book inspires further discourse on innovative planning, be it theoretical or practical. Lillehammer, Norway January 2020

Aksel Hagen Ulla Higdem

Contents

1 Innovation on the Planning Theory Agenda: An Introduction  1 Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem 2 Calculate, Communicate and Innovate? 11 Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem 3 Planning and Innovation in a Collaborative Framework 33 Roar Amdam 4 Politicians’ Roles in Planning: Seen or Ignored? What Do We Know About Politicians’ Roles in Planning? 53 Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem 5 Strategic Turn in Planning and the Role of Institutional Innovation 73 Kaisa Granqvist and Raine Mäntysalo 6 Sustainable Development: A Question of ‘Modernization’ or ‘Degrowth’? 91 Petter Næss

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Contents

7 To Enhance Social Equity Through Urban Planning: The Potential for Innovation111 Hege Hofstad 8 Climate Leadership: Developing Innovative Strategic Tools to Improve the Partnership Mode of Planning131 Gro Sandkjær Hanssen and Hege Hofstad 9 Innovative Planning in Rural, Depopulating Areas: Conditions, Capacities and Goals151 Josefina Syssner and Marlies Meijer 10 Lost or Found? Translating Innovative Participation171 Toril Ringholm 11 Planning for Innovation as Innovative Planning?189 Ann Karin Tennås Holmen 12 Innovation in Planning Theory: The Upcoming Perspective205 Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem Index219

Notes on Contributors

Roar Amdam  is Full Professor of Planning and Leadership at the Volda University College, Norway. He was head of the master programme in planning and leadership at the college from 1999 to 2019. His major research question has been how to use planning as a tool in the development of regions and local communities, organisations and public health work. Central themes in his research are innovation, collaboration, empowerment, capacity building and legitimacy. He has written several books and articles. Kaisa  Granqvist is pursuing her PhD at Aalto University School of Engineering, Finland. Her dissertation deals with strategic spatial planning, especially spatial imaginaries in the dialectics of soft strategic and statutory planning institutions and practice. Her dissertation draws from five case studies on strategic spatial planning in Finnish local governments and city regions. She will complete her PhD in 2020. Aksel  Hagen  is Associate Professor of Planning at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. He has served 22  years as an elected representative at all three levels of government in Norway, and more than 20 years as a teacher and researcher in planning. His research focus has been local and regional planning, and the normative and descriptive contribution of planning theory to planning practice. Gro Sandkjær Hanssen  is a senior researcher and research professor at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. She is also Professor II in the ix

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Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Life Science. She led the evaluation of the Norwegian Planning and Building Act and has been project leader of research projects about citizen participation in and political steering of compact city development, of climate change adaptation and of urban public spaces. Ulla  Higdem is Full Professor of Planning at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. Her research covers the areas of regional and local planning and development, and new forms of directing, steering (governance) and planning, as well as public innovation. Higdem is also an experienced planner in the field of regional planning and development processes. Hege Hofstad  is Research Professor of Political Science at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Her research interest and publications centre on how the public aims of health promotion, social equity, sustainability and climate change are handled in planning and urban development, as well as through leadership and interactive governance. Ann Karin Tennås Holmen  is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Stavanger, Norway, and holds a Doctorate in Administration and Organizational Science from the University of Bergen. In 2019 the book Innovation Meets Municipality was published, for which she was the editor. Furthermore, Holmen leads the national research network INNOFF (innovation in the public sector). She has developed, led and participated in a number of research projects on collaboration and innovation in the public sector and in particular research on governance and innovation processes in municipalities. Raine Mäntysalo  is Full Professor of Strategic Urban Planning at Aalto University School of Engineering, Finland. With his team, he has done research on different aspects of strategic spatial planning. He has supervised 12 doctoral theses and is an editorial board member of Planning Theory, Planning Theory & Practice and European Planning Studies. Marlies  Meijer is Assistant Professor of Spatial Planning at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on planning for decline, citizen initiatives and community-led planning. Petter  Næss is Full Professor of Planning in Urban Regions at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway, where he is heading the

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research group on Urban Sustainability. Næss’ main research areas are sustainable urban development, relationships between urban form and transport, driving forces in urban development, planning theory and philosophy of science. During recent years, he has increasingly investigated the possibilities and limitations of ecological modernisation strategies to achieve sustainable urban development. Toril  Ringholm  is Full Professor of Public Planning at University of Tromsø (UiT)—The Arctic University of Norway, Norway. She is affiliated with the Arctic Center for Sustainable Energy (ARC) at UiT.  Her research covers the areas of local and regional development, local democracy, citizen participation, public planning and public innovation. She has been the editor of two books on public innovation and has contributed with chapters in several other books within the themes of planning, arctic sustainability and local development. Josefina  Syssner is Associate Professor of Human Geography at Linköping University, Sweden. Her current research focuses on local policy and planning in depopulating and rural areas.

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 9.3

The collaborative co-creation spiral in planning and innovation Modes of institutional change (authors’ adaptation from Mahoney & Thelen, 2010: 19) Creating healthy urban planning Core conditions for health promotion and social health equality Illustrating how climate leadership must embrace four categories of steering mechanisms (based on Alber and Kern in OECD, 2008: 39) Planning resources Planning challenges in depopulating rural areas Local growth policy and local adaptation policy. (Source: Syssner, 2018)

44 78 124 126 134 157 158 164

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List of Tables

Table 10.1 Types of participation and arenas in the ByLab process Table 10.2 Number of people that the politicians/planners have had a dialogue with during the ByLab Table 12.1 A framework for innovative planning

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CHAPTER 1

Innovation on the Planning Theory Agenda: An Introduction Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem

Innovation: An Upcoming Field of Interest In Europe’s public sector today, innovation is given frequent attention, including a policy push (De Vries, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2016; Geuijen, Moore, Cederquist, et al., 2017). One of the main contributors to policy development in Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), emphasizes that innovation is imperative for the public sector (OECD, 2015), and hence the public sector must create an environment that fosters innovation (OECD, 2017). During the past 15 years, the literature on innovation in relation to the public sector has expanded substantially. Some examples of the themes it has covered are innovation in public welfare delivery (i.e. services) (Djellal, Gallouj, & Miles, 2013; Hartley, 2005; Hartley, 2008), innovation in various forms of public governance (Hartley, 2005; Moore & Hartley, 2008) and initiation and promotion of innovation within public sector organizations (Bason, 2010). We have also seen that the public sector may be both a driver or facilitator of, and a contributor to, innovation (Teigen, 2007);

A. Hagen (*) • U. Higdem Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_1

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for example, using public procurement as a policy measure (Edler & Georghiou, 2007) or through a more systematic, network-based approach (Bryson, Sancino, Benington, et al., 2017; Edquist, 2005). The territorial framing of the public sector’s tasks in an institutional context reveals the substantial cooperation on local and regional development and innovation goals (Cahoon, Pateman, & Chen, 2013; Higdem, 2017; Metze & Melika, 2012). The public innovation imperative also has implications for public planning as public planning is a vital part of the public sector’s strategic long-term policy, which directs societal development (Albrechts, 2012; Amdam & Veggeland, 2011; Healey, 2010). Planning involves viewing the future as being different from today by recognizing that humans can make fundamental changes. Planning aims to make a difference by preparing for, contributing to and facilitating change. The public sector is characterized by a large and varied range of planning activities, such as financial, services, land use, business development and comprehensive societal planning. When the public sector is increasingly concerned about innovation, public planning must seek to make equal contributions to innovation. We recognize that planners and politicians have used the concept of innovation to inspire their practices for many years. Over the last 15 years, the literature on innovation in, for and about the public sector, including public planning, has expanded substantially. In recent decades, the term ‘innovation’ has largely replaced expressions such as ‘change’ and ‘creativity’; it has also replaced ‘modernization’, ‘improvement of efficiency’ and ‘improvement of planning methods’ in the vocabulary driving public sector and public planning performance. The concept of innovation has been widely adopted in public planning, primarily after the turn of the millennium (c.f. Agger & Sørensen, 2016; Amdam, 2014; Innes, 2004; Albrechts, 2012; Gunn & Hillier, 2012; Healey, Birch, Campbell, et al., 2000; Stein & Harper, 2012).

Innovation in the Planning Theory Field: Past and Present The observant reader may have noticed that a definition of innovation has not yet been provided. To develop a comprehensive definition of innovative planning, we turn to the main source of inspiration for this book: the planning theorist John Friedmann (1926–2017). Published over 50 years

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ago, Friedmann’s thoughts are important in relation to how the innovation concept has been understood in planning since the 1960s. He identified innovative planning, or planning as innovation, as one of the two main forms of planning within his conceptual model of planning behaviour (Friedmann, 1966). The other form, ‘allocation’, which is sometimes the only mode of public planning, describes the balancing and distribution of scarce resources for what he termed ‘optimal use’. These two planning types, according to Friedmann (1966), are necessary if we are to accurately describe and prescribe planning. He also formulated a definition of innovative planning: Innovative planning is defined as (1) seeking to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reordering in the priority of existing objectives, (2) concerned with translating general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and concrete action programs, (3) being more interested in the mobilization of resources than in their optimal use, and (4) proposing to guide innovation processes through information feedback of the actual consequences of action. (Friedmann, 1966, p. 194)

In 1966, Friedmann (1966) argued that, “The need for creative innovation is among the imperative needs of an age in which structural changes are the normal pattern and social equilibria are always fragile and short-­ lived” (p.  196). This statement is as appropriate today as it was in the 1960s. The growing number of unruly and distressing societal problems makes innovation in the public sector imperative (Geuijen et  al., 2017; Hartley, Sørensen, & Torfing, 2013; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011). Friedmann’s (1966) similar concerns pinpointed the need to take new, collective practices and actions on complex, interrelated issues. At that time, interrelated aspects such as “the distribution of income, the supply of low-cost housing and the spatial demand pattern of housing” (p. 194) were treated separately; hence, innovative planning was much needed. Friedmann (1966) promoted, and experienced, innovative planning that was effective and both broke with established planning practices and changed institutional arrangements and specific actions. This was necessary for challenging the conventional wisdom of treating complex or unruly issues as interlinked and part of the same problem with the same solution. How have the definitions, the understanding and the uses of the concept of innovation in planning theory discourse evolved since the 1960s?

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We undertook the challenge of reviewing the planning theory literature for contributions on innovation. Our search led to many publications during 1966 to 2018, including about 70 planning theory contributions from both newer and well-established theoreticians. The connection between innovation and planning theory began during the second half of the 1960s but then, with a few exceptions (Hagen & Higdem, 2019), disappeared from the theoretical discourse. However, this changed around the turn of the millennium when the most visible and influential planning theorists began adopting the concept of innovation and new voices joined the debate (Agger & Sørensen, 2016; Hagen & Higdem, 2019). It was then argued that strategic planning provides a good vehicle for innovation (Albrechts, 2012; Healey, 2006), which is why we attend to these planning types in this book. In planning theory, discussion of the innovation concept is less common than might be expected given the public sector’s overall level of theoretical interest in the topic. However, several articles identified in our search treat innovation as a simple, common word, not one with a specific definition or impacts for planning theory (Hagen & Higdem, 2019). We argue that if planning theory still aims to both describe and prescribe planning, then innovation must be given more than theoretical attention. It seems that the theorists and researchers are lagging behind the practitioners (i.e. planners, politicians). Over the years, several contributors to the field of planning theory have criticized the field’s dominant theoretical positions of ‘Communicate’ and ‘Calculate’, which do not allow, and may even stifle, creativity and innovation (Mäntysalo, 2002; Stein & Harper, 2012). Therefore, we need planning theory to develop in ways that address the innovation theme. To extend our exploration of how innovation may be understood in planning, we will return to this topic in the book’s final chapter, where we bring the innovation concept more distinctly into planning theory by considering how it may be added to the traditional ‘Calculate’ and ‘Communicate’ perspectives that form the basic theory’s framework. In the final chapter, we also return to Friedmann’s understanding of innovative planning, with a discourse on development of a new theory on innovation in the public sector. We also discuss Friedmann’s understanding of innovative planning further in Chap. 2 in relation to contemporary theory on innovation in the public sector and planning. To further explain innovative planning in that chapter, we have combined Friedmann’s 1966 description of innovation

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with today’s multi-actor, co-production governance systems (Kickert, Klijn, & Koppenjan, 1999; Osborne, 2010; Sørensen & Torfing, 2006). We also consider innovation theory’s contribution to the public sector (Hartley, 2005; Hartley et al., 2013; Osborne & Brown, 2011) and its applicability to today’s planning theory and practice. In sum, we now recognize innovative planning as being mainly concerned with systematic, territorial, societal and co-produced change, which breaks with established practices and seeks to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reprioritization of existing objectives. However, we emphasize that the term ‘innovation’ may be in danger of becoming a buzzword describing a quick fix for complex societal issues or to legitimize public sector downsizing or cutbacks. We do not support these uses. It is important to note that innovation, according to our use, has the potential to both succeed and fail. This element of uncertainty separates innovation from work on development and change (Hartley, 2005; Osborne & Brown, 2011). Furthermore, innovation in the public sector is not limited to services or products but may also be reflected in processes, organizations, policy and governance (Crosby, ‘t Hart, & Torfing, 2017; Moore & Hartley, 2008). This is important for planning purposes since planning may spur innovation in each of these areas, including the form of planning itself, and has the potential to contribute to public value.

Contributions to Planning Theory and Understanding of Practice The following chapters contribute to the discourse on innovation in planning theory. They address pivotal and unruly issues in ways applicable to both innovative planning and planning innovation. We briefly introduce each chapter here. In the final chapter, we reflect further on how each chapter contributes to the innovation perspective of planning. In Chap. 2, Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem describe the emergence of the innovation theme within theories for both planning and the public sector. They explore the relationship between Friedmann’s understanding of innovative planning in the 1960s and contemporary innovation theories and present the planning theory field’s ‘Calculate’ and ‘Communicate’ positions. They argue that planning and acting innovatively are about to become dominant in planning, equal to the traditional ‘Calculate’ and

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‘Communicate’. On this basis, they suggest that planning needs three, not two, interplaying approaches: Communicate, Calculate and Innovate. In Chap. 3, Roar Amdam claims that both collaborative planning and innovation involve attempts to combine instrumental and communicative rationality to link knowledge to action and to organize multiple actors in a network. Amdam argues that both collaborative planning and innovation need democratic legitimacy. He discusses the similarities between the planning and innovation processes, how different governance regimes influence these processes and how actors contributing wisdom to collaborative processes can increase the network’s legitimacy and institutional capacity. Drawing on a systematic literature review, Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem describe how politics and politicians have been regarded in the most widely read and quoted contributions to mainstream planning theory debate. Their review of the latest major evaluations of Norwegian planning allows a comparison between international and Norwegian perspectives. The general impression they provide is that politicians and political activity are clearly understudied. Hagen and Higdem conclude Chap. 4 by outlining an innovative societal planning type in which politicians are expected to play a leading role. Strategic planning is recognized as a tool for generating innovation; however, Kaisa Granqvist and Raine Mäntysalo argue that strategic planning may itself be an innovation. In Chap. 5, they show how strategic planning is implemented in practice, relative to the existing planning system, through what they frame as ‘institutional innovation’. Institutional innovation is necessary to overcome the gap between strategic planning practices and the regular statutory planning system. However, the modes of innovation may differ, which they illustrate with two cases from Finland. Is sustainable development a question of ‘modernization’ or degrowth? This is Petter Næss’ overarching question in the next chapter. Increasing evidence shows that only a partial ‘decoupling’ between growth and negative environmental impacts is achievable. He argues that we are in a dire need of profound, macro-scale, radical societal innovation in this double-­ edged crisis of ecological unsustainability and growing inequality. At the conclusion of Chap. 6, Næss explains how planners and planning scholars should contribute to a radical sustainability innovation. In Chap. 7, Hege Hofstad explores the innovation potential of one of the most challenging and unruly planning goals: that is, how it can support the development of more socially equal communities and how it can

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consider innovation in terms of the need for development of new ideas, practices and instruments of planning. Based on a Delphi panel’s ideas and experiences, as well as relevant research results, Hofstad identifies and discusses promising steps for strengthening awareness of social inequality as a goal for local development and planning, as well as specific instruments for elevating this concern in the planning core. Gro Sandkjær Hanssen and Hege Hofstad discuss in Chap. 8 how strategic planning tools are used in the performance of climate leadership in a ‘forerunner’ city, especially related to urban planning. They also contribute by illustrating how urban climate leadership is performed in an institutional ‘hybrid’ planning landscape, with a special attention on the role of strategic planning in climate transition. Strategic planning represents an effective meta-governance instrument for mobilization and anchorage of policy goals, strategies and institutional networks with multiple actors, including citizens. Depopulation, economic decline and shrinkage of rural areas is a growing concern for European countries. In Chap. 9, Josefina Syssner and Marlies Meijer contribute vital reflections on the conditions, capacities and goals for planning in rural and declining areas, based on empirical studies of planning policies in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. They advocate for innovative planning practices in depopulating and declining areas, simultaneously mobilizing further societal resources and adapting and adjusting local governments to a diminishing resource base. Syssner and Meijer underscore that such planning requires a new vocabulary that includes descriptions of the processes of shrinkage and their effects. In Chap. 10, Toril Ringholm asks how knowledge, experiences and ideas generated within innovative participation arenas are translated into decision-making. Many new and innovative forms of participation connected to public planning and strategy occur; these are often informal and sometimes expressive. However, public planning is a formal activity, largely based on written documents. As these new forms gain strength, this question gains importance. Ringholm’s analysis is based on a strategy process case study of a medium-sized Norwegian town carried out within several innovative arenas. Through a study of two municipalities’ planning processes for innovation that would build a culture and infrastructure for innovation, Ann Karin Tennås Holmen contributes to our understanding of innovative planning in Chap. 11. This study shows that planning for innovation does

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not necessarily involve choosing paths for innovative planning. Supported by perspectives of institutional logics, Tennås Holmen seeks to explain variations in how municipalities translate the idea of innovation into their institutional planning systems.

References Agger, A., & Sørensen, E. (2016). Managing collaborative innovation in public bureaucracies. Planning Theory, 1, 1–21. Albrechts, L. (2012). Reframing strategic spatial planning by using a coproduction perspective. Planning Theory, 12, 46–63. Amdam, J., & Veggeland, N. (2011). Teorier om samfunnsstyring og planlegging. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Amdam, R. (2014). An Integrated planning, learning and innovation system in the decentralized public sector; a Norwegian perspective. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 19, Article 3. Bason, C. (2010). Leading public sector innovation: Co-creating for a better society. Portland: The Policy Press. Bryson, J., Sancino, A., Benington, J., et al. (2017). Towards a multi-actor theory of public value co-creation. Public Management Review, 19, 640–654. Cahoon, S., Pateman, H., & Chen, S.-L. (2013). Regional port authorities: Leading players in innovation networks? Journal of Transport Geography, 27, 66–75. Crosby, B., ‘t Hart, P., & Torfing, J. (2017). Public Value Creation through Collaborative Innovation. Public Management Review, 19, 655–669. De Vries, H., Bekkers, V., & Tummers, L. (2016). Innovation in the public sector: A systematic review and future research agenda. Public Administration, 94, 146–166. Djellal, F., Gallouj, F., & Miles, I. (2013). Two decades of research on innovation in services: Which place for public services? Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 27, 98–117. Edler, J., & Georghiou, L. (2007). Public procurement and innovation  – Resurrecting the demand side. Research Policy, 36, 949–963. Edquist, C. (2005). Systems of innovation. In J.  Fagerberg, D.  C. Mowery, & R. R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation (pp. 181–209). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedmann, J. (1966). Planning as innovation: The Chilean case. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32, 194–204. Geuijen, K., Moore, M., Cederquist, A., et al. (2017). Creating public value in global wicked problems. Public Management Review, 19, 621–639.

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Gunn, S., & Hillier, J. (2012). Processes of innovation: Reformation of the English strategic spatial planning system. Planning Theory & Practice, 13, 359–381. Hagen, A., & Higdem, U. (2019). Calculate, communicate and innovate – Do we need innovate as a third position? Journal of Planning Literature, 34, I–13. Hartley, J. (2005). Innovation in governance and public services: Past and present. Public Money & Management, 25, 27–34. Hartley, J. (2008). The innovation landscape for public service organizations. In J. Hartley (Ed.), Managing to improve public services. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hartley, J., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2013). Collaborative innovation: A viable alternative to market competition and organizational entrepreneurship. Public Administration Review, 73, 821–830. Healey, P. (2006). Network complexity and the imaginative power of strategic spatial planning. In L. Albrechts & S. J. Mandelbaum (Eds.), The network society. A new context for planning? (pp. 146–160). London: Routledge. Healey, P. (2010). Making better places. The planning project in the twenty-first century. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Healey, P. (2012). The universal and the contingent: Some reflections on the transnational flow of planning ideas and practises. Planning Theory, 11, 188–207. Healey, P., Birch, G., Campbell, H., et al. (2000). Editorial. Planning Theory & Practice, 1, 7–10. Higdem, U. (2017). Dimensions of collaborative strategies and policy innovation. Current Politics and Economics of Europe, 28, 7–30. Innes, J.  E. (2004). Consensus building: Clarifications for the critics. Planning Theory, 3, 5–20. Kickert, W., Klijn, E.-H., & Koppenjan, J. F. M. (1999). Managing complex networks. Strategies for the public sector. London: Sage Publications. Mäntysalo, R. (2002). Dilemmas in critical planning theory. Town Planning Review, 73, 417–436. Metze, T., & Melika, L. (2012). Barriers to credible innovations: Collaborative regional governance in the Netherlands. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 17, 1–15. Moore, M., & Hartley, J. (2008). Innovations in governance. Public Management Review, 10, 3–20. OECD. (2015). The innovation imperative in the public sector, setting an agenda for action. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD. (2017). Fostering innovation in the public sector. Paris: OECD Publishing. Osborne, S.  P. (2010). The new public governance? Emerging perspectives on the theory and practise of public governance. London: Routledge. Osborne, S. P., & Brown, L. (2011). Innovation, public policy and public services delivery in the UK. The word that would be king? Public Administration, 89, 1335–1350.

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Sager, T. (1992). Why plan? A multi-rationality foundation for planning. Scandinavian Housing & Planning Research, 9, 129–147. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2006). Netværksstyring. Fra Government til Governance. Roskilde: Roskilde Universitetsforlag. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2011). Enhancing collaborative innovation in the public sector. Administration & Society, 43, 842–868. Stein, S. M., & Harper, T. L. (2012). Creativity and innovation: Divergence and convergence in pragmatic dialogical planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 32, 5–17. Teigen, H. (2007). Innovativ forvaltning. Avgrensingar og omgrepsbruk. In R.  Rønning & H.  Teigen (Eds.), En innovativ forvaltning? (pp.  13–43). Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

CHAPTER 2

Calculate, Communicate and Innovate? Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem

Introduction John Friedmann (1926–2017), the famous planning theorist, is an essential inspiration for this book about innovation and planning. In 1966, when he was working as an advisor to the Chilean government, he launched the field of innovative planning with a paper on how fundamental changes can improve a country’s social situation. In his article, ‘Planning as Innovation: The Chilean Case’ (1966), Friedmann argued that innovation can help change society’s social objectives by proposing new values. Later in this chapter, we explore this more deeply, but for now, we just note that Friedmann’s paper on innovative planning received little interest from planning theorists at the time (Hagen & Higdem, 2019). Consistent with Friedmann’s argument in 1966, in this chapter, we argue that the growing number of wicked and unruly societal problems makes innovation imperative for public sector planning, albeit in different ways than in America in the 1960s. The need for new collective practices and action to address complex and interrelated issues is obvious today. Of course, we do not believe that innovation is the answer to all of society’s difficulties, or that it provides quick-fix solutions or a means for

A. Hagen • U. Higdem (*) Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_2

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downsizing and reducing public sector expenses. However, innovation in planning has the potential to make changes that can contribute to public value. Innovation is a rising perspective in the public sector, as well as in planning, as noted in the introductory chapter of this book. Innovation has become pertinent in public sector administration (de Vries, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2016; Geuijen, Moore, Cederquist, Rønning, & van Twist, 2017), public welfare delivery (services) (Djellal, Gallouj, & Miles, 2013; Jean Hartley, 2005; Hartley, 2008), public governance and public sector organizations (Hartley, 2005; Moore & Hartley, 2008) and public planning and planning theory (Albrechts, 2013; R Amdam, 2002; Gunn & Hillier, 2012; Healey, 2011; Healey, Birch, Campbell, & Upton, 2000; Hillier, 2008; Innes, 2004; Savini, Majoor, & Salet, 2015; Stein & Harper, 2012; Throgmorton, 2003). Innovation has become popular in the strategic planning literature. Terms such as social innovation, community innovation, spatial innovation and socio-spatial innovation are widely used (Bafarasat Ziafati, 2015). Strategic planning is considered to be a tool for innovation and creative action in organizations and local and regional societies (Albrechts, Balducci, & Hillier, 2017). Finally, there is an increased focus on innovation as a part of the growing criticism of the ‘Communicate’ planning theoretical position. Several planning theorists argue that creativity and innovation are constrained by planning theories, such as the ‘Calculate’ tradition and Cartesian rationality (Hillier, 2008), as well as Habermasian-inspired communicative theories (Mäntysalo, 2002; Tewdwr-Jones, 1998). Tewdwr-Jones and Almendinger emphasize that no innovative forms of planning have occurred within the communicative or rationality frameworks (Tewdwr-­ Jones, 1998). Mäntysalo argues that, “Habermas’ concept of dialogue is too narrow, too static and uncreative. The central aspect of creativity is missing” (Mäntysalo, 2002: 329). Stein and Harper (2012), argue that the Habermasian-based Critical Planning Theory, with its communicative ideal, does not allow—and may even stifle—creativity and innovation. At the same time, we must not forget that many planning theorists treat planning as a communicative activity that includes innovation in one way or another (Hillier, 2008; Innes, 2004). Innes argues that communicative approaches stimulate innovative thinking and action more than they inhibit it (Innes, 2004: 302). Collaborative innovation processes are expected in planning, and communicative practice must supplement

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instrumental practice (Agger & Sørensen, 2018; Booher & Innes, 2002; Davidoff, 2016; Forester, 2013; Healey, 1997). This chapter is structured as follows. We begin by presenting the calculate and communicate positions in the field of planning theory, including the efforts to include innovation in the communicative approach. Then we describe in greater detail the emergence of the innovation theme in theories for both planning and the public sector. We explore the relationship between Friedmann’s understanding of innovative planning in the 1960s and contemporary innovation theories, and explain why innovation has started to become important in the planning theory literature. We summarize by arguing that communicate, calculate and innovate should be seen as the three interplaying approaches to be used to describe and prescribe planning. Thinking, planning and acting innovatively are about to become dominant in planning, equivalent to calculate and communicate. Innovation is considered to be so critical in organizations and societies, and so analytically different from calculating and communicating, that it requires its own defined position. We suggest that planning needs three, not two, interplaying approaches: communicate, calculate and innovate. We also present some key issues/themes/factors for the innovation position in planning theory.

Calculate and Communicate Two of the most basic and dominant theoretical perspectives in planning are the instrumental and communicative perspectives. The instrumental perspective refers to the analytical or calculative tradition, which is characterized by key words such as ‘instrumental’, ‘technical’, ‘expert-based’ and ‘positivistic’ (Habermas, 1984; Harper & Stein, 2012; Sager, 1990). The communicative perspective stresses on dialogue and communication, and can be characterized by key words such as ‘communicative rationality’, ‘dialogue-based’, ‘social learning’, ‘participatory’ and ‘pragmatic’ (Harper & Stein, 2012). Calculate Instrumental planning is dominated by experts and their knowledge, and is linear and directed towards enhancing effectiveness. Planning experts separate planning and action to coordinate with political decisions. As early as the 1960s, planning theoreticians claimed that the instrumental

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rationality concept, with related planning models and methods, was an excessively narrow approach to planning. Planning was seen as more than implementing instrumental rational thinking in organizations and societies. Planning needed an alternative to the ideal of rationality that Banfield introduced in 1959 (Banfield in Faludi, 1973) in his often-quoted article about means and ends in planning. We needed a broader and more diverse attitude so that we could be reliable and effective planners and politicians. This critical debate took place at the same time that John Friedmann (1966) introduced the concept of innovation into planning. The search for alternatives to instrumental rationalism took different directions. One alternative that appeared immediately was the incrementalist approach (Lindblom, 1959). Etzioni introduced another alternative ‘Mixed-scanning: A ‘third’ Approach to Decision-making’, which criticized both the rationalistic and incrementalist approaches (Etzioni, 1967, 1986). It is particularly interesting that Etzioni also paid attention to the innovation theme. In his argument against the incremental position, the term ‘innovation’ appears twice: (i) “incrementalism would tend to neglect basic societal innovations” (p. 220) and (ii) incrementalism contributes to the “reinforcement of … anti-innovation forces” (p. 221). Communicate Some years later, communicative rationality was introduced as a more fundamental alternative to Banfield’s calculative position (Forester, 1989; Habermas, 1984; Healey, 1992). The term ‘communicative rationality’ is closely tied to the Habermasian ideal of a dialogue free from mastery. People are basically democratic and have a central experience of the unconstrained, unifying, consensus-building force of argumentative speech. The only force in ideal discourse situations and communicative rationality is that of the better argument (Flyvbjerg, 1991: 381). Communicative planning emphasizes participation, learning and democracy. Planning is interactive, and planning and action are not separate (Healey, 1997). The communicative turn has inspired many theoreticians and practitioners, and it is often said to have inspired planning practice to move in a more democratic and participatory direction (Healey, 1992, 1996). The ideas of a workable consensus and collaborative planning efforts are important (Healey, 1997, 1998). We use Patsy Healey to represent the dominant communicative position. In her influential article, ‘Planning Through Debate: The

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Communicative Turn in Planning Theory’ (Healey, 1992), she claims that planning is a child of modernity. By using scientific reason and knowledge, people and society can be liberated from the intellectual tyranny of religious belief and political despots. One of the most important challenges for this planning paradigm is the criticism of scientific reason itself, which we find in various postmodernist approaches. This enormous challenge is not just in planning theory; this criticism challenges thinking throughout Western civilization. We have to move from a position of individual reason to a form of inter-subjective reason to avoid destructive relativism. Thus, the idea of the workable consensus is important (Healey, 1992). In ‘Collaborative Planning’ (Healey, 1997), Healey introduces collaborative planning efforts and argues that we need to reframe how we think about winning and losing in planning processes: “It looks for an approach which asks: can we all get on better if we change how we think to accommodate what other people think?” (Healey, 1997: 312). She constructs an idealistic vision that releases the constraints of past ways of doing things and re-designs institutional frameworks to allow a rich, inventive, locally contingent and inclusionary form of local environmental planning to flourish (Healey, 1997: 313, 314). Calculate and Communicate The dominant planning theory paradigm at the dawn of the new century was that planning comprises normative calculative and communicative activities in interaction. Both approaches are necessary. Sager, in common with many other normative planning theorists, argues for strong and clear ideals in planning to maximize both calculative and communicative ambitions (Healey, 1992; Sager, 1990, 1994). As late as 2012, Harper and Stein (2012) confirmed that the calculative and communicative approaches remain the two main approaches to planning, although over the years, many alternatives have been proposed and discussed (Benhabib, 1996; Benveniste, 1989; Bond, 2011; Flyvbjerg, 1991, 1998; Hellspong, 1995; Hillier, 2008; Lindblom, 1979; Luhmann, 1989; Mandelbaum, 1986; Nylund, 1995; Ramírez, 1995a, 1995b; Throgmorton, 1996; Watson, 2006; Wellmer, 1991). The commonality among these critical and oppositional scholars is that they emphasize the importance of politics, conflict, context, knowledge shortage, uncertainty and exercise of power in normative planning approaches more so than the proponents of the two main perspectives do.

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Another commonality is that hardly any of the other contributors to the various planning theory debates before the millennium discussed the theme of innovation except Friedmann (Friedmann, 1966, 1967/2017) and a few others (Acoff, 1970; Alexander, 1994; Galloway, 1992; Grabow & Heskin, 1973; Hoch, 1994; Jefferson, 1973b; Kulinski, 1970; Nambiar, 1976).

Innovate Planning, by definition, seeks change. Planning requires people to envisage the future as different from today, and it assumes that humans have the ability to create change. Even when the aim is conservation, planning still seeks to change current policies, regimes and practices, because if they were to continue, conservation would be endangered, lost or destroyed. Innovation: Definition Innovation also requires change. Innovation can be defined as disruptive, fundamental changes or as changes of space, as Hartley, Sørensen, and Torfing (2013) have expressed. Therefore, innovation is more than continuous improvement (Jean Hartley, 2005; Hartley et al., 2013; Torfing, 2016; Torfing & Triantafillou, 2016). In the recent literature on innovation related to the public sector, innovation is understood to be “an intentional and proactive process that involves the generation and practical adoption and spread of new and creative ideas, which aim to produce a qualitative change in a specific context” (Sørensen & Torfing, 2011: 849). Torfing and Triantafillou (2016) later extended this definition to remind us that innovation involves a break with established practices and challenges conventional wisdom. Public innovation emphasizes: (i) reframing existing definitions of problems; (ii) searching for, creating and valuing new, untried and creative ideas and actions; (iii) discovering what works through the processes of experimentation and (no-blame) feedback loops; and (iv) iterative processes of design, assessment and diffusion (Crosby, ‘t Hart, & Torfing, 2017). The understanding of what innovation is, or may be, differs between the public and private sectors. Innovation in the private sector is commonly comprehended as new products or services to be brought to market. The litmus test of whether it is an innovation, instead of an invention, is that the product or service is actually produced and sold in the market

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(Hartley, 2008; Hartley et al., 2013). Even though many countries have outsourced or (partly) privatized public sector services, in principle, innovations in the public sector do not rely on market validation to define innovation. Rather, it is an understanding of what is of value to society and its citizens or to users. Therefore, we must always ask “who or what benefits from this innovation”, which means that innovations may contribute to public value in this way or that way, but not in every way. We may even discover innovations that have gone wrong. Innovation in the public sector is not limited to services or products; it can also occur in processes, organizations, policy and governance (Crosby et  al., 2017; Moore & Hartley, 2008). This is important for planning because planning may spur innovation in all of these areas, as well as in planning itself (Grankvist & Mäntysalo, 2020). Inspired by Jean Hartley et  al. (2013), we understand public value development in planning terms as “a collective effort of societal improvement of public value within policies and strategies approved by public authorities in a given geographical area”. This implies that actors outside of the public sector can also contribute to the creation of public value, and that the public planning authorities have the normative decision-making power regarding what is of public value (see also Chap. 12). Innovation: Planning Our understanding of innovative planning is inspired by Friedmann’s definition of innovation combined with today’s multi-actor and co-­production governance systems, which we discuss more thoroughly later in this chapter. We see innovative planning as being mainly concerned with systematic, territorial, societal and co-produced change that breaks with established practices and seeks to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reprioritization of existing objectives. Friedmann introduced the concept of innovation into planning theory in 1966 and pursued this research for the next three decades, making a number of new contributions (Friedmann, 1966, 1967/2017, 1973, 1987, 1994). Other planning theorists joined the discussion on innovative planning (Acoff, 1970; Albrechts, 2013; Grabow & Heskin, 1973; Jefferson, 1973a; Kulinski, 1970; Nambiar, 1976). The concept of innovation then disappeared from the theoretical debate, with several exceptions (Alexander, 1994; Galloway, 1992; Hoch, 1994).

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There are few instances in which planning scholars have defined innovation. Innovation is mostly used as a common term for creating something new (Healey, 2011). More important for the understanding of innovation is doing something new (Levitt, 2002). Levitt finds that creativity and invention may be prerequisites for innovation, but innovation comes into existence through implementation (Sørensen & Torfing, 2011). Another understanding of innovation is the introduction of new and different things and methods (Damurski & Oleksy, 2018), which are closely connected to knowledge and technology in the European policy perspective, as well as to creativity and entrepreneurship. Agger and Sørensen (2018: 55) also define innovation in planning terms, in line with the tradition of Sørensen and Torfing (2011) cited above: “a more or less intentional formulation, realization and diffusion of new public policies and services and new ways of organizing and processing policy making and service provision”. Some planning scholars take a normative view of innovation outcomes. For example, as Levitt puts it, innovation is “doing something new that serves human purposes, that is, something that is useful” (Levitt, 2002). As Fisher notes, there is a predisposition to regard innovation as such as being good. He argues that “the good does not exist like that. The good is defined by us; it is practiced, it is invented. And this is a collective work” (Fischer & Forester, 1993: 188). Hence, a good innovation is co-created in society. The literature on innovation in planning emphasizes public sector planning, but it also covers strategic territorial planning, a field in which innovation has now become a key issue and a widely used approach. Terms such as social innovation, community innovation, spatial innovation and socio-spatial innovation are used in this context (Bafarasat Ziafati, 2015). Strategic planning is considered to be a planning tool for innovation and creative actions (Albrechts et al., 2017). Methods for including innovation in strategic planning systems are discussed by planning scholars such as Wolf and Floyd (2017). They argue that the ways in which plans are written, including visual and textual representations of strategies, appear to affect the behaviours they trigger, ranging from ignoring plans to strategic innovation and wholehearted strategy implementation. Others emphasize that we must create spaces for innovative practices and bottom-up initiatives that generate innovations and be open to unplanned innovations (Savini et al., 2015).

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A vital aspect of strategic planning is the ability to co-produce results in a multi-actor and multilevel context (Healey, 2006a, 2006b). There are arguments for innovative and emancipatory planning practices to achieve co-production (Albrechts, 2013). Albrechts stresses that the legitimacy of strategic planning depends upon a combination of its creative and innovative forces, its capacity to deliver positive outcomes and formal acceptance by government, which, of course, is vital in a liberal democratic context. He claims that interactions must work efficiently and contribute to innovation. Many planning theorists have worked extensively with collaborative planning (Agger & Sørensen, 2018; Booher & Innes, 2002; Davidoff, 2016; Forester, 2013; Healey, 1997). Those authors have all argued that planning needs to take into account different institutional structural powers. Agger and Sørensen (2018) maintain that there are many obstacles to public innovation and highlight institutional barriers such as bureaucratic rules and routines, rigorous goals and performance management systems and control-oriented performance measurement systems. A systematic form of analysis has also been developed for mapping collaborative innovation in politics from a relational and territorial perspective to assist the societal development of public value as planning spurs new strategic activities (Higdem, 2017). To assist planners in their collaborative innovation tasks, Agger and Sørensen have defined the following four management roles by synthesizing collaborative planning theory, theories of network governance and public innovation: the pilot, the whip, the culture-maker and the communicator (Agger & Sørensen, 2018). Innovation: Friedmann from 1966 and Today Friedmann’s thoughts that were published over 50 years ago are important for understanding how the concept of innovation has been understood in planning since the 1960s. In his conceptual model for the analysis of planning behaviour, he included ‘innovative planning’ (or planning as innovation) as one of the two main forms of planning (Friedmann, 1966). The other main form of planning was the only form of public planning at that time, namely, the allocation and distribution of scarce resources for ‘optimal use’. These two types of planning were both necessary in Friedmann’s thinking to understand and prescribe planning (Friedmann, 1966). He formulated the following definition of innovative planning.

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“Innovative planning is defined as (1) seeking to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reordering in the priority of existing objectives, (2) concerned with translating general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and concrete action programs, (3) being more interested in the mobilization of resources than in their optimal use, and (4) proposing to guide innovation processes through information feedback of the actual consequences of action” (Friedmann, 1966: 194). In 1966, Friedmann asked how prevalent innovative planning was. He argued that “[t]he need for creative innovation is among the imperative needs of an age in which structural changes are the normal pattern and social equilibria are always fragile and short-lived” (Friedmann, 1966: 196). This is a statement for today as well as for the 1960s. The growing number of wicked and unruly problems related to societal issues such as (forced) migration, sustainable development, public health, housing, poverty and urbanization makes innovation in the public sector imperative (Geuijen et al., 2017; Hartley et al., 2013; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011). Friedmann’s concerns were similar: he pinpointed the need for new collective practices and action to address the complex and interrelated issues of “the distribution of income, the supply of low-cost housing and the spatial demand pattern of housing”, which were treated separately at that time (Friedmann, 1966: 194). In most modern liberal democracies, planning for societal development to legitimize new social objectives or reprioritize existing social objectives (Friedmann, 1966) is conducted by a public sector body in which planning authority is given to a democratically elected national, regional or local council, or a combination of these according to the country’s institutional design. Thus, the legitimization process must be anchored to politics and policy-making. As several authors have noted, when the public sector has an interest in innovation because of a task or its authority, innovation is legitimized by the creation of public value for a given society (Hartley et al., 2013; Moore & Hartley, 2008). Actors situated outside of the public sector, such as for-profit and non-profit organizations, may also contribute to the societal development of public value (Bryson, Sancino, Benington, & Sørensen, 2017). However, it is the politicians’ task and privilege to make the final designation regarding public value at any particular time in history. Public planning is a territorial activity, which means that the planning authority exists within a given area, such as a municipality, region or nation-state. Today, the public sector and its planners seldom hold a

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monopoly on planning. As several strands of the literature emphasize, the public sector, and thereby planning, depends on numerous other actors to achieve societal development goals (Cars et al., 2002; Healey et al., 2000; Kjær, 2004; Kooiman, 2003). New types of public-sector-based governance have developed into what Osborne (2010) has called new public governance, which is different from classic public administration and new public management. Wicked and unruly problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973) are growing in number, which leads to complex interactions in policy-making arenas, including planning. Therefore, as Sørensen (2017) has argued, this situation calls for efforts to improve politicians’ capacity for (policy) innovation. Innovation: Collaboration Arenas Planning establishes arenas of interaction among all of the actors, interests and professions who will use their competencies to build an institutional capacity for collaborative action (Healey, 1998, 2006a). The network perspective highlights the network of relationships in governance (steering) to achieve outcomes such as the development of places in which the public and both for- and non-profit sectors are linked in collective processes of change, crossing boundaries created by levels of government, public sector bodies and other steering systems (J.  Amdam & Veggeland, 2011). Thus, planning serves as a mechanism for interactive governance and policy-­making (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2016), and the planning system is a hybrid composed of different but parallel logics (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). Collaboration can spur innovation precisely because of the number of actors involved in processes such as planning. The literature on innovation agrees that innovation is more likely when diverse actors meet (Fagerberg, 2003; Granovetter, 1983; Powell & Grodal, 2005) than when homogeneous actors meet. Innovation, including interrelated innovations, may well be the result of a process over time (Fagerberg, 2003). Hence, innovation does not emerge from nothing; it comes out of interaction and cooperation with others. The collaborative perspective in the literature on public sector innovation emphasizes that collaborative networking has great potential to foster innovative solutions to wicked and unruly problems (Hofstad & Torfing, 2015). According to Hofstad and Torfing (2015: 67), this can be explained

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by the ability to facilitate mutual learning, the sharing of risks and benefits and the creation of joint ownership of new solutions. Governance network research (Kickert, Klijn, & Koppenjan, 1999; Rhodes, 1997), partnerships (Pollitt, 2003; Røyseland & Vabo, 2012; Veggeland, 2003) and the meta-governance of networks (Kooiman, 2003; Sørensen, 2006; Sørensen & Torfing, 2005, 2007) are all important sources of inspiration for planning research on how planners and planning, as a network arena, can stimulate collaboration and possibly innovation in planning (c.f. Agger & Sørensen, 2018; Albrechts, 2013; Albrechts, Healey, & Kunzmann, 2003; Healey, 2006a). First, these perspectives must be concerned with how to manage, facilitate, motivate and coordinate collaboration and steer a broad set of sectors and interests in such complex situations (Agger & Sørensen, 2018). Second, these perspectives must nurture the democratic guidance of planning (Falleth, Sandkjaer Hanssen, & Saglie, 2011; Hanssen Sandkjær, Nergaard, Pierre, & Skaalholdt, 2011) by helping public sector planning actors see how their roles may change from authority to partner (Fainstein, 2000; Higdem, 2015) and thereby resolve the challenges of the different logics of partnership and participation in planning (Higdem, 2014). There have been theoretical studies of planning as an institutionalized arena for collaborative innovation (R Amdam, 2014) and the co-creation of futures (Higdem, 2014), as well as studies of the various dimensions of collaborative strategies (Higdem, 2017) and the impact of meta-governance in collaborative and territorial strategic planning situations (Higdem, 2015). Mainstream Innovation Theory Versus Friedmann Returning to Friedmann’s understanding of innovative planning, we shall discuss how the various factors of innovative planning relate to the current mainstream innovation theory. Friedmann (1966) promoted innovative planning that was clearly effective and that broke with established practices in planning as well as changing institutional arrangements and specific actions. Challenges to conventional wisdom are necessary to see complex or unruly issues as interlinked parts of the same problem with a common solution. It is interesting that Friedmann argued for a strategic focus in planning on the most urgent issues in society that required management through new ways of planning, rather than on advocating a comprehensive view. A strategic focus allows for several innovative moves. It is especially

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important that Friedmann introduced the resource-oriented perspective, which focuses on the combination of resources and attempts to mobilize them using different types of actors who could provide appropriate resources. This approach is valuable for understanding how a complex set of networked actors can create innovative change in practice. Innovative planning can either “legitimize new social objectives or … accomplish a major realignment of existing objectives” (Friedmann, 1966: 195). Friedmann also stated that innovative planning is “concerned with translating general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and concrete action programs”. Innovative planning is planning for not only politically given ends, but also ‘the ends of action’. As we have seen above, Friedmann called for innovation in mobilizing for action and in the actual initiatives and measures, which presupposes a change of values (or the value propositions) of a given society. The more recent literature on innovation regards the goal of collaborative innovation as the creation of new and qualitatively better solutions in society (Agger & Sørensen, 2018; Hartley, 2008; Hartley et  al., 2013; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011), although from a more liberal democratic and harmonious perspective than that of Friedmann’s. The presumption of a certain homogeneity of public value does not exist in his framework. Therefore, the movers and shakers pursuing changing goals or value propositions in society are usually ‘a creative minority’ who disagree with or are dissatisfied with the existing situation. These self-organized groups are an inevitable part of the innovative planning process and part of bottom-up planning. In addition, the planners themselves play vital roles in the emergence of innovative planning or of what we may call entrepreneurs in the planning system. The newer innovation literature emphasizes that it is possible to institutionalize potential types of innovation activity that can establish new arenas that create suitable institutional set-ups (Agger & Sørensen, 2018; Higdem, 2017), for example, and that may also evolve to become innovative solutions (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). As we understand it (Friedmann, 1966), no institutionalization of innovative planning or innovative solutions to societal challenges will occur without the strategic and collective entrepreneurial skills of a creative minority and innovative planners. The current literature has broadened the scope of the types of actors that may act as change agents, or those described as ‘boundary-spanners’ (Sørensen & Waldorff, 2014), such as politicians, representatives of NGOs and local

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communities, as well as business organizations and partners developing new policies (Higdem, 2017). The emphasis on public innovation in networked settings implies new roles for policy-making authorities and politicians when legitimacy may be ambiguous (Ringholm, 2017). Theories on the so-called interactive political leadership (Sørensen & Torfing, 2018a, 2018b) contribute to our understanding of how local, regional and national politicians may interact with a more ‘active and empowered citizenry’ to develop new policies for complex issues. Sørensen and Torfing’s project (2018a, 2018b) is to empower politicians in a legitimate and interactive democratic setting, and to design institutional arenas to enhance such positions. As mentioned above, local and regional strategic and innovative planning projects may provide such arenas. Gathering feedback on the actual consequences of innovation, which is consistent with the view that collaborative public innovation for public value should proceed in several steps, entails the testing of actions or major projects and assessment of their consequences (Friedmann, 1966). As we know, innovation may favour some groups or interests in society while disadvantaging others—or it may have unintended positive or negative side effects (Geuijen et al., 2017).

Innovation: The Emerging Third Approach in Planning As recently as 2012, Harper and Stein (2012) referred to calculation as the dominant tradition in planning, and regarded communication as a vital part of emerging approaches at that time. The field of planning theory is still dominated by these two main perspectives with respect to rationalities and planning focus (Sager, 1990, 1994). Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the growing interest in the field of planning theory for innovative planning—not least in the governance and management of the public sector—to manage situations characterized by wicked problems and for the methodical development of strategic planning and collaborative process development. The question we ask in this chapter is whether this growing interest means that innovation should be recognized as a third approach. Earlier we noted that some planning theorists treat planning as a communicative activity that includes innovation in one way or another (Hillier,

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2008; Innes, 2004). Innes (2004) argues that each of the following factors should be regarded as indicators of success: joint learning; intellectual, social and political capital; feasible actions; innovative problem-solving; a shared understanding of issues; shared heuristics for action; reframing of identities; partnership creation; and new institutional forms. Her argument is that communicative approaches stimulate innovative thinking and action more than they inhibit it (Innes, 2004: 302). Other planning theorists argue that creativity and innovation are restrained by planning theories rooted in Cartesian rationality and the calculative tradition (Hillier, 2008), as well as the Habermasian communicative theories (Mäntysalo, 2002; Stein & Harper, 2012; Tewdwr-Jones, 1998). Innovate: An Emerging Third Approach A growing number of planning theorists are using the concept of innovation. Inspired by Friedmann’s understanding of innovation combined with modern multi-actor and co-production governance systems, we have noted that innovative planning is mainly concerned with strategic, territorial, societal and co-produced change that breaks with established practices and seeks to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reprioritization of existing objectives. Taking Harper and Stein’s typology and defining terms as a starting point, we explore innovation as an emerging perspective in Chap. 12. We suggest to expand the table by one more approach, that is innovate as an interplaying and upcoming perspective to the two others, ‘calculate and communicate’ to Calculate, Communicate and Innovate.

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Ringholm, T. (2017). Ambiguous accountability in municipal innovation. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal , 22(3), article 2, 1–19. Rittel, H., & Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Integrating Knowledge and Practice to Advance Human Dignity, 4(2), 155–169. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01405730 Røyseland, A., & Vabo, S. I. (2012). Styring og samstyring—governance på norsk. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Sager, T. (1990). Communicate or calculate: Planning theory and social science concepts in a contingency perspective (Vol. 11). Stockholm: Nordplan. Sager, T. (1994). Communicative planning theory. Aldershot: Ashgate. Savini, F., Majoor, S., & Salet, W. (2015). Dilemmas of planning: Intervention, regulation, and investment. Planning Theory, 14(3), 296–315. https://doi. org/10.1177/1473095214531430 Sørensen, E. (2006). Metagovernance: The changing role of politicians in processes of democratic governance. The American Review of Public Administration, 36(98), 98–114. Sørensen, E. (2017). Political innovations: Innovations in political institutions, processes and outputs. Public Management Review, 19(1), 1–19. https://doi. org/10.1080/14719037.2016.1200661 Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2005). The democratic anchorage of governance networks. Scandinavian Political Studies, 28(3), 195–218. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (Eds.). (2007). Theories of democratic network governance. Houndmills: Palgrave. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2011). Enhancing collaborative innovation in the public sector. Administration & Society, 43(8), 842–868. https://doi. org/10.1177/0095399711418768 Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2018a). The democratizing of governance networks: From pluralization, via democratic anchorage, to interactive political leadership. Public Administration, 96, 302–317. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2018b). Designing institutional platforms and arenas for interactive political leadership. Public Management Review, 21, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2018.1559342 Sørensen, E., & Waldorff, S. B. (2014). Collaborative policy innovation: Problems and potential. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 19(3 article 2). Retrieved from http://www.innovation.cc/scholarlystyle/19_3_2_sorensen-waldorff_collaborate-policy494f11nov.pdf. Stein, S. M., & Harper, T. L. (2012). Creativity and Innovation: Divergence and convergence in pragmatic dialogical planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 32(1), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X11417829 Tewdwr-Jones, M. (1998). Collaborative planning: Shaping places in fragmented societies, P. Healey (Ed.), 338 pp. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-49573.

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CHAPTER 3

Planning and Innovation in a Collaborative Framework Roar Amdam

Introduction When Friedmann (1966: 194) made a distinction between allocative and innovative planning and claimed that there are significant behavioural differences between them, he contributed to the discussion of how to design a planning system that combines innovative and allocative planning. Since then, planning theory has shown that it is difficult to discuss innovative and allocative planning without a distinction between instrumental and communicative rationality, and without discussing planning as a combination of calculation and communication in collaborative planning practices (Alexander, 2000; Amdam, 2011, 2014; Sager, 1990). Healey (1997, 2003) and Innes and Booher (2015) have contributed significantly to this debate. Based on institutional theory they have argued in favour of collaborative planning approaches in which communicative practice supplements instrumental practice, and where the planning actor needs to consider the different institutional structural powers. Healey (2003, 2009) and Innes and Booher (2015) maintain that actors create

R. Amdam (*) Volda University College, Volda, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_3

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institutions, and actors engaged in planning and innovation can therefore recreate and change institutions. The concept of collaborative planning is a well-established theoretical concept. However, there has been some significant recent publications on collaborative innovation (Hartley, Sørensen, & Torfing, 2013; Torfing, 2016; Torfing & Triantafillou, 2016). There is now growing evidence that collaboration can spur public innovation (Bommert, 2010). Reading these scientific works, I find important similarities between collaborative planning and innovation: Both collaborative planning and innovation concern how to use knowledge to make changes, and they both include different views on how this is best done. The change processes require that the actors involved need to accept that they are mutually dependent on each other and must work together to meet the needs of society. This multi-­ actor change process ought to bring together politicians, academics and practitioners from public, private and volunteer sectors to cooperate with the clients/users/citizens as equals to solve problems and satisfy needs. However, collaborative processes with many actors with different perspectives and solutions are influenced by institutional structures in the society. The power of these institutional structures is embedded in the actors’ different disciplines, sectors, groups and communities and may be hard to change (Buanes & Jentoft, 2009). To overcome these challenges, collaborative planning and innovation must take on a pragmatic perspective. The purpose of this chapter is to show how instrumental and communicative rationality can be combined in a capacity-building and legitimating collaborative process. I first present various governance regimes and their impact on planning and innovation as institutional structural forces. Then I present the pragmatic perspective and discuss why collaborative planning and innovation require a combination of instrumental and communicative rationality, and why actors in collaborative processes must conduct wisdom when processes are regarded as the practice of knowing. At the end I discuss how conducting wisdom in collaborative planning and innovation can increase the collaboration’s institutional legitimacy and capacity to act. The term ‘wisdom’ is defined according to Davoudi (2015: 318) as the art of practical judgement based on the complex interrelationship between knowing what, how and why and doing. There are few studies on this topic, and we need more research on how collaborative planning can stimulate collaborative innovation under different political regimes. Agger and Sørensen (2018) have made a relevant

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contribution to the topic in their study on how frontline planners manage collaborative innovation processes.

The Collaborative Framework and the Networks’ Need for Legitimacy Collaborative processes have recently become an important topic in policy work due to a growing realisation that many complex societal problems, such as democratic deficits, increased need for new services, the amount of wicked problems, and lack of capacity to handle global political challenges, can best be solved through voluntary and innovative network cooperation between involved actors (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2016). When it comes to solving these urgent problems, it can be argued not to govern single-­ handedly but to co-produce and co-create regulations, services and solutions together with other relevant and affected actors who may have the knowledge, resources and ideas needed to foster new understandings and new solutions to problems. Co-production is more likely to be found in public regulations and service provision, and co-creation is needed in radical and innovative public problem-solving (Torfing, Sørensen, & Røiseland, 2016). Increased attention seems to be paid to innovation as something that can contribute to higher productivity, service improvement and enhanced problem-solving capacity in the public sector (Hartley et al., 2013). Agger, Damgaard, Hagedorn Krogh, and Sørensen (2015) have studied collaborative innovation processes and have presented a wide range of case studies from Northern Europe. They conclude that (1) collaborative innovation can change the way we think, (2) the design of the process has significance for the success or failure of the process, (3) leadership is important for promoting collaborative innovation and (4) collaborative innovation is relevant to all levels of management. However, Agger et al. (2015: 7) also emphasise that there are many obstacles to public innovation and highlight institutional barriers such as bureaucratic rules and routines, rigorous goals and performance management systems and control-oriented performance measurement systems. Furthermore, actors from private and public sectors may perform their roles in a rigid manner. Torfing et  al. (2016) therefore maintain that collaborative innovation requires transformative and distributed leadership.

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Three different governance regimes have usually been distinguished (Bryson et al. 2014). Traditional Public Administration (TPA) is based on rule management, hierarchy and professional judgement, but is perceived as bureaucratic in a negative sense. One variant of this regime, the NeoWeberian state (NWS), emphasises public tenants’ entrepreneurial leadership (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). These regimes emphasise input legitimacy (laws and regulations, resource allocations, etc.) and delivering productivity, and are often characterised as top–down managed and expert dominated. The modernisation of the public sector has held New Public Management (NPM) as an ideal for the last 30 years. NPM emphasises goal and performance management, customers, market thinking and output legitimacy. NPM as a public sector reform draws the public sector both in the direction of centralisation and in the direction of decentralisation, which leads to fragmentation of power and accountability, as well as a lack of wholeness (Christensen & Lægreid, 2004: 13). NPM has resulted in a rigid control regime, a search for standard procedures, and reduced professional judgement as well as reduced unity. The public sector has become more divided, and units have focused on achieving their production goals (effectiveness). Results, in the form of impacts and consequences for individuals (outcomes), have to a great extent been overlooked. New Public Management reflects a wish to promote both productivity and effectiveness, but research indicates that the NPM regime has had a beneficial effect on neither (Hood & Dixon, 2015; Johansen & Larsen, 2015). The emergence of New Public Governance (NPG) can be regarded as a response to NPM (Osborne, 2010). From the perspective of NPG, complexity and fragmentation, with the different sectors’ silo-thinking and the different units’ egoistical actions, are regarded as part of the problem, and the solution is a multi-actor collaboration with emphasis on the process and the creation of results. Legitimacy is achieved through satisfying needs (outcome legitimacy), and the regime is characterised as bottom-up governance. The NPG regime emphasises value management, purpose and the delivery of quality. It also promotes equality, dialogue, participation, co-­ creation, co-production and the need for increased professional judgement. The legitimacy and existence of collaborative networks is not based only on laws, regulations, political decisions and allocated money (input legitimacy) but also on assessments of how the public sector delivers in relation to objectives (output legitimacy) and expectations (outcome legitimacy).

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Sørensen and Torfing (2012) and Torfing et al. (2016) argue that NPG is a prerequisite for successful collaborative innovation. However, in practice, collaborative innovation as a multi-actor cooperation will be an arena with actors representing all three regimes. Actors who are structured by TPA and NWS will regard the hierarchy as innovation drivers and emphasise input legitimacy, those structured by NPM will regard competition as innovation drivers and emphasise output legitimacy, and those who practice NPG will emphasise outcome legitimacy and be deeply confident that networking will promote innovation (Hartley et al., 2013). Legitimacy is a complex concept. Suchman (1995: 574) defines an organisation’s legitimacy as a generalised perception or assumption that the organisation’s actions are desirable, proper or appropriate within socially constructed systems of norms, values, beliefs and definitions. In Scott’s discussion of organisations as institutions he distinguishes between technical and institutional systems (Scott, 2014). The institutional system is threefold, with regulative, normative and cognitive legitimacy, and together with the technological system and pragmatic legitimacy, the two systems create the organisation’s legitimacy. Thus, institutional theory maintains that organisations as institutions are held up by the following four pillars or mechanisms: Regulatory mechanisms and legitimacy. These mechanisms primarily provide top–down and instrumental power to the governing body based on legal elements. Here we find laws and regulations that must be obeyed to avoid judicial punishment. But regulatory mechanisms also include other elements with a regulatory function. Facts, evidence-based knowledge and other research that reveal causal relationships will usually have a major influence on how problems are defined and solved. However, NPG and collaborative processes need creative and flexible actors in addition to binding laws and facts in order to solve complex problems. Organisations and networks can achieve regulative legitimacy if they contribute to solving problems and satisfying people’s needs by following laws and regulations and making use of evidence-based knowledge. Collaborative processes demand value-based leadership focusing on enhancing democracy, equality, sustainability and other purposes inherent in the societal regulations. Normative mechanisms and legitimacy. These mechanisms are values and expectations that govern people’s actions. Norms in societies express what societies perceive as important and what societies expect from their inhabitants, thus establishing conformity in communities. Norms and

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social values reflect what is right and wrong and what is ethical and morally accepted behaviour. Thus, it becomes natural to regard the different governance regimes as normative mechanisms. According to NPG, organisations and collaborative networks of organisations can achieve normative legitimacy when they deliver high quality that help solve problems and meet the needs of societies according to what people regard as important. For network organisations, the challenge is to make different actors collaborate to fulfil the network’s common purpose and agree on what matters in a society. This can be a very demanding process if the network’s norms and values are in conflict with the collaborating actors’ own norms and values. Cognitive mechanisms and legitimacy. These are mental constructions in the form of categories, models and images about how thing and situations should be, and even how things and situations should be perceived, including how an organisation wants to be perceived, and something that plays a significant role in shaping its identity. Many organisations that want to be perceived as modern try to implement the NPG regime and adopt the collaborative innovation concept. However, the regime is complex and the term ‘collaborative innovation’ is unclear and can easily lead to different understandings, which means that actors may end up talking past each other and operating with different action models based on their understanding of how to innovate. Moving from one regime to another, the orthodoxy of cognitive constructions will be challenged. Accordingly, it becomes important to challenge the current public sector regime-based culture with its approaches and mental images. New procedures must be incorporated, and new cognitive models must be created. Pragmatic legitimacy. In institutional theory, the first three mechanisms are linked to institutional legitimacy. According to Klausen (2001), it is institutional legitimacy that defines what should be perceived as right and wrong and what counts as good and bad behaviour. Pragmatic legitimacy has to do with the technical system or environment where the organisation’s production of goods and services takes place, where the goods and services are paid for and where productivity is appreciated (Busch, Johnsen, & Vanebo, 2003)—it is a matter of usefulness and of calculating benefits versus costs. Being able to demonstrate usefulness can contribute to increased pragmatic legitimacy but different actors’ individual evaluations ‘of what is in it for me’ tend to override altruistic commitment to the network. Balancing the technical pragmatic legitimacy and institutional

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forms of legitimacy thus becomes an important leadership issue, and a decisive factor for a network’s success (Crosby & Bryson, 2010). In sum, network organisations need collaborative processes to legitimise themselves as institutions, meaning that network organisations must be able to see their concrete objectives and results in a larger context and to evaluate how their goals for productivity and effectiveness contribute to high-quality services and long-term need satisfaction.

A Pragmatic Perspective on Planning and Innovation as Processes The institutional theory is central to the discussion of planning (Healey, 1997, 2003; Innes & Booher, 2015). In these publications, communicative forms of planning are often contrasted with instrumental forms of planning. Based on an instrumental logic of planning, there must be causal links between knowledge and actions, which means that knowledge and action can be separated and that experts can provide knowledge that practitioners can use in actions. In communicative planning, dialogue between equal actors should transform knowledge and action into one process of reflection, learning and practice. In collaborative planning practice these two forms are combined pragmatically. Healey’s book Collaborative Planning is probably the intellectually richest version of collaborative planning theory (Healey, 1997). Her book contains chapters on spatial, economic and environmental planning, and her perspective on social processes draws not only from Jürgen Habermas but also from Anthony Giddens and other institutional theorists when she discusses planning as a ‘situated interaction between structural driving forces and local governance capacity’ (Healey, 2003: 103). According to Healey (2009) the philosophy of pragmatism has had an enormous influence on planning theory. Central pragmatists such as William James and John Dewey were philosophers of social hope and human potentiality, and they understood individual identity as formed in social contexts through all kinds of relations with other people. Pragmatists have a systemic approach to understanding complexity and to handle wicked problems. Developing knowledge is regarded as a process of discovering and learning through experience, and people and communities have a capacity to invent, create and transform. This capacity can be cultivated through critical and mutual reflections in planning as a practically situated, social

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learning activity that should draw on the full range of human capacities and promote the ability for critical reflection in the public sphere (Harper & Stein, 2006). Pragmatism also seems to influence collaborative innovation when public sector innovation is described as a complex and iterative process through which problems are defined; new ideas are developed and combined; prototypes and pilots are designed, tested and re-designed; and new solutions are implemented, diffused and problematised (Hartley et  al., 2013: 5; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011: 39). Similarly, Agger et al. (2015: 5) define public innovation as formulating, realising and spreading new public policies, services and procedures that bring about a qualitative change in the context. Mulgan and Albury (2003: 3) are more concretely focused on the term ‘improvement’ when they define innovation in a similar way: ‘Successful innovation is the creation and implementation of new processes, products, services and methods of delivery which result in significant improvements in outcomes, efficiency, effectiveness or quality’—in short, innovation is new ideas that work because results are improved and processes become more effective. In order to decide to what extent innovations are successful, the following questions must be answered: Does the change work? Do we like the result? Does it have side effects? (Gow, 2014: 18). As no single discipline or profession can handle all aspects of innovation (Fagerberg, 2005), it must be studied from different perspectives. Innovation can be regarded as complex social processes that are capable of interaction, learning and renewal (Bessant & Tidd, 2009; Brown & Duguid, 1991; Hamdouch, 2007). Planning theorist John Forester has explicitly taken pragmatism into planning by introducing the term ‘critical pragmatism’, as well as in his research on planning and being a planner. Forester combines a pragmatic approach with Jürgen Habermas’s communicative theory on social actions in public sphere contexts. Forester (2012) has identified planners’ pragmatic approach to planning as they facilitate dialogues, moderate debates and mediate conflicts in different contexts. Likewise, Agger and Sørensen (2018) have studied how frontline planners manage collaborative innovation processes, and through a synthesis of collaborative planning theory and theories of network governance and public innovation, they have identified several tensions and four coping strategies planners use in different situations: pilot, whip, culture-maker and communicator. Torfing et al. (2016) build on Ansell and Gash (2012) and show that actors in

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collaborative innovation act as conveners, facilitators and catalysts, but also write that collaborative innovation requires a transformative and distributed leadership. Actors in collaborative processes must have the freedom and responsibility to lead themselves within given institutional frames. Alexander (2000) writes that planning systems need this frame-setting function in addition to being communicative, coordinative and rational. Based on these sources, I interpret the concepts of collaborative planning and innovation as situated and pragmatic processes where politicians, academics and practitioners from public, private and volunteer sectors collaborate with citizens as equals in partnership to increase their common capacity and legitimacy to solve problems and satisfy needs.

The Need for Wisdom in Partnership and Collaborative Network Processes ‘Partnership’ is a common term for multi-actor cooperation and is defined as a committed cooperation between sovereign parties in a negotiated stakeholder community (Rhodes, 1997). Collaborative actors in multi-­ actor systems in regional and local planning and development work in Norway have been widely researched (Hanssen & Hofstad, 2017; Higdem, 2007). The research shows that the main feature of partnerships is that actors recognise that they are mutually dependent upon each other to solve problems and satisfy needs, and that they perceive themselves as being equal, show trust in each other and recognise that partnerships are subject to transparency and democratic control (Amdam, 2011). Based on Torfing et al. (2016) and Healey (2009), collaborative network processes can be described as processes in which two or more actors (from public, private or voluntary sectors) form a constructive cooperation to define problems and find solutions based on the fact that they act as different actors but can come to agreements and coexist while at the same having disagreements. As such, collaborating actors must challenge each other’s perspectives, problem formulations and problem-solving, which also means that the actors and their associated disciplines, professions and identities are challenged. Interdisciplinary conflicts are discussed by Buanes and Jentoft (2009), who have a clarifying discussion on professions and disciples from an institutional perspective. They emphasise that cross-professional and interdisciplinary approaches to defining and solving problems will inevitably encounter barriers of structural, cultural and

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cognitive nature. They regard disciplines as institutions and, using Scott’s (2014) institutional concept with different pillars, clearly state that professionals and institutions act as a regulatory system with ethical regulations and sanctions, a cognitive system that controls and develops their own knowledge base, and a normative system with important values and expectations about how problems shall be analysed and resolved. These institutional features also imply limitations: a discipline only has knowledge, terms and models to see parts of the problem and can thus promote only partial solutions. They argue that many complex problems do not fit within the limited subjects that well-established disciplines address (Buanes & Jentoft, 2009: 447), and that every form of collaboration across professions and disciplines will challenge institutional pillars. The implication is that in collaborative planning and innovation actors must complement and challenge each other’s understanding of the problems and patterns of action. However, for those involved, providing support for such new understandings and solutions may be challenging because they risk sanctions and exclusion from their own profession/discipline/sector when they act beyond the defined expectations and normal practice. In this way, disciplines/professions/sectors as institutions can become structuring forces influencing the collaborating actors. Furthermore, disciplines tend to get more and more institutionalised, and what were once professional guidelines can later be perceived as facts, that is, as objective truths rather than social constructions. Opposing professional norms and facts are known to be subject to debates, both in planning and innovation. As we know, one of the major debates concerns whether one should emphasise instrumental or communicative rationality in planning. Davoudi (2015) has made an important contribution to this debate, arguing in favour of turning attention to the concept of knowing and to conceptualise planning as the practice of knowing: ‘Instead of considering evidence as something that planners have (or seek to gain), we should focus on practice of knowing as something that planners do. Instead of thinking about knowledge as having an instrumental place in the planning process (i.e. to inform action), it is more useful to think about planning as a process of knowing and learning’ (Davoudi, 2015: 317). She further argues that conceptualising planning as a practice of knowing means acknowledging the interrelationship between knowing what (theories/concepts), knowing how (crafts/kills), knowing to what end or why (moral choices) and doing (action), and that planners may exercise practical judgement (wisdom) if they manage to combine these forms of

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knowledge in a critical reflective learning process. She does not deny the usefulness of objective knowledge in planning but emphasises that when planning becomes a practice of knowing, planning becomes a pragmatic process in which knowing is situated and provisional, distributed and collective, pragmatic and purposive, and mediated and contested. Thus, she regards planning as a process with many different structuring powers in the form of organisations and actors seeking benefits for themselves, where, over time, these stakeholders’ interactions will become structuring institutional forces in society with defined knowledge, prevailing beliefs, established values ​​and norms, and, not the least, legal and regulatory frameworks. According to Davoudi (2015: 321), planning implies that actors are going to show wisdom or phronesis based on a critical reflective process that combines theories/concepts, crafts/skills, moral choices and actions. The result is that knowledge becomes subjective and dependent on time, space and participating actors. I interpret what Davoudi writes as an argument for combining communicative and instrumental planning in a collaborative form of planning that can both challenge and change institutionalised power in organisations and communities. I believe this understanding is in line with what John Friedmann calls ‘the epistemology of social practice’ (Friedmann, 1978). He perceives empowerment as a capacity-building process that balances instrumental and communicative rationalities, that alternates between critical recognition and radical practices and that includes elements of social values, theory of reality, political strategies and social actions. He argues for continuous critical evaluation and successful revision of these elements. Thus, social practice epistemology also becomes a process of critical reflection and social learning. Friedmann argues that even if the epistemology of social practice goes beyond the epistemology of objective knowledge, it has a long way to go before it can replace the epistemology of objective knowledge, and it may not be desirable. In modern society, instrumental logic has dominated over communicative logic. Habermas (1996) and many with him (Dryzek, 1990; Forester, 1986, 1993; Friedmann, 1992; Healey, 1997, 2009) claim that in democratic political processes, communicative logic must be superior to instrumental logic. It is precisely a better balance between the two rationalities that Habermas (1996) argues for when he writes about the process of political will-making. Here, Habermas talks about several different discourses—regulative, normative, political/ethical and pragmatic—that together form a political legitimising process. His political

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process model uses a concept of legitimacy that resembles that of institutional organisational theory, and allows institutions to be both social facts and at the same time become reproduced or constructed through the practice of actors (Bukve, 2012: 60).

How Wisdom in Collaborative Processes Can Increase the Network’s Legitimacy I have argued above for combining instrumental and communicative logic in collaborative planning and innovation, and to regard collaborative processes as multi-actor networks that need to enhance their capacity and legitimacy to co-create solutions to complex problems in society. Now, I will discuss how actors at the intersections of these two logics in the collaborative process may increase the network’s capacity and legitimacy through a reflective learning process focusing on the actors’ practical judgement and planning as the practice of knowing, cf. Fig. 3.1. • The vertical line represents instrumental rationality and is linked mainly to regulative and pragmatic legitimacy. The horizontal line represents communicative rationality and is mainly linked to Regulative legitimacy Theory of reality

Political strategies

Knowing what – theories, concepts

Knowing how - craft, skills Cognitive legitimacy

Normative legitimacy Knowing to what end moral choices

Doing – actions

Social values

Instrumental rationality

Pragmatic legitimacy

Social actions

Communicativ rationality

Fig. 3.1  The collaborative co-creation spiral in planning and innovation

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­ ormative and cognitive legitimacy. A more equal combination of n the two rationalities in collaborative processes is needed. • The four sections represent Davoudi’s categories doing and knowing why, what and how, and Friedmann’s similar categories social action, social values, theory of reality and political strategies. • The co-creation spiral represents the collaborative learning process as the practice of knowing (Davoudi, 2015) and the social practice epistemology (Friedmann, 1978). Both are aimed at enhancing the collaborative network’s institutional capacity and legitimacy. Knowing Why: Social Values Between Pragmatic and Normative Legitimacy Social values control all actors’ interpretations of a situation, solutions they can accept and, of course, the actions that are considered useful. Values in politics are often expressed in communicative processes through visions and goals that represent what matters in communities here and now but also more fundamental societal norms and values such as equality, sustainability and democracy. Adhering to these norms can support collaborative networks with normative legitimacy. However, these altruistic social norms and values are challenged from the egoistic calculation of what is useful for me. In addition, when theories of reality discern facts and evidence and create new theories and concepts, established social values can be challenged and value conflicts can occur. For instance, when facts about global warming puts sustainability on the local and international agenda, conflicts arise over to what extent social, ecologically sustainable development is more important than economic development. This means that for the systematic planning and innovation work in organisations and networks, all activities, effects and consequences are assessed against values such as democracy, sustainability, equality and satisfaction of needs. In all collaborative processes, evaluating actions and effects against values and expectations is a core process when the goal is to stimulate learning and enhance legitimacy. Thus, the pragmatic and normative legitimacy can be increased.

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Knowing What: Theories About Reality Between Normative and Regulative Legitimacy Knowing what includes important and relevant knowledge for action. Knowledge of actual legislation, regulations and other instrumental regulative documents form an important part of the theories of reality. In addition, objective and evidence-based knowledge is often regarded as knowledge of instrumental regulatory facts in the same way as knowledge of legislation and regulations. But only evidence-based knowledge, which is independent of time and space, can be regarded as objective and value neutral. All other types of knowledge are based on values, either implicitly or explicitly. In planning practice much of the knowledge will, in any case, be based on actors’ subjective perceptions, which are largely influenced by social values. In this process, there will be conflicts between the different professions’ and disciplines’ normative and regulative-based arguments. Furthermore, there will be a dilemma between how the experts’ objective facts and evidence-based knowledge should be emphasised in relation to laypeople’s more experience-based knowledge. Early intervention to prevent dropping out from schools can illustrate a typical situation. When early intervention becomes regulative national policy, what is the evidence, what are the experiences and what values have influenced how the problem is understood? In collaborative processes, it is important for planners to facilitate dialogues that foster the most agreed upon understanding of the situation and of the internal and external challenges. This dialogue should most likely satisfy the ideal speech situation in communicative logic (Habermas, 1996), but in practice these ideal conversations are disturbed by strong value perceptions, factual knowledge and laws and other regulations. In order to increase the network’s normative and regulative legitimacy, planners need to have the skills to facilitate broad and inclusive dialogues about what is important for the participants, the network and the society as a whole. Knowing How: Political Strategies Between Regulative and Cognitive Legitimacy Knowing how is a matter of choosing strategies for obtaining desired changes. Strategies for solving problems and meeting challenges have both a regulatory and a cognitive dimension. First, strategies must remain within the instrumental legal and regulatory framework, but these

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regulatory constraints on strategies must be balanced against the cognitive models and what are regarded as appropriate ways to proceed. In collaborative processes, one can easily predict that every new strategy will meet some resistance based on cognitive models of how problems can and should be understood and handled, and on different interpretations of laws and regulations. Resistance may be more or less significant, and extreme standpoints need to be moderated if common and supported strategies are to be implemented. Participants in collaborative processes, and other actors that construct fake news in order to increase political power, can gain significant influence on the process and the results. In a democracy fake news producers can only be met with arguments, or alternatively with regulative interventions if they do not act according to laws and regulations. Political strategies are a matter of coordinating the use of economic and physical resources and personal resources like crafts and skills. The redesign of cities to make them smart and sustainable can serve as a typical example. Conflicts about design and use of resources can sometimes be solved through exercising instrumental top–down power alone, but more often moderated debates are necessary to create as large a degree of agreements as possible, which have strong regulative and cognitive legitimacy. I will maintain that it is important that the planners manage to moderate such debates. The Doing: Social Actions Between Cognitive and Pragmatic Legitimacy Social actions are created in an intersection between instrumental cost– benefit calculations and cultures characterised by cognitive models. Actions that are regarded as useful for people, units and organisations can be a strong motivational force for them to participate in network processes. In a network organisation where actors find that the benefits of innovations are small in proportion to costs, conflicts of interests can easily arise. In addition, over time, patterns of action can form cultures with some form of orthodoxy, professional standards and organisational traditions, which can hinder collaborative co-creation. According to Forester (2012) planners must therefore have skills that enable them to handle conflicts and establish action plans that determine who is to do what and when, thereby increasing the network’s cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy. According to Scott (2014) pragmatical legitimacy belongs to the technical system, and regulative, normative and cognitive legitimacy to the

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institutional systems. However, it is reasonable to claim that pragmatic legitimacy is a prerequisite for achieving the institutional forms of legitimacy. If an action is considered practically useless, the basis for strong institutional legitimacy may vanish. This may be one of the many reasons why plans and solutions are often not implemented (Offerdal, 2005). The Complexity of Practical Judgement The discussion above on how collaborative processes can increase legitimacy shows that the multitude of actors in the interactive network process face several structural forces that can reduce the actors’ acceptance and the network’s legitimacy. This situation is challenging not only for the planners but for all the representatives involved because they are supposed to conduct wisdom in a position constrained by sometimes conflicting regulative, normative, cognitive and pragmatic structural forces from the network and from the organisation they represent. However, if the planner and other participants in the network regard planning and innovation as the practice of knowing, and through a mutual learning processes are able to increase their ability to conduct wisdom, there is a potential to build legitimacy and capacity. Thus, the power to design, implement, change and control collaborative network processes becomes a very political issue.

Conclusions and Implications Collaborative planning and innovation are prerequisites for the success of the New Public Governance regime. When planning and innovation are regarded as collaborative processes, the same challenges arise for both, and lack of legitimacy is the main challenge. The discussion in this chapter shows that collaborative processes have the potential to stimulate critical reflection and learning, and that the process can increase network organisations’ legitimacy and capacity to handle complex issues. In this critically reflective process, the practice of knowing becomes more central than instrumental knowledge. For planners and other actors in collaborative processes, it is therefore important to conduct practical judgement and wisdom by balancing instrumental and communicative rationality in a spiral-like co-creation process that includes social values, theories of reality, political strategies and social actions. The exercise of this type of wisdom can enhance the multi-actor organisations’ regulatory, normative, cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy and improve the networks’ capacity to

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solve problems and satisfy needs. But to what extent the networks succeed depends on how the process is designed, how the actors play their roles and how the actors’ associated institutional structural forces are challenged and transformed into a united network organisation aimed at solving social problems better than the sum of the actors’ traditional solutions.

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Bukve, O. (2012). Lokal og regional styring  – eit institusjonelt perspektiv. Oslo: Samlaget. Busch, T., Johnsen, E., & Vanebo, J. O. (2003). Endringsledelse i det offentlige. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Christensen, T., & Lægreid, P. (2004). Fragmented state – The challenges of combining efficiency, institutional norms and democracy. Working paper 3 – 2004. Bergen: Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies. Crosby, B. C., & Bryson, J. M. (2010). Integrative leadership and the creation and maintenance of cross-sector collaboration. Leadership Quarterly, 21, 211–230. Davoudi, S. (2015). Planning as practice of knowing. Planning Theory, 14(3), 316–331. Dryzek, J.  S. (1990). Discursive democracy. Politics, policy, and political science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fagerberg, J. (2005). Innovation: A guide to the literature. In J.  Fagerberg, D.  C. Mowery, & R.  R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Forester, J. (1986). Planning in the face of power. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Forester, J. (1993). Critical theory, public policy and planning practice: Toward a critical pragmatism. Albany, NY: University of New York Press. Forester, J. (2012). On the theory and practice of critical pragmatism: Deliberative practice and creative negotiations. Planning Theory, 12(1), 5–22. Friedmann, J. (1966). Planning as innovation: The Chilean case. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32(4), 194–204. Friedmann, J. (1978). The epistemology of social practice: A critique of objective knowledge. Theory & Society, 6, 75–92. Friedmann, J. (1992). Empowerment. The politics of alternative development. Cambridge, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. Gow, J.  I. (2014). Public sector innovation theory revisited. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 19(2), article 1. Retrieved from http://innovation.cc/scholarly-style/19_2_1_gow_public-invoate-theory.pdf Habermas, J. (1996). Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hamdouch, A., (2007). Innovation clusters and networks: A critical review of the recent literature. Paper at the 19th EAEPE Conference, Universidade do Porto, 1–3 November 2007. Hanssen, G. S., & Hofstad, G. (2017). Regional planlegging som flernivåkoordinering. Kart og Plan, 77, 21–39. Harper, T.  L., & Stein, S. (2006). Dialogical planning in a fragmented society. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

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Hartley, J., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2013). Collaborative innovation: A viable alternative to market competition and organizational entrepreneurship. Public Administration Review, 73, 821–830. Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative planning. Shaping places in fragmented societies. London: Macmillan Press. Healey, P. (2003). Collaborative planning in perspective. Planning Theory, 2(2), 101–123. Healey, P. (2009). The pragmatic tradition in planning thought. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 28(3), 277–292. Higdem, U. (2007). Regionale partnerskap – en innovasjon med staten som partner? In H.  Teigen & R.  Rønning (Eds.), En innovativ forvaltning? Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Hood, C., & Dixon, R. (2015). A government that worked better and cost less? Evaluating three decades of reforms and changes in UK central government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Innes, J., & Booher, D.  E. (2015). A turning point for planning theory? Overcoming dividing discourses. Planning Theory, 14(2), 195–213. Johansen, Å., & Larsen, A. C. (2015). Mål- og resultatstyring i norske kommuner: Virkninger for produktivitet og effektivitet? Nordiske Organisasjonsstudier, 17(1), 31–61. Klausen, K.  K. (2001). New public management  – en fortolkingsramme for reformer. In T.  Busch, E.  Johnsen, K.  K. Klausen, & J.  O. Vanebo (Eds.), Modernisering av offentlig sektor. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Mulgan, G., & Albury, D. (2003). Innovation in the public sector. Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office. Retrieved from http://www.sba.oakland.edu/faculty/mathieson/mis524/resources/readings/innovation/innovation_in_the_public_ sector.pdf Offerdal, A. (2005). Iverksettingsteori – resultatene blir sjelden som planlagt, og det kan være en fordel. In H. Baldersheim & L. E. Rose (Eds.), Det kommunale laboratorium, Teoretiske perspektiver på lokal politikk og organisering. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Osborne, S. P. (Ed.). (2010). The new public governance. London: Routledge. Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2011). 2011: Public management reform: A comparative analysis  – New public management, governance, and the Neo-Weberian State. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Rhodes, R. A. W. (1997). Understanding governance. Policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability. Buckingham, PA: Open University Press. Sager, T. (1990). Communicate or calculate: Planning theory and social science concepts in a contingency perspective. Stockholm: Nordisk Institute for Studies in Urban and Regional Planning. Scott, W.  R. (1995/2014). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2011). Samarbejdsdrevet innovation i den offentlige sector. In E. Sørensen & J. Torfing (Eds.), Samarbejdsdrevet innovation – i den offentlige sector. København: Jurist og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2012). Introduction. Collaborative innovation in public sector. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 18(1), 1–14. Suchman, M.  C. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. The Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 571–610. Torfing, J. (2016). Collaborative innovation in public sector. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Torfing, J., Sørensen, E., & Røiseland, A. (2016). Transforming the public sector into arena for co-creation: Barriers, drivers, benefits, and the way forward. Administration & Society, 28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399716680057 Torfing, J., & Triantafillou, P. (2016). Enhancing public innovation by transforming public governance? In J. Torfing & P. Triantafillou (Eds.), Enhancing public innovation by transforming public governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 4

Politicians’ Roles in Planning: Seen or Ignored? What Do We Know About Politicians’ Roles in Planning? Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem

Introduction The main purpose of this book is to bring innovation more distinctly into planning theory discourse. In this chapter, we follow up on the argument that innovative planning and innovation in planning have increasing relevance for municipalities, counties and national government agencies. Further, we argue that discussion of public planning must include both those whose role it is to lead and make the overriding decisions in such planning processes, namely the politicians, and their professional activity, namely politics. Political innovations may take three forms related to public value, politics and policy (Sørensen, 2017). Innovation within a polity may include efforts to reorganise institutional frameworks, and their external boundaries with other polities, that regulate how legitimate democratic processes are enacted. This is the framework within which politicians are elected, operate and make decisions about what is of public value

A. Hagen (*) • U. Higdem Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_4

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(Sørensen, 2017). Second, innovation in politics is understood as ‘the development and implementation for political actors to obtain democratically legitimate power and influence. Finally, innovations in policy involve reformulations and elaborations of new political visions, goals, strategies and policy programmes that aim to guide the production of public value’ (Sørensen, 2017: 6). Planning, we argue, creates an arena that may foster all three forms of innovation, especially in politics and policy. For more on public value, see Chap. 12. In the Norwegian context, the Planning and Building Act (PBA, 2008) institutionalises publicly elected councils, locally and regionally, as responsible for planning activities. Planning is a management tool for politicians locally, regionally, nationally and even globally. Planning processes have the potential to function as important democratic channels for the public and important meeting arenas for politicians, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), businesses, stakeholders and civil society. They provide opportunities for democratic co-creation of policies, strategies and actions. This implies that a book about innovative societal planning should include a discussion of the importance of politics, and the roles of politicians, in such planning in municipalities, counties and national government agencies. This chapter briefly overviews the extent of planning theorists’ concern with politicians and their roles in planning. By drawing on a systematic literature review, including articles and books discussing mainstream planning theory, we make clearer how politics and politicians have been regarded by the most widely read and quoted contributors to mainstream planning theory debate. Our similar review of the latest major evaluation of Norwegian planning, EVAPLAN (Hanssen Sandkjær & Aarsæther, 2018a, 2018b), allows a comparison of international and Norwegian perspectives. We conclude by outlining an innovative societal type of planning in which politicians are expected to play a leading role. Planning is inherently a political activity that neither can nor should escape politics. As innovation becomes increasingly evident in planning practices and theories, we must ensure that the discussion also encompasses politicians and politics. Therefore, we suggest a much-needed new research direction, exploring the roles of politicians and political activity in planning, including the whole area of political innovation. This is important given that planning theory and research seek to both describe and prescribe the future of planning.

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Politics and Politicians in Planning Theory This section reviews the planning theory debate about politicians and politics since the 1960s. We examine the degree to which politicians, and their activity of politics, have appeared in planning theory debates and practice research. This review does not, however, provide a basis for an analysis of the writers’ perceptions of the roles of politicians, the importance of political activity or the relationship between planners and politicians and so on. Our main concern is to identify the extent of such discussion, although we also present some pertinent findings, ideas and opinions. The general impression is that politicians and political activity are clearly understudied. Nevertheless, the studied texts do provide interesting material for necessary upcoming theory development and practice research. Using the terms politics, politicians, planning, planning theory, we conducted a keyword search in the scientific article databases of Oria, Scopus, Academic Search, Google Scholar and Web of Science. In parallel, we examined three main types of text: (1) planning theory ‘readers’ or anthologies; (2) books written by the most influential planning theorists; and (3) journals. Readers, books that may include new contributions but mostly contain previously published articles, are an especially good source for identifying the themes and issues that have influenced planning theory debates over the decades. Their editors, acknowledged planning theorists, have systematically selected the most outstanding and relevant planning theory texts, including the most used and cited journal articles and book chapters. It was therefore particularly useful and interesting for us to examine to what extent politicians and politics are discussed in these readers.

Main Impressions: The Ignorance and Lack of Interest of Politicians Overall, we content-checked about 15 readers, 30 books and 10 journals. Politics and politicians are sometimes ignored and controversial in planning research and theory. Planning theorists tend to highlight the planner as by far the most important participant in the planning process, the person on which a planning project mostly depends. Politicians, on the other hand, are only seldom present in descriptive and normative planning theory texts. They are usually portrayed as part of the problem, rather than as part of the solution (Alexander, 1984; Hagen, 1998; Kravitz, 1970;

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Rabinovitz, 1967). Rittel and Webber, however, emphasise that the planner is a player in a political game (Rittel & Webber, 1973). Only a few of these widely recognised, used and cited planning theory contributions discuss the roles of politicians, or how they play them, in planning. Even in the texts that discuss politics and politicians, we seldom find meaningful consideration of party politics. This is an unfortunate constraint, particularly in countries with many political parties, such as the Nordic countries. Politics and planning are both activities characterised by various types of disagreements: ideological, value-based, knowledge-­ related and so on. If we want to understand such conflicts, and how they may be handled through politics and planning, we cannot avoid addressing party politics. We also found few contributions in which politicians have presented their views on politics, on the interaction between planning and politics or on their roles as politicians. It is interesting that, in mainstream planning theory texts, we encounter little research and theory development based on direct dialogue with politicians about their necessary and inherently party-political activities. Planning theory contributions within the mainstream international planning theory debate show little interest in or understanding of party politics, even though, we argue, this is a fundamental element of local, regional and national political systems worldwide.

Readers We have searched through about 15 particularly influential readers: those whose contributions have been widely read and quoted and have thus played a major role in planning theory development. Most of these include theoretical contributions regarding the political nature of planning; only a few go beyond the generalised impressions presented above. For example, ‘A Reader in Planning Theory’ (Faludi, 1973) includes several contributions that define planning as a political activity. We learn about politics and politicians, but mainly from a planner’s perspective. ‘The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning’ is one of the foremost readers in debating the roles of politicians in planning. However, there is little research based on conversations with politicians themselves. We find no reflection upon, among other topics, interactions between politicians or the role of political parties in planning processes. Other significant and much read and quoted readers, such as ‘Planning Ethics. A Reader in Planning Theory, Practice and Education’ (Hendler, 1995, 2017) and

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‘Explorations in Planning Theory’ (Mandelbaum, Mazza, & Burchell, 1996), cover planning practice extensively but contain little about politicians in planning. ‘Readings in Planning Theory’ (Campbell & Fainstein, 1996, 2003, 2012) includes topics like ‘Foundations of Twentieth-Century Planning Theory’, ‘Planning: Justifications, Critiques, and New Directions’, ‘Planning Types’ and ‘Planning in Action’. There are some reflections on politics and politicians; however, the politicians are only talked about, not talked to. In ‘Foundations of the Planning Enterprise: Critical Essays in Planning Theory (Vol. 1)’ (Healey & Hillier, 2008a) and ‘Contemporary Movements in Planning Theory: Critical Essays in Planning Theory (Vol. 3)’ (Healey & Hillier, 2008b), politicians are hardly mentioned and mostly in a negative way. In ‘Readings in Planning Theory’ (Fainstein & DeFilippis, 2016), politicians are primarily referred to throughout the book as simply one of several actors in planning processes. Most texts lack any politician’s perspective on assessment and thinking in planning. The main impression gained from these readers is that politicians and politics are not sufficiently interesting or important to be written about.

Books and Journal Articles In this section, we assess whether, in recent decades, the most widely quoted books and journal articles in planning theory debates have paid attention to politicians and politics? ‘What Planners do: Power, Politics, and Persuasion’ (Hoch, 1994) discusses political advocacy, planners’ political roles and so on. However, Hoch presents and discusses politics from the perspective of the planner. ‘Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action’ (Friedmann, 1987) gives very thorough consideration to planning as a political activity, but again presents the position of the planner or the researcher, not the politician. Similarly, in ‘The Deliberative Practitioner’ (Forester, 1999), political judgements are thoroughly discussed, but with the planner, not the politician, as the ‘practitioner’. ‘Planning as Persuasive Storytelling’ (Throgmorton, 1996) introduces planning as storytelling in a compelling way. The planner is the storyteller, whereas the politician is barely mentioned. ‘Mastering the Politics of Planning: Creating Credible Plans and Policies That Make a Difference’ (Benveniste, 1989) contains interesting reflections on the relationship between politics and planning, but not much about the relationship between planners and politicians.

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There are exceptions in which politicians have been interviewed and are in focus. ‘Collaborative Planning’ (Healey, 2006a) discusses politics, planning and representative democracy. Hofstad and Torfing write about collaborative innovation as a tool in regional governance (Hofstad & Torfing, 2015). Willis has interviewed politicians about climate change and the dilemmas for politicians in carrying out their representative functions (Willis, 2018). Sager and Ravlum, in ‘From Projects to Strategies: A Transaction Cost Approach to Politicians’ Problems with Strategic Transport Planning’, examined what elected politicians find difficult in their strategic policy-making (Sager & Ravlum, 2005). Manetti et al. discussed scenario planning methods with politicians and identified what politicians themselves think about this type of planning (Manetti, Zunino, Frattini, & Zini, 2010).

Planning Theory Texts Where Politicians Are in Focus Some contributions are particularly pertinent to the roles of politicians in planning. Ponzini and Rossi discuss their potential to innovate in the article ‘Becoming a Creative City: The Entrepreneurial Mayor, Network Politics and the Promise of an Urban Renaissance’ (Ponzini & Rossi, 2010). An article about a strategic planning approach to rural shrinkage in Denmark includes a similar discussion (Tietjen & Jørgensen, 2016). When Albrechts discusses reframing strategic spatial planning by using a coproduction perspective, he stresses that strategic planners have an active but not dominant role in coproduction (Albrechts, 2013). He argues that coproduction involves political strategy, in which politicians, through representative governments, have important roles to play. Strategic planning cannot escape politics because it concerns making choices, and it must make values and ethics transparent, ‘but it is “not” politics (it does not make the ultimate decisions)’ (Albrechts, 2013: 54). The coproduction strategy does not reject, but rather, complements representative democracy. Baum points out the importance of seeing politicians as a part of the planning ‘game’ (Baum, 1988). Alesina and Tabellini (2007) discuss the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians and claim that the view that politicians choose policies and bureaucrats implement them is too simplistic (Alesina & Tabellini, 2007). They remind us that politicians have to be concerned with re-election and that politics has its own logic

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and its own rationality (Flyvbjerg, 1998; Offerdal, 1992; Olsen, 1994). Campbell makes it clear that while the relationship between a bureaucrat and a politician occupies a pivotal position within planning activities, it remains infrequently discussed in the academic literature (Campbell, 2001). Another important contribution, ‘Collaborative Innovation: A Viable Alternative to Market Competition and Organizational Entrepreneurship’ (Hartley, Sørensen, & Torfing, 2013), argues that changes to society are sought by administrative staff as well as many elected or appointed politicians through innovation in planning; this requires new forms of political leadership. Other contributions with a similar message include ‘Developing Sustainable Societies—A Dialogical Network Perspective’ (Ingulfsvann, Jakobsen, & Nystad, 2015) and ‘Dimensions of Collaborative Strategies and Policy Innovation’ (Higdem, 2017a, 2017b). Zeemering discusses the ways that local politicians seek policy advice in development and planning processes (Zeemering, 2019). Head & Alford write about wicked problems in public policy (Head & Alford, 2015), critically reviewing how politicians act in planning and decision-making processes. They find, amongst other things, that politicians are often keen to pursue ‘solutions’ in planning processes, even when the evidence is uncertain.

Politicians and Planning in the Norwegian Context The international planning theory debate discussed above has also significantly influenced many Norwegian planning researchers (Aarsæther, 2013; J. Amdam & Veggeland, 1991; R. Amdam, 2010; Kleven, 2011; Sager, 1990, 1994, 2007). In this section, we review the latest Norwegian research on planning in the context of the PBA on the ‘in practice’ role of politicians. In Norway, local and regional councils are the planning authorities with different responsibilities under the PBA. As Aarsæther and Hofstad (2018) point out, administrative expertise and relations between politicians are important. The politicians in power have leading and governing roles in all three tiers: local, regional and national. The professionals, planners and other experts are expected to facilitate rather than to lead societal planning. To illustrate the planning roles of politicians in practice, we reviewed documents and publications from EVAPLAN, the recent evaluation of the

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PBA.1 That research asked whether the law is working as intended, and what areas for improvement exist (Hanssen Sandkjær & Aarsæther, 2018a, 2018b). The evaluation was exceptional in scope; it has been well recognised and much used by interested parties from national state authorities to practitioners. Our systematic review of the EVAPLAN results focused on the attention paid to politicians and politics, as in section ‘Politics and Politicians in Planning Theory’. In addition, we sought findings on the ways politicians think about planning practices and legislation. Two types of data emerged: (1) national survey answers from political and administrative elite, that is, the mayors and heads of planning or the CEOs from municipalities and counties; and (2) data from interviews in eight sample municipalities and two counties.2 We found that Norwegian planning research is similar in character to the mainstream planning theory research and debate, meaning that there is little evidence that politicians are interviewed about their experiences with or views on planning. In particular, hardly any attention has been paid to part-time politicians, who are the dominant politician group by number, both locally and regionally. Instead, as with this research, most studies have focused on mayors and other political leaders. One of the many reasons for the selection of such informants is that full-time politicians seem to be the most involved in planning and development (Higdem & Sandkjær Hanssen, 2014) and, therefore, the most informed. The interviews in the EVAPLAN process also focused on what may be called ‘elite politicians’. The research identified a gap between the planning ideals of political governance enshrined in laws and regulations (PBA), and how politicians play their roles in practice. The unfortunate implication is that the leading and governing roles of politicians, as intended through the PBA and other legislation, have been limited (Hanssen Sandkjær, Aarsæther, & Winge, 2018). In planning, political governing, leadership and steering date from the planning law of 1965 1  The EVAPLAN research was financed by the Norwegian Research Council in the DEMOSREG II-programme and conducted during 2014–2018. The project was led by the Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) in cooperation with nine national and international research institutes and universities. HiNN (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences) and Ulla Higdem also participated in the research project. 2  Altogether, there were 11 case municipalities, but no data were available from 3. In addition, we refer to a survey that mayors also answered; however, there were too few to establish a representative sample.

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(‘Bygningsloven 1965’ [The Building Act 1965] (Aarsæther & Hofstad, 2018): ‘But through these changing times, the law of planning has kept the principle of elected politicians having the leading role in local planning’ (Aarsæther & Hofstad, 2018). Another overall impression is that politicians are the most engaged with area-based planning (Hanssen Sandkjær, 2018). The more societal and developmental planning becomes, the less interest and engagement are found amongst politicians (Aarsæther & Hofstad, 2018; Hanssen Sandkjær, 2018; Kvalvik Jacobsen, 2018). However, the EVAPLAN study suggests increased positive regard for social development planning as an instrument for political governing by the mayors. Local and county (regional) politicians value this planning form as a tool for policy development and the strategic management of economic as well as territorial disposition of resources; however, this potential is far from realised (Aarsæther & Hofstad, 2018; Higdem & Hagen, 2017). Compared with the heads of planning, mayors tend to regard the engagement of politicians in planning as being greater. The study also found that a vital precondition of political engagement in planning is a meaningful interplay between politicians and their administrations, including planners. Such interplay can contribute to politicians actually leading planning activities and to government by policy-­making. CEOs and planners expect to be actively engaged in shaping politicians’ roles in planning (Hanssen Sandkjær, 2018).

Innovative Societal Planning In this section, we outline and argue for an innovative type of societal planning where political activity, politics and politicians are clearly present. Innovative societal planning is increasingly relevant for municipalities, counties and national government agencies. This is because planning must deal with today’s complex public issues (Healey, 2006a, 2006b), as well as an increasing number of wicked problems or unruly issues (Rittel & Webber, 1973), including differences and tensions between social classes and countries, sustainable development, democracy, migration and immigration, public health, housing, poverty and urbanisation. Such wicked problems call for new approaches to policy development and new strategies and measures within the arena of planning (Hagen & Higdem, 2019; Hofstad & Torfing, 2015). This is why politicians have vital roles to play in strategic planning approaches as new and innovative policy

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development is seldom part of the expertise of planners in liberal, representative democracies. Public planning is a territorial activity. While a planning authority serves a designated area such as a municipality, region or nation-state, the public sector, through its planners, seldom holds a monopoly on planning. As several strands of the literature emphasise, the public sector, and thereby planning, is dependent on numerous other actors to achieve mutual societal development goals (Healey, Cars, Madanipour, & de Magalhães, 2002). In addition, the territory of a planning authority may not correspond with the boundaries of the issues and challenges at hand. Therefore, planning authorities must find solutions within inter-municipal, inter-­ regional and international planning (e.g. the European Security and Defence Policy (European Commission, 2002)). We suggest that societies with increasingly wicked problems, and planning processes involving complex interactions, need to be more innovative, effective and democratic in their planning (Hagen & Higdem, 2019). Planners and politicians, all participants in planning, have no choice but to be creative.

Collaborative Innovation and Collaborative Planning Collaborative innovation, or co-creation of innovation, is at the forefront of ways to manage multifaceted networks of public sector services. Collaborative innovation in public policy and strategy-making—as in strategic planning—has attracted relatively little attention until recent years (Agger & Sørensen, 2016; Higdem, 2017b; Hofstad & Torfing, 2015; Sørensen & Waldorff, 2014). The networked governance model revitalises the role of the policy-makers, while collaboration in networks may spur innovation in politics (Hartley et al., 2013). Some European literature highlights the role signified by the phrase ‘the development-­politician’ (Sønderskov, 2019b), which is relevant in a planning context. This developmental role differs from the roles described in the earlier literature, such as ombudsman, day-to-day service provider and state-policy implementor (Sønderskov, 2019a; Willumsen, Bråtå, Higdem, Lesjø, & Ringholm, 2019). Even if much needed, scholars argue that such a change of political roles is difficult for politicians (Sønderskov, 2019a, 2019b; Sørensen, 2017). It is obvious that politicians—from the professional elite to the many part-timers—must play a significant role in the development and

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implementation of innovative and collaborative planning that creates policy innovation. Planning and politics have always had a common feature, namely social change through collective participation and capacity-building.

Public Value Creation of public value is the public sector’s aim for collaborative innovation activities. In the context of local and regional development, and expanding on Jean Hartley et al. (2013), public value development can be defined as ‘a collective effort of societal improvement of public value within policies and strategies approved by public authorities in a given geographical area’ (Higdem, 2017b: 9). This implies that politicians may seek to co-create public value with other actors, and that public value is not created by political authorities alone. Hence, knowledge and information from organised societal actors contribute to policy innovation. It is, however, the politician’s task and privilege to decide what is of public value. This implies, in practising planning processes, that politicians lead collaborative planning and development until conclusions and decisions are made in political councils. The territorial entities with responsibilities of planning for societal development within and across borders, such as municipalities and counties, are the framework-makers for collaborative policy formation. Therefore, politicians in collaboration play a vital role as makers or approvers of the framework for the collaboration, and hence, define the ways in which new actors may contribute to knowledge dissemination and an understanding of the territory. This may lead to a new and more nuanced understanding of the policy problem, which, in turn, may lead to the formulation of new political visions and strategies. Therefore, such collaboration in policy formation paves the way for new role perceptions among the actors, including politicians, in policy implementation and enhanced territorial governance. Such rhetorical processes are not only about sharing beliefs, arguing, negotiating or finding solutions; a major benefit lies in the creation of new thoughts and common narratives achieved through dialogue (Ramírez, 1995; Throgmorton, 1996). As we identified earlier, little research has addressed how this works in practice. However, accessible empirical evidence strongly suggests that the creation of new public value policies for territorial, regional or local development are not easy (Higdem, 2015; Higdem, 2017b). For politicians to contribute actively to innovative policy development, their normative

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roles have to change; for example, they need to span boundaries and become interactive policy-makers (Sønderskov, 2019b; Eva Sørensen, 2016; E.  Sørensen & Torfing, 2011). Recent research suggests a new innovator role for mayors, expanding their traditional societal, entrepreneurial and service monitoring roles (Willumsen et al., 2019). Changing roles for politicians is an essential part of policy innovation in planning.

How Can Politics and Politicians Contribute to Planning? Planning is a strategic tool for politicians that provides opportunities for steering and management. Therefore, the planning research and theory agenda must pay more attention to politics and politicians. Our review (section ‘Politics and Politicians in Planning Theory’) illustrated that, over the years, international mainstream planning theory and research has paid little regard to politics. Politicians are not a subject of study and seem to be systematically ignored in not only Norway but also the mainstream international planning theory literature. There are, however, many interesting exceptions. We conclude that when planning theory is concerned with politics and politicians, it mainly asks how politics and politicians can contribute to planning in society. The main agent is the planner; the politician is, at best, a constructive participant, along with many others. The overarching activity is planning, while politics and politicians make three necessary contributions: (1) knowledge about the planning processes, including that about living and working in the community (the role of a citizen), about what citizens think about various issues (the role as ombudsman), about how to engage in dialogue with citizens, including voters, about relevant political visions—strategies—and party programmes, and about how political decision-making systems work; (2) anchoring planning processes with citizens and political party organisations; and (3) their capacity to prioritise and make decisions.

How Can Planning Improve Politics? While politicians should lead and control societal planning, we argue that research should also ask in what way planning contributes to political governance of the society, and how planning and planners may improve

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politics, rather than how politicians and politics may contribute to planning. Turning around the relationship between planning and politics does not imply a downgrading of planning. On the contrary, such a viewpoint gives planning and planners an important position in society, in that: (1) they contribute professional knowledge to the planning processes, including knowledge about how to engage in dialogue with citizens, including voters, about how to develop good interactions between planners, administrators and politicians, and about substantial facts of the planning theme or society; and (2) they contribute research-based knowledge of how politics works (describing politics) and should work (prescribing politics), including in planning. These are important contributions from planning and planners to politics and politicians.

Describing and Prescribing Politicians in Innovative Planning This chapter has suggested that politicians’ roles in (innovation and) planning are understudied. Elite or full-time politicians such as mayors have gained more attention than the average part-time politician (Hagen, 2020; Higdem, 2015; Higdem & Sandkjær Hanssen, 2014). Consequently, we suggest a renewed research agenda in planning studies where the relationship between politicians and planning is re-examined in fruitful ways to determine how planning can best contribute to democratically anchored innovation in politics. In well-functioning democracies at the local, regional and national levels, politicians play essential roles both within and outside parliamentary structures, political parties, organisations and general society. Hence, it is crucial that all types of politicians are the subject of researchers and planning theorists: parliamentarians at all levels of government, from elite to part-time, political party officials and members, and lobbyists from NGOs and other action groups. As planning researchers and planning theorists, we need to elicit the perceptions of planning held by elite and part-time politicians. We need to talk with those who engage in political activities and play different and demanding political roles. How do politicians assess whether and in what ways they should govern/steer planning? How do politicians assess their facilitation, management and steering of planning? Which institutions, such as party organisations, or administrations contribute to planning?

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Such research requires a fundamental understanding and acceptance that politics revolves around ideological differences and debates among politicians and political parties. Planning theorists and planners should neither ignore nor oppose the essential nature and logic of politics. Disagreement is an inherent element of politics, something that planning should accept and use to improve planning practices. We expect that, in planning management, there is a gap in the relationship between political leadership and administrative expertise, including planners, between normative expectations and practical realities. We believe that this is especially the case in societal planning characterised by co-creation and governance. We argue that planning documents and processes are important policy tools for politicians. Planning processes have the potential to function as both important democratic channels for the public and important meeting arenas for politicians, NGOs, businesses, stakeholders and civil society. They provide opportunities for collaboration as well as democratic co-creation of policies, strategies and actions. Therefore, planning research should contribute to political innovation, leading to public value, by helping develop political institutions, processes and outputs (Sørensen, 2017). Hence, we suggest that a planning research agenda should address the following questions: 1. How should innovative societal planning absorb and positively apply the inherent ideological contradictions of politics, letting political conflicts become sources of development and innovation? 2. How should both elite and part-time politicians actively engage and play a leading role in co-creative planning processes? 3. How can planning become a political tool for innovation in the politics and policies of public value?

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Rabinovitz, F. F. (1967). Politics, personality, and planning. Public Administration Review, 27(1), 18–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/973180 Ramírez, J. L. (1995). Skapande mening: 13:1: Bidrag till en humanvetenskaplig handlings- och planeringsteori: presentation av ett avhandlingsarbete 1984–1994. (Vol. 13:1). Stockholm: Nordplan. Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. Sager, T. (1990). Communicate or calculate: Planning theory and social science concepts in a contingency perspective (Vol. 11). Stockholm: Nordplan. Sager, T. (1994). Communicative planning theory. Aldershot: Ashgate. Sager, T. (2007). Dialogical values in public goods provision. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(4), 497–512. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0739456X07299949 Sager, T., & Ravlum, I.-A. (2005). From projects to strategies: A transaction cost approach to politicians’ problems with strategic transport planning. Planning Theory & Practice, 6(2), 213–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14649350500137077 Sønderskov, M. (2019a). “Innovasjonspolitikeren”: betingelser for en interaktiv politikerrolle. In A.  K. Holmen Tennås & T.  Ringholm (Eds.), Innovasjon møter kommune. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Sønderskov, M. (2019b). Lokalpolitikerenes holdninger til borgerdeltakelse: En propp for demokratisk innovasjon? Ph.D.  Monography, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences Lillehammer. Sørensen, E. (2016). The role of elected politicians in collaborative policy innovation. In J.  Torfing & P.  Triantafiliou (Eds.), Enhancing public innovation by transforming public governance (pp.  178–196). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sørensen, E. (2017). Political innovations: Innovations in political institutions, processes and outputs. Public Management Review, 19(1), 1–19. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2011). Enhancing collaborative innovation in the public sector. Administration & Society, 43(8), 842–868. https://doi. org/10.1177/0095399711418768 Sørensen, E., & Waldorff, S. B. (2014). Collaborative policy innovation: Problems and potential. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 19(3 article 2). Retrieved from http://www.innovation.cc/scholarlystyle/19_3_2_sorensen-waldorff_collaborate-policy494f11nov.pdf Throgmorton, J. A. (1996). Planning as persuasive storytelling: The rhetorical construction of Chicago’s electric future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tietjen, A., & Jørgensen, G. (2016). Translating a wicked problem: A strategic planning approach to rural shrinkage in Denmark. Landscape and Urban Planning, 154, 29–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.01.009

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Willis, R. (2018). Constructing a ‘Representative Claim’ for action on climate change: Evidence from interviews with politicians. Political Studies, 66(4), 940–958. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717753723 Willumsen, T., Bråtå, H. O., Higdem, U., Lesjø, J. H., & Ringholm, T. (2019). Ordførerroller i kommunale innovasjonssystemer. In A. K. Holmen Tennås & T.  Ringholm (Eds.), Innovasjon møter kommune. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Zeemering, E. S. (2019). Local politicians’ advice networks and the prospect of metropolitan civil society. Journal of Urban Affairs, 1–17. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/07352166.2019.1599293

CHAPTER 5

Strategic Turn in Planning and the Role of Institutional Innovation Kaisa Granqvist and Raine Mäntysalo

Introduction In this chapter, we discuss strategic spatial planning in relation to the concept of innovation. Strategic spatial planning was associated with innovation already in the late 1990s when Healey, Khakee, Motte, and Needham (1997) detected new emerging practices of spatial planning around northwest Europe, flagging the revival of the strategic approach to planning. Indeed, after the interest in strategic spatial planning first revived in Europe (Healey et al., 1997; Salet & Faludi, 1999) and around the world (e.g. Bryson & Slotterback, 2017; Searle & Bunker, 2010; Steele & Ruming, 2012; Watson, 2002), it has gradually developed into a mainstream policy practice in many countries at urban and regional levels (e.g. Albrechts, Balducci, & Hillier, 2017; Hersperger, Grădinaru, Oliveira, Pagliarin, & Palka, 2019). Furthermore, the practices of strategic planning have become popular not only in spatial planning but in other sectors and parts of public governance as well (e.g. Bryson & Roering, 1987).

K. Granqvist (*) • R. Mäntysalo Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

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The wide application has been justified by referring to a rapidly changing context, where urban structures have expanded beyond administrative boundaries and have become connected to the global economy and where new challenges, such as climate change, have entered the public agenda (Albrechts & Balducci, 2013: 16). While the strategic turn in spatial planning has become evident, its defining features and mission have been a subject of debate (e.g. Ziafati Bafasarat, 2015). Indeed, ‘strategic spatial planning’ is not a definite concept, but an incoherent set of theories, concepts and procedures (Albrechts, 2004: 748). When Healey et al. (1997) associated strategic spatial planning with innovation they intentionally aimed to promote a style of planning that is more inclusive, deliberative, integrative and transformative, reflecting the ideas of communicative planning. Healey (2007, 2009) defined such a style of strategic spatial planning as an active consensus-­ seeking and collaborative social process, which does not aim at a blueprint-­ type plan but at a decision-making frame that influences indirectly the way people see and define an issue and a challenge. By connecting existing resources and imaginative visions about the future, the strategic frame invites actors in distinct arenas of fragmented governance to change their thought models and mobilises them in joint transformative action. Similarly, Albrechts (2006) defined strategic spatial planning as a novel style of planning and distinct from traditional statutory land-use planning. Its novelty lied in its orientation towards action (instead of plans), imaginative visioning of future in a long term (instead of incremental projects), selective focus on core issues in informal spatial development strategies (instead of comprehensive and regulatory plans) and planning process (instead of blueprint plans) (Albrechts, 2006). While the traditional statutory planning process was orientated towards producing legally binding plans and regulations within bounded administrative territories, the strategic spatial planning process emphasised inclusive, co-productive and networked governance. Such governance called for breaching administrative as well as sectoral boundaries in relationally defined ‘soft’ spaces (Albrechts et  al., 2017; Albrechts & Balducci, 2013; Healey, 2006) and exploring alternative future trajectories (Balducci, 2011). As such, it promised to break away from practices of statutory planning, perceived as slow, bureaucratic and unreflective to the ‘real’ geographies of challenges and opportunities (cf. Allmendinger & Haughton, 2009: 619). In this vein, strategic spatial planning appeared as a powerful tool in generating innovativeness in urban and (city-)regional spaces. It aimed at engaging governmental

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actors in collective imagination and transformative action, as well as involving communities in strategic work for generating innovations at grassroots (cf. Oosterlynck, Van den Broeck, Albrechts, Moulaert, & Verhetsel, 2011). Nevertheless, these normative theories of strategic spatial planning, which promised innovation and transformative action, were found to drift far away from the daily practices and institutional constraints of planners (Friedmann, 2004; Newman, 2008). Furthermore, they were regarded as reflecting poorly the actual real-life strategic plans, the contents of which often promoted hegemonic projects instead of transformative change, or the implementation of which followed the format of traditional statutory planning instead of breaking away from it (Albrechts, 2006; Olesen, 2014; Olesen & Richardson, 2012). Indeed, many authors (e.g. Albrechts, Barbanente, & Monno, 2019; Mäntysalo, Kangasoja, & Kanninen, 2015; Olesen & Richardson, 2012; Persson, 2019; Searle, 2017; Steele & Ruming, 2012) found that strategic spatial planning had not replaced traditional comprehensive and regulatory planning, which continued to co-­ exist with the new practices of strategic spatial planning and influence its rationale and implementation due to institutional path dependencies. For realising the full transformative potential of strategic spatial planning in practice, Albrechts et al. (2019: 2) suggested that the basic principles of the traditional systems of planning should be radically changed (or even abandoned). Contrary to Albrechts et al., Mäntysalo et al. (2015) suggested closing the theory-practice gap by altering the theory of strategic planning itself. They proposed that the theory of strategic spatial planning should be more attentive to the institutional path dependencies of traditional regulatory planning and its continuing co-existence with strategic planning. Indeed, Mäntysalo et al. (2015: 180) argued for a better integration of strategic and statutory planning. They (Mäntysalo, Tuomisaari, Granqvist, & Kanninen, 2019) emphasised the role of innovative policy practices in developing novel ways of using resourcefully also the traditional statutory planning tools as part of the strategic spatial planning toolkit. In this vein, strategic spatial planning would reach beyond the making and implementation of an informal strategic plan and highlight the strategic use of both statutory and strategic planning instruments, instead (cf. Faludi, 2000). In this chapter, we elaborate this idea of strategic spatial planning as strategic use of traditional statutory and strategic non-statutory tools. Such an idea shifts attention to the ‘institutional innovativeness’ of strategic spatial planning. This association very much reflects the original view

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of Healey et al. (1997), according to which strategic planning becomes an innovation in itself and not a mere vehicle for innovation or innovative action (cf. Ziafati Bafasarat, 2015: 136, 140). In examining the institutional innovativeness of strategic spatial planning, we first explore theories of institutional change and innovation, which form the theoretical frame for this chapter. By so doing, we seek to show that institutional change often occurs in an evolutionary manner through innovative policy practices. We then exemplify innovative policies of integrating strategic and statutory planning by reviewing two cases from Finland: the city of Lahti and the city-region of Kotka-Hamina. These cases, the first exploring strategic spatial planning at the local scale and the second at the city-regional scale, illustrate that the institutional and political context has an influence on how the integration can be achieved.

Evolutionary View on Institutional Change and Innovation In planning theory, much attention has recently been paid to institutions (e.g. Gualini, 2001; Salet, 2018; Verma, 2007) and institutional change (e.g. Alexander, 2005; Buitelaar, Lagendijk, & Jacobs, 2007; Moroni, 2010; Sorensen, 2015), in explaining processes of spatial planning. According to Buitelaar et al. (2007: 891), institutional change not only affects planning processes but is also an object of planning as such. Consequently, the theory discourse includes two contrasting views on institutional change: institutional design (e.g. Alexander, 2005) and institutional evolution (Moroni, 2010). While institutional design emphasises the instrumental and normative side of change, institutional evolution draws attention to unintentional, subtle and gradual processes of change, which may add up to fundamental and transformative change over time, nonetheless (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010: 2). The evolutionary view claims that the sources of institutional change are not simply exogenous shocks or environmental shifts but ambiguities inherent in institutional rules themselves (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). These ambiguities enable change by providing actors with opportunities for creative and novel interpretation of the rules and subversion of the existing order of power and authority (Sheingate, 2010). Indeed, many rules are vague, or do not specify all possible situations, so they must be

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interpreted and enforced (Sorensen, 2015). According to Mahoney and Thelen (2010: 14), institutional change occurs precisely in the ‘gaps’ or ‘soft spots’ between the vague rule and its interpretation in practices, which the power-distributional properties of institutions motivate. The institutions do not therefore appear as static but dynamic structures and, correspondingly, the actors do not appear as passive rule-followers but as active agents of change, who can reflect and review rules when choosing the course of action. Jessop (2001) has illustratively described such a co-constitutive relationship between institutional structures and human agency with his strategic-­relational approach that builds on Giddens’ structuration theory. According to Jessop (2001: 1223–1226), structures should be regarded as strategic in their form, content and operation, because they privilege some actors, strategies and operations over others. Actors, whether individual or collective, should contrarily be regarded as constrained by these structures, while being strategically calculative by their ability to reflect on the strategic selectivity of structures and the ability to orient their actions based on such reflection. Agents, therefore, have a definitive role in institutional change. Accordingly, we scrutinise institutions of formal and informal public norms, which structure interaction between individual or collective subjects, who, in turn, validate the norms in their practices (cf. Salet, 2018). In our view, institutional change may occur in the validation process, when actors strategically interpret the rules. If the change presents a novel or unprecedented departure from the past, it marks institutional innovation (cf. Hargrave & Van de Ven, 2006). With their theory on gradual institutional change, Mahoney and Thelen (2010) identify different modes of institutional change that such a dynamic validation process of institutions permits. They discern four different modes of change (drift, displacement, conversion and layering), depending on the characteristics of the institution and the political context in question (Fig. 5.1). With these characteristics, they refer, on the one hand, to the varying veto opportunities of the defenders of the existing institutional rules in the political context, and, on the other hand, to the varying levels of flexibility afforded by the institution for discretion in applying its rules. A common starting point for institutional change is drift, where the changing circumstances change the impact of existing rules, which formally remain the same. It is a likely mode of change when actors wishing to change policies to better correspond with the changing circumstances

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Fig. 5.1  Modes of institutional change (authors’ adaptation from Mahoney & Thelen, 2010: 19)

confront strong veto powers in the political context. A Finnish example of drift is the failure to change the regulatory and zoning-oriented statutory planning system into strategic and flexible, although the general flexibility inherent in the planning law would allow such a development. While the supervising state authorities promote a certain, fixed reading of the law, many local governments have decided to draft zoning-oriented plans for parts of their territories, which they update in a piecemeal manner. The counterpart to drift is displacement, which refers to formal replacement or reform of existing rules. The replacement of old rules with new ones might be understood as the ‘normal’ form of change. Displacement is a likely form of change when veto opportunities are weak and the level of discretion in implementation is low. With regard to the previous example, a change through displacement would mean replacing the regulatory

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and zoning-oriented statutory planning system with a system based on strategic visioning and coordination of action through mutual understanding and joint learning. Although displacement might be regarded as the ‘normal’ form of change, in reality change often occurs through layering. In conditions where the level of discretion in implementation is low but the defenders of status quo have strong veto opportunities, new rules are simply added on top or alongside the pre-existing ones. In contrast to displacement, layering does not introduce entirely new rules but rather includes amendments, revisions or additions to existing rules. While these alterations may be small changes in themselves, they may bring substantial changes to the original rules if they alter the logic of the institution or compromise the reproduction of its original “core” (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010: 17). Nevertheless, it might also happen that the original core persists change and the partly competing rules endure for even a long period of time (cf. Reay & Hinings, 2009). In the next section, we will examine the case of strategic spatial planning in the city-region of Kotka-Hamina, where institutional innovation took the mode of layering, when new strategic elements were added onto the pre-existing instruments of statutory and regulatory planning. Another subtle form of institutional change that affects the meaning of the pre-existing institution is conversion. Conversion occurs when rules remain formally the same but they are interpreted in new ways, that is, converged. Unlike drift, in which the actors neglect the rules in the face of a changed setting, in conversion, actors who actively exploit the inherent ambiguities of the rules produce a gap between the rule and its enactment. Conversion is likely, when the rules offer a high level of discretion and defenders of the existing rules have weak veto opportunities. Through strategic reinterpretation of the rules, the actors seeking for a change convert the institutions into functions, purposes and effects that are more favourable. Our case of strategic spatial planning in the city of Lahti provides an example of conversion. Lahti has strategically exploited the rules of statutory master planning in pursuing its long-term strategic objectives.

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Strategic Spatial Planning as Use of Strategic and Statutory Tools: Emerging Institutional Innovations in Finland While the changing context has motivated a broad adoption of strategic spatial planning, it has rarely substituted the formal regulatory systems of statutory planning. This is also the case in Finland, where there has been a tendency of strategic spatial planning becoming dissociated from the statutory planning system, with its varying sets of informal planning tools and forums, at local and city-regional levels (Mäntysalo et al., 2015). The Finnish statutory planning system rests on the Nordic tradition of comprehensive planning and the constitutional principle of municipal self-­ governance (Nadin & Stead, 2008). It is defined in the Land Use and Building Act (1999), which sets three tiers of land use plans in a hierarchically binding order: regional plan, local master plan and local detailed plan (local governments may also draft a joint local master plan). The Act defines these three tiers of binding plans in their content, form and process, making the statutory issues central to plan making. The rather general nature of the content, form and process requirements leaves, however, room for adapting the plans to local conditions and needs, in terms of the level of detail, thematic focus and binding nature (cf. Granqvist, Humer, & Mäntysalo, 2020). Indeed, the Land Use and Building Act itself involves a high level of discretion in rule implementation, to use the words of Mahoney and Thelen (2010), and even assumes that strategic and operational ends are delivered in a single plan (Mäntysalo et al., 2015: 171). Despite the strategic flexibility embedded in the Land Use and Building Act and its original intention to cultivate strategic plans on local and regional scales, its conventional “rigid” reading and planning culture have led to a tradition of overly burdensome, comprehensive, zoning-oriented plans, which rely on extensive surveys and impact assessments. This follows not only from the strict policies of interpreting the Act in the Administrative Courts and the supervising National Government’s Regional Authorities (the Centres for Economic Development, Transport, and Environment), but also the local governments avoiding interpretive flexibility. According to Mäntysalo et al. (2015: 172), the local governments may choose to work on unnecessarily detailed zoning in their master plans because they want the plans to serve as a firm and legally unambiguous backbone in resolving land-use issues and disputes in implementation. Moreover, they may opt to work on unnecessarily content wise

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abstract master plans, weak in their steering, to accommodate to unexpected land use needs in the long term (Mäntysalo et  al., 2019). As a result, municipal master planning is not perceived to function properly as an instrument of strategic spatial planning in Finland (Mäntysalo et  al., 2019: 557): it is seen as either too detailed or too generic. Thus, the local governments have resorted to conducting strategic planning, for example with non-binding urban centre development programs and visions, or with municipal strategies devoid of spatial elements. In addition to the local scale, strategic spatial planning has become increasingly popular in Finnish city-regions. The city-regions commonly pursue it with the instrument of informal structural scheme, which is a cross-sectoral and inter-municipal non-statutory document that expresses the spatial articulations of city-regional strategic development goals. The political and institutional context of city-regional strategic spatial planning is, however, different from the local level. The city-regional level is not a statutory scale of planning but a scale, in which planning bases on cooperation of local governments of the city-region. Although the local governments cooperate voluntarily at the city-regional level, they are strong proponents of the current system, which equips them with planning powers reflecting their constitutional self-governance. They have economic and political incentives to sustain their local planning autonomy, for example, for guaranteeing the existing levels of municipal tax revenues and service provision (Hytönen et  al., 2016). As a result, spatial planning of city-regions has layered onto the statutory planning system as ‘soft’ cooperative, voluntary and integrative strategic planning. Nevertheless, recently some Finnish local governments and city-regions have successfully used the statutory master planning instrument in its present form, with all its arguably non-strategic elements, to pursue strategic city-regional planning. These emerging innovative practices represent institutional innovation, in the context where institutional rules of statutory spatial planning have formally remained stable. In the following sub-section, we will explore the strategic spatial planning policy adopted by the City of Lahti, where the local government has converged the rules of statutory planning for purposes of strategic spatial planning. This mode of innovation was enabled by the contextual combination of (a) high level of discretion in implementation of the Land Use and Building Act and (b) voluntary withdrawal of using veto opportunities. The willingness to veto was reduced by the City’s active cooperation with the supervising regional state authority that would normally have

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promoted a more traditional ‘rigid’ reading of the law. Such cooperation led to their withdrawal from using their veto opportunities, and turned the common situation of drift into conversion. Subsequently, we introduce the case of Kotka-Hamina city-region, which has developed an approach for the strategic use of the statutory master planning rules by layering another set of rules of ‘soft’ city-regional planning onto them. These added rules changed the approach in the city-­ regional level to the general institutional rules of local master planning. The innovation took a form of layering in response to the contextual conditions where (a) the local governments had strong veto opportunities to maintain their planning authority, and (b) the discretion in implementation was low, due to the rigid policy of the regional state authority regarding the use of the statutory master plan instrument in the municipalities’ joint strategic master planning. We have reported the results of the case studies of Lahti and Kotka-Hamina fully elsewhere, each separately (Granqvist et al., 2020; Mäntysalo et al., 2019). This chapter adds a comparative examination of the cases from the perspective of institutional innovation. Conversion of Rules: The Policy of Strategic Incrementalism in Lahti Lahti is a middle-sized municipality with 120,000 inhabitants that locates in southern Finland, 100 km north of the capital city, Helsinki. In Lahti, strategic spatial planning is not decoupled from the statutory land-use planning system. The key innovation, through which the local government of Lahti has achieved the capacity of using strategically the tools of statutory master planning, is the incorporation of these tools, for example zoning, legally binding status and regulations on planning process and participation, in the broader context of strategy work of the local government. It has realised this with a policy of updating the long-term statutory master plan in just four-year cycles, in correlation with the cycles of the city’s strategy work. While such a practice had brewed in the city-organisation for decades, its official initiation dates to 2009, when the local government decided to update the master plan in each four-year city council term and base it on the municipal strategy, in which each city council defines the overall development objectives of the city for its term. With such an integration, the master plan became the spatial expression of the municipal strategy and a

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strategic tool of the city council for advancing its strategic vision. Consequently, Lahti shifted the focus from making ‘strategic plans’ to an activity of framing and updating the statutory master plans as part of the ‘strategy work’ of the local government. Instead of the usual Finnish practice of completely overhauling the statutory master plan every ten to fifteen years, with its burdensome survey and assessment processes, Lahti updates its master plan incrementally every four-year council term. The first year of each council term is dedicated to surveys and data collection, to which Lahti has also adopted an incremental approach. It involves a broad utilisation of a georeferenced digital database and an agreement with the overseeing regional state authority that neither the survey base nor the entire plan should aim for comprehensiveness but rather focus on the most relevant issues at hand. The second council year is designated for drafting of alternative master plan sketches, which prime the plan proposal that is drafted on the third year. This plan proposal bases on the data but also reflects the strategic objectives of the city council, presented in the municipal strategy. On the fourth and last year of the council term, the council approves the plan and drafts two reports, which inform the succeeding council on the implementation of the plan and present monitoring data on goal achievement from the last term. The implementation is thus handed on to the following council, including the programming of land use and housing policy measures, as well as investments for public service networks. The election of a new council then starts the four-year cycle again, with drafting of a new municipal strategy while continuing the implementation of the approved master plan. While the municipal strategy is influenced by political goals, it is also informed by the reporting of the progress with implementation from the previous terms, which builds long-term commitment to strategic objectives. Thereby the cyclic planning policy encourages the city council to focus on long-term strategic choices in political decision-making, while, at the same time, supports fixing land reservations in short term only, thus offering flexibility for adjusting to changed conditions. As a result, a new statutory master plan is produced every four years. The strategic policy integrates these traditional zoning-type plans with the continuous municipal strategy work and enables focusing selectively on different strategically important themes in each consecutive round of updating the master plan, as well as connecting the long-term holistic vision with actions on the short term. Indeed, what appears as crucial in combining the long-term objectives to short-term actions is that the

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master plan has developed into a deliberative platform. It provides the local government with a platform for strategic deliberation within the city government, as well as with citizens and other stakeholders who are engaged in the process through the statutory participation processes. Achieving such participatory deliberation has required establishing new discussion forums within the city-organisation (e.g. monthly cross-sectoral planning meetings), developing new participation channels (e.g. e-­feedback and map questionnaires) and methods for participatory events (e.g. scenario storytelling). However, at the inter-sectoral and city-regional level Lahti has faced problems in gaining strategic capacity. These problems are familiar to many other Finnish cities, too (cf. Hytönen, 2019; Kaupunkiseutujen yhteistyön tilan arviointi, 2015). While Lahti has taken steps in inter-­ sectoral collaboration, for example by integrating transport system planning with spatial planning, strategic spatial planning has been weak at the city-regional level. While the Lahti city-region has a long history of strategic collaboration in terms of non-statutory and informal structural schemes (cf. Mäntysalo, Kangasoja, & Kanninen, 2014), this collaboration did not succeed to override the local governments’ sub-optimising goals. To meet this challenge, the city-region of Kotka-Hamina, to which we turn next, has pursued city-regional planning collaboration by coordinating local statutory plans strategically at the city-regional level. Layering of Rules: A Joint City-Regional Strategic Plan from Coordinated Local Statutory Plans in Kotka-Hamina The city-region of Kotka-Hamina is located in southeast Finland, forming the southern part of the administrative Kymenlaakso region. The small city-region consists of five municipalities, Kotka, Hamina, Pyhtää, Miehikkälä and Virolahti, with a total population of 85,000. These five municipalities have jointly coordinated their local master planning in order to form one city-region-wide master plan, ‘the Kotka-Hamina strategic master plan’. Kotka-Hamina instigated city-regional spatial planning over ten years ago by drafting an informal structural scheme. However, the local governments soon recognised that they disregarded its joint development principles and continued to rely on their local statutory planning authority. In order to overcome the lack of commitment, the local governments decided to utilise the binding local master plan as an instrument of city-regional

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strategic planning. The central innovation in the process was ‘adding’ the new strategic elements, namely flexibility, responsiveness, selectivity, cooperation and broad long-term action-orientated visioning, in the otherwise traditional master planning process and, by so doing, alter the meaning of statutory master planning. Kotka-Hamina achieved this by framing statutory local master planning as an enabling instrument for supporting economic competitiveness in the city-region and implementing objectives of the city-regional economic development strategy. Indeed, this new focus changed the territorial and temporal scope of local master planning. While, conventionally, the local governments had only drafted incremental and detailed zoning plans for parts of their territories, they now engaged in long-term visioning at the city-regional scale. Furthermore, it aimed to guide future development through recognising joint strengths rather than providing detailed legal guidance, typical to conventional zoning-type local master plans. These strengths were translated spatially in terms of ample and versatile business areas with distinctive profiles, enabling the generation of new agglomerations and synergies of industries. For expressing the city-regional strategic vision, the final plan map also used non-binding land-use guidelines. These guidelines aimed to support the short-term implementation of the vision as they provided tangible tools for marketing the city-region for prospective businesses. While the framing of local statutory master planning as an instrument for enabling city-regional competitiveness created a layer of city-regional strategic planning onto statutory planning, the interplay between the two layers remained uneasy. For example, because the plan was drafted as legally binding, it was bound by the comprehensive content and survey requirements of statutory local master plans. With its visionary selectivity and broad-scale spatial representation, it, however, failed to comply with many of these, according to the statements to the plan by the overseeing state regional authority and the regional council. Because the statements deemed the selective focus on city-regional competitiveness as unsuitable for a legally binding comprehensive master plan, its status was reduced to a thematically delimited master plan, so-called stage master plan. Even despite this, the overseeing authorities saw the competitiveness focus as insufficient and asked for adding the other land-uses in the plan, which were initially overlooked in the name of strategic selectivity. Furthermore, they found the visual expressions of the visionary plan map to equip the plan with an insufficient level of detail, for the plan to replace any

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previously approved zoning-based partial master plans of the municipalities. Therefore, the plan became approached as an additional ‘fourth level’ in the statutory hierarchy, between the local zoning-based master plans and the regional plan. Moreover, the authorities asked to remove visual ‘non-binding’ expressions from the statutory map, which led to losing much of the strategic core content of the plan, embedded in these guidelines. To conclude, although the innovative practice of Kotka-Hamina managed to insert a layer of ‘soft’ city-regional planning onto statutory planning, the addition did not completely overhaul the original deep-­ seated core meaning of statutory local master planning.

Conclusions In this chapter, we have examined innovativeness in the context of strategic spatial planning. We argue that strategic spatial planning should be regarded not only as a tool for innovation but as an innovation in itself. The early writings (e.g. Albrechts, 2006; Healey et al., 1997) focused on describing the innovativeness of strategic spatial planning by contrasting it to traditional regulatory and statutory planning, but by so doing, they also served to distance the theory from actual planning practices. We argue that in order to develop practice-informed theories of strategic planning, innovativeness in strategic planning is needed the most in overcoming the theory-practice gap. This implies strategic planning in which both strategic and statutory planning tools are used. Therefore, the focus should be shifted to institutional innovation that this integration entails, and to related innovative policy practices. In order to shed light on the modes of institutional innovation that may enable overcoming the strategic/statutory divide, we have utilised the theories on gradual institutional change. These theories emphasise the role of policy practices in the maintenance and change of institutions (e.g. Jessop, 2001). They do not portray actors as passive rule followers but as active agents who validate and change rules. We have found especially Mahoney and Thelen’s (2010) categorisation of different modes of gradual change (drift, displacement, conversion, layering) useful in studying the forms of institutional innovation in strategic spatial planning practices in different institutional and political contexts. In this chapter, we have exemplified gradual institutional change through the cases of Lahti and Kotka-Hamina, which have instigated innovative policy practices integrating statutory and strategic planning.

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The cases show that innovative practices take different forms in different institutional and political contexts: Lahti has innovatively converged the rules and Kotka-Hamina layered the rules. With the cases, we want to draw attention to how institutional innovation may take different modes in promoting strategic spatial planning, while accommodating to the formal statutory rules of land use planning. In such innovativeness, the agency of local actors plays a key role.

References Albrechts, L. (2004). Strategic (spatial) planning reexamined. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 31(5), 743–758. https://doi. org/10.1068/b3065 Albrechts, L. (2006). Shifts in strategic spatial planning? Some evidence from Europe and Australia. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 38(6), 1149–1170. https://doi.org/10.1068/a37304 Albrechts, L., & Balducci, A. (2013). Practicing strategic planning: In search of critical features to explain the strategic character of plans. DisP—The Planning Review, 49(3), 16–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/02513625.2013.859001 Albrechts, L., Balducci, A., & Hillier, J. (Eds.). (2017). Situated practices of strategic planning: An international perspective. New York: Routledge. Albrechts, L., Barbanente, A., & Monno, V. (2019). From stage-managed planning towards a more imaginative and inclusive strategic spatial planning. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 37(8), 1489–1506. https:// doi.org/10.1177/2399654419825655 Alexander, E. (2005). Institutional transformation and planning: From institutionalization theory to institutional design. Planning Theory, 4(3), 209–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095205058494 Allmendinger, P., & Haughton, G. (2009). Soft spaces, fuzzy boundaries, and metagovernance: The new spatial planning in the Thames Gateway. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 41(3), 617–633. https://doi. org/10.1068/a40208 Balducci, A. (2011). Strategic planning as exploration. The Town Planning Review, 82(5), 529–546. https://doi.org/10.3828/tpr.2011.31 Bryson, J., & Slotterback, C. (2017). Strategic spatial planning in the USA.  In L.  Albrechts, A.  Balducci, & J.  Hillier (Eds.), Situated practices of strategic planning: An international perspective (pp. 117–134). New York: Routledge. Bryson, J. M., & Roering, W. D. (1987). Applying private-sector strategic planning in the public sector. Journal of the American Planning Association, 53(1), 9–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944368708976631

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Buitelaar, E., Lagendijk, A., & Jacobs, W. (2007). A theory of institutional change: Illustrated by Dutch City-Provinces and Dutch Land Policy. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 39(4), 891–908. https://doi.org/ 10.1068/a38191 Faludi, A. (2000). The performance of spatial planning. Planning Practice & Research, 15(4), 299–318. https://doi.org/10.1080/713691907 Friedmann, J. (2004). Strategic spatial planning and the longer range. Planning Theory & Practice, 5(1), 49–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1464935042000185062 Granqvist, K, Humer, A., & Mäntysalo, R. (2020). Tensions in city-regional spatial planning: the challenge of interpreting layered institutional rules. Regional Studies, published ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1080/0034340 4.2019.1707791 Gualini, E. (2001). Planning and the intelligence of institutions: Interactive approaches to territorial policy-making between institutional design and institution building. Hants: Ashgate. Hargrave, T. J., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2006). A collective action model of institutional innovation. Academy of Management Review, 31(4), 864–888. https:// doi.org/10.5465/amr.2006.22527458 Healey, P. (2006). Relational complexity and the imaginative power of strategic spatial planning. European Planning Studies, 14(4), 525–546. https://doi. org/10.1080/09654310500421196 Healey, P. (2007). Urban complexity and spatial strategies: Towards a relational planning for our times (The RTPI Library Series). New  York and London: Routledge. Healey, P. (2009). In search of the “strategic” in spatial strategy making. Planning Theory & Practice, 10(4), 439–457. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14649350903417191 Healey, P., Khakee, A., Motte, A., & Needham, B. (1997). Making strategic spatial plans. Innovation in Europe. London: UCL Press. Hersperger, A. M., Grădinaru, S., Oliveira, E., Pagliarin, S., & Palka, G. (2019). Understanding strategic spatial planning to efficiently guide development of urban regions. Cities, 94, 96–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cities.2019.05.032 Hytönen, J. (2019). Limits of localism: Institutional perspectives on communicativeness, neoliberalization and sustainability in Finnish spatial planning (Vol. 48, No 4). Oulu: Nordia Geographical Publications. Hytönen, J., Mäntysalo, R., Peltonen, L., Kanninen, V., Niemi, P., & Simanainen, M. (2016). Defensive routines in land use policy steering in Finnish urban regions. European Urban and Regional Studies, 23(1), 40–55. https://doi. org/10.1177/0969776413490424

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Jessop, B. (2001). Institutional re(turns) and the strategic-relational approach. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 33(7), 1213–1235. https:// doi.org/10.1068/a32183 Kaupunkiseutujen yhteistyön tilan arviointi. (2015). Maankäyttö, asuminen ja liikenne [Evaluation of the state of collaboration of city regions] (2015). Helsinki: Suomen Kuntaliitto. Retrieved from http://shop.kunnat.net/download.php?filename=uploads/kaupunkiseutujenyhteistyo_ebook.pdf Land Use and Building Act 132/1999. (1999). Retrieved from https://www. finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1999/en19990132.pdf Mahoney, J., & Thelen, K. (Eds.). (2010). Explaining institutional change. Ambiguity, agency, and power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mäntysalo, R., Kangasoja, J. K., & Kanninen, V. (2014). Rakennemallit kaupunkiseutujen suunnittelussa—Strategisen maankäytön suunnittelun paradoksi [The use of structural schemes in the planning of Finnish urban regions—The paradox of strategic spatial planning]. Helsinki: Ympäristöministeriö, Raportteja 18/2014. Mäntysalo, R., Kangasoja, J. K., & Kanninen, V. (2015). The paradox of strategic spatial planning: A theoretical outline with a view on Finland. Planning Theory & Practice, 16(2), 169–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/1464935 7.2015.1016548 Mäntysalo, R., Tuomisaari, J., Granqvist, K., & Kanninen, V. (2019). The strategic incrementalism of Lahti master planning: Three lessons. Planning Theory & Practice, 20(4), 555–572. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2019.1652336 Moroni, S. (2010). An evolutionary theory of institutions and a dynamic approach to reform. Planning Theory, 9(4), 275–297. https://doi. org/10.1177/1473095210368778 Nadin, V., & Stead, D. (2008). European spatial planning systems, social models and learning. DisP—The Planning Review, 44(172), 35–47. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/02513625.2008.10557001 Newman, P. (2008). Strategic spatial planning: Collective action and moments of opportunity. European Planning Studies, 16(10), 1371–1383. https://doi. org/10.1080/09654310802420078 Olesen, K. (2014). The neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning. Planning Theory, 13(3), 288–303. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095213499340 Olesen, K., & Richardson, T. (2012). Strategic planning in transition: Contested rationalities and spatial logics in twenty-first century Danish planning experiments. European Planning Studies, 20(10), 1689–1706. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/09654313.2012.713333 Oosterlynck, S., Van den Broeck, J., Albrechts, L., Moulaert, F., & Verhetsel, A. (Eds.). (2011). Strategic spatial projects: Catalysts for Change. Abingdon: Routledge.

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Persson, C. (2019). Perform or conform? Looking for the strategic in municipal spatial planning in Sweden. European Planning Studies. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/09654313.2019.1614150 Reay, T., & Hinings, C.  R. (2009). Managing the rivalry of competing institutional logics. Organization Studies, 30(6), 629–652. https://doi. org/10.1177/0170840609104803 Salet, W. (2018). Public norms and aspirations. The turn to institutions in action. London: Routledge. Salet, W., & Faludi, A. (1999). Introduction. In W.  Salet & A.  Faludi (Eds.), Revival of strategic spatial planning. Netherlands: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Searle, G. (2017). Strategic planning and land use planning conflicts: The role of statutory authority. In L. Albrechts, A. Balducci, & J. Hillier (Eds.), Situated practices of strategic planning: An international perspective (pp.  317–330). New York: Routledge. Searle, G., & Bunker, R. (2010). Metropolitan strategic planning: An Australian paradigm? Planning Theory, 9(3), 163–180. Sheingate, A. (2010). Rethinking rules: Creativity and constraint in the U.S. house of representatives. In J. Mahoney & K. Thelen (Eds.), Explaining institutional change. Ambiguity, agency, and power (pp. 168–203). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sorensen, A. (2015). Taking path dependence seriously: An historical institutionalist research agenda in planning history. Planning Perspectives, 30(1), 17–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2013.874299 Steele, W., & Ruming, K.  J. (2012). Flexibility versus certainty: Unsettling the land-use planning shibboleth in Australia. Planning Practice & Research, 27(2), 155–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2012.662670 Verma, N. (2007). Institutions and planning: An analogical inquiry. In N. Verma (Ed.), Institutions and planning (pp. 1–17). Oxford and Amsterdam: Elsevier. Watson, V. (2002). Change and continuity in spatial planning. Metropolitan planning in Cape Town under political transition. London and New York: Routledge. Ziafati Bafarasat, A. (2015). Reflections on the three schools of thought on strategic spatial planning. Journal of Planning Literature, 30(2), 132–148. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0885412214562428

CHAPTER 6

Sustainable Development: A Question of ‘Modernization’ or ‘Degrowth’? Petter Næss

Introduction ‘Stick with me baby, I’ll turn your money green,’ sang the folk-jazz group Pentangle back in 1968. It seems that this old lyrics has become the standard answer of contemporary business-as-usual-defending politicians to the global environmental challenges and the critique of the ecological traces of economic growth. In this chapter, I will argue that we are in dire need of profound societal innovation (Higdem & Hagen, 2020) in the face of the twin crises of ecological unsustainability and growing inequality. Whereas much of the contemporary discourse on innovation has its focus on either technological progress to develop new, ‘greener’ solutions or social innovations to find better ways of performing existing tasks within local administration or civil society, I argue for the need of macro-scale radical innovation to overcome barriers now preventing sustainable development as defined by the Brundtland Commission (1987: 43). More specifically, I will take a critical look at the ecological modernization approach

P. Næss (*) Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_6

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to sustainability and its underlying assumptions. In particular, I will address the following issues: • The plausibility of achieving the necessary degree of ‘decoupling’ between growth and environmental degradation to make long-term growth environmentally sustainable • The implications of non-growing or reduced consumption per capita in affluent countries for a socially just distribution of burdens and benefits between population groups • The societal conditions for combining environmental and social sustainability objectives. Sustainable development, as understood by the Brundtland Commission (1987: 43) in their report ‘Our Common Future’, is about meeting the needs of present and future generations within limits set by the natural environment, giving overriding priority to the essential needs of the world’s poor. During the more than three decades that have passed since the Brundtland report was published, the interpretation and content of the concept of sustainable development has been heavily contested. Today, a dominant understanding in the academic discourse seems to be that concerns about ‘planet, people and profit’ must be balanced against each other if the development is to be sustainable (and in actual policy-making with the latter taking precedence over the two former). Such a combination of environmental sustainability (‘planet’), human welfare (‘people’) and economic growth (‘profit’) (Elkington, 1999) is assumed possible by developing more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies. Repeatedly ‘doubling wealth while halving environmental impacts’ is a key tenet of the so-called ecological modernization strategy for grappling with the environmental crisis. In the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda (United Nations, 2015), economic growth is included as one of its 17 sustainability goals. Admittedly, economic growth was also recommended in the Brundtland Commission’s report as one among several measures for promoting sustainable development, but the Commission’s definition of sustainable development (Brundtland commission, 1987: 43) did not mention economic growth. According to ecological modernization theory, solutions to environmental problems can be found within the context of industrial capitalism (Mol, 1995; Young, 2000). However, the capitalist economy in its present form is limited by the capacity of the natural environment to absorb the

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effects of economic growth and to supply necessary resource inputs. Resource depletion and recipient overload will in the long term not only undermine natural ecosystems, human health and quality of life, but also destroy the possibilities for continual economic growth. Capitalism must therefore undergo a process of transformation if it is to be sustainable in the long term. Along with strong efforts in environmentally sound technology development, changes in legislation and tax systems are advocated in order to promote environmental policy integration across sectors and tiers and to create incentives for market mechanisms to contribute to eco-­ efficiency. Ecological modernization theory thus considers that society in its present form need not be changed, as pressures from customers, environmental groups, legislators and others will force organizations to take environmental responsibility and come up with technological solutions (Strannegård, 1999).

Sustainability Requirements What would have to be in place for long-term economic growth to be environmentally sustainable? This question of course depends on how strong environmental sustainability we are thinking of. Is it sufficient to slow down climate change, species extinction, loss of habitats, loss of soil for food production and loss of other non-renewable natural resources by some fraction of the current pace, or does environmental sustainability require a stop in such encroachments on the natural environment? The former would mean nothing more than a postponement of ecological collapses to a time further into the future, whereas the latter could obviously not happen overnight but would require a slowdown period before reaching a situation where encroachments on nature did not exceed its rate of reproduction. In the latter case, an important question is how long slowdown period should be accepted before reaching a state of genuine and long-term environmental sustainability. The longer the period of deceleration in encroachments, the less of nature, biodiversity and natural resources will be left for preceding generations. This is an ethical question not only of intergenerational equity, but also about our moral responsibility for non-human nature, which was also acknowledged in the Brundtland Commission’s (1987: 57) conceptualization of sustainable development. Regarding climate change, reports from the IPCC (2014; 2019) tell us that we do not have much time. Loss of biodiversity and biologically productive areas is also going on at an

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alarming speed and should be halted within a short time to avoid unprecedented hunger and ecological collapses (FAO, 2019; Sorensen, Freedgood, Dempsey, & Theobald, 2018). The area-based encroachments are also making it an even more challenging task to combat climate change and adapt to the future climatic conditions (IPCC, 2019). At a global scale, the above considerations at least suggest that key environmental encroachments such as greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, species extinction and loss of farmland should be reduced to zero within, say, the next half century. This implies that what is usually defined as ‘absolute decoupling’ between economic growth and environmental impacts, that is, that there is growth in production and consumption while the negative environmental impacts are at the same time reduced, is far from sufficient. A slight reduction in the present levels of greenhouse gas emissions, species extinction and losses of habitats and farmland despite economic growth will imply continual environmental degradation, albeit at a slower pace than if the degradation had increased at the same rate as the growth of the economy. Add to this that the social dimension of sustainability implies that the basic needs of the world’s poor is to be given priority above the satisfaction of less basic needs of the more affluent (Brundtland Commission, 1987: 43). Implicit in this statement is a recognition that the basic needs of the poor will not be covered merely by ‘trickle-down’ policies and that it is not possible to satisfy any luxury wants among the affluent while at the same time meeting the basic needs of the poor. Otherwise, there would be no need to give priority to the poor in order to meet their needs. Together, the global-scale reductions in environmental load necessary to achieve environmental sustainability and the social sustainability call for reducing the gaps in affluence levels across and within countries imply that dramatic reductions will be required in the environmental loads from the consumption of the world’s affluent. If consumption levels of the latter are to continue to grow and the gaps in material standards are at the same time to be diminished, even higher factors of resource efficiency increases will need to be obtained—not only for some single environmental load component (e.g. CO2), but for all the aforementioned kinds of key environmental encroachments. The resource efficiency increase would not only have to apply to the production and use of commodities and services within national borders but also include the environmental loads imbued in imported products as well as those resulting from activities abroad (e.g. flights).

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Environmental Sustainability in Urban Development Urban development, understood as changes in the built environment and land use in cities and metropolitan areas, has a number of impacts on nature and the environment. Construction of buildings requires land and construction materials, and once completed the buildings need energy for space heating, cooling and other operation, as well as materials for occasional maintenance and refurbishing. Providing land, materials and energy involves transactions with nature that are far from ‘innocent’ from an ecological point of view. Moreover, the buildings and the activities taking place in them must be connected with other buildings and activities to make the various forms of social life and production in the cities possible. This implies a need for transportation infrastructure as well as other communication networks. Technical infrastructure is also needed for energy and water supply, sewage and so on. All these physical structures require land, materials and energy, and they cause environmental impacts when being used. Not the least, the various forms of transportation going on in cities and city regions have important environmental ramifications, as has the transportation of materials, commodities and people between the city region and other parts of the world. Economic growth normally implies a growing building stock, higher availability of commodities and services, as well as demand for faster and more convenient access to the facilities where commodities and services can be acquired. For urban development, a main challenge of decoupling economic growth from negative environmental impacts is therefore to find ways of accommodating growth in the building stock and ensuring accessibility to facilities while reducing negative environmental impacts of the construction and use of buildings and infrastructure. The Scandinavian countries have been forerunners of such ecological modernization in urban development. Among European capitals, particularly Oslo has gained reputation for its ‘compact city’ strategy pursued since the mid-­1980s (Næss, Næss, & Strand, 2011; Næss, Saglie, & Richardson, 2019). In the Nordic countries, several studies have explored the possibilities for decoupling. The Nordic Council of Ministers (1999) investigated opportunities for and obstacles to decoupling within the transportation sector, the forest sector, the building and real estate sector and the food supply chain in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Among these sectors, the building and real estate sector and the transportation sector are of particular relevance to urban development as discussed in this

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chapter. Their report concluded that the environmental impact from energy consumption in buildings could be reduced by a factor of 10 through a combination of reduced energy consumption per square meter and the use of more environment-friendly energy resources. The use of material resources could be reduced by a factor of similar order of magnitude. The report underlined that such changes were only likely to occur if the public authorities used a number of incentives, such as taxes, regulations and subsidies, and close cooperation between the building sector and the authorities would need to be established. For the transportation sector, the report considered that factor 4 and 10 goals of eco-efficiency increase would only be achievable with substantial changes in values and preferences related to the environment, the service and mobility expected from the transport system, and in the way production, consumption and daily life is organized. Notably, the goals were considered unattainable without very substantial changes to and reductions in the facilities offered to car drivers, even if far-reaching assumptions were made about the opportunities offered by new technology and other initiatives (Nordic Council of Ministers, 1999). The aforementioned report is rather old, but later studies have concluded in a similar vein (Høyer & Næss, 2001; Næss, Saglie, & Richardson, 2019; Næss, Strand, Næss, & Nicolaisen, 2011; Xue, 2014). Importantly, many of the measures to increase eco-efficiency in urban development may imply that the new ‘products’, although maintaining the basic functionalities, do not include the same cultural connotations as their less eco-­ efficient predecessors. For example, reducing the land consumption per new dwelling by a factor four or ten would probably require a complete halt in the construction of detached single-family houses in urban areas. Replacing substantial parts of car traffic with transit and non-motorized travel would also be controversial, as witnessed in the recent strong resistance against new road toll schemes in Norwegian urban regions. Realizing the technical potentials for eco-efficiency may therefore prove politically difficult, particularly if the new, environmentally friendly solutions are unaffordable or not available for some groups of the population. However, even if the technical possibilities for eco-efficiency were fully utilized, it would be very difficult to combine growth in the building stock and in the accessibility to an increasing array of facilities, services and commodities with the sustainability requirements described in the previous section. For example, the ‘factor four’ and ‘factor ten’ efficiency increases discussed earlier apply to new buildings, but achieving the same level of

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energy efficiency increase for the existing building stock appears much more challenging. Moreover, unless all new construction of buildings and infrastructure takes place on ‘gray’ areas (i.e. areas already covered by buildings, asphalt or other technical encroachments), increase of the building stock will continue to consume natural areas, farmland, parks or other vegetation-clad land. As mentioned earlier, Oslo metropolitan area has pursued a strong densification policy over more than three decades. Whereas the annual land consumption for urban expansion of the morphological city of Oslo was on average 3.8  square kilometers during the period 1955–1985, it was only 0.7 square kilometers per year during the period 1985–2015, despite more than twice as high population growth over the latter period (Engebretsen, 1993; Riksrevisjonen, 2007; Statistics Norway, 2019). The densification was particularly strong and consistent in the core municipality (the municipality of Oslo), where two-thirds of the morphological city’s one million inhabitants live. Besides reducing land take for urban development, the compact urban development has been clearly favorable from a sustainable mobility perspective (Næss, Strand, Wolday, & Stefansdottir, 2019). Much of the densification has taken place on previous industrial and harbor areas no longer in use for their original purposes. However, after some decades, no more industries or harbor activities will be left to out-­ locate, and the technologically and socially easiest achievable efficiency gains will already have been made (Næss & Høyer, 2009). Further building stock growth will then either involve urban expansion into surrounding countryside, loss of intra-urban green areas or demolishing of existing urban districts to give space for taller and more densely developed neighborhoods. Besides being highly controversial (Larsen, 2019), such transformation of existing built-up areas is not environmentally neutral (although favorable from an environmental perspective, compared to urban sprawl), since replacing old buildings involves increased use of building materials, often with a high imbued energy consumption. Moreover, the development of new public transport infrastructure necessary for providing a high accessibility level while reducing car traffic requires construction work that is often highly energy-demanding with high greenhouse gas emissions. This is especially the case for tunnels (Strand, Tennøy, Næss, & Steinsland, 2009), which are often preferred since the transportation infrastructure will then not occupy surface space that could instead be used for buildings. In the absence of tunnels, the

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areas required for new transport infrastructures would, apart from local nuisances such as noise, reduce the densification potential and increase the pressure for greenfield development at the outskirts of the city. In Oslo, the steady increase in residential floor area per capita stagnated in the first decade of the millennium, partly because housing prices increased to such a high level that a substantial part of the population could only afford very small dwellings. However, the construction of non-­ residential buildings has continued at a high pace, including a number of spectacular cultural buildings in the central part of the city. The stagnating, and for some population groups even decreasing, residential space per capita anyway illustrates that Oslo’s ecological modernization policy of densification has not been able to reduce the strong social segregation of the city’s housing market. Oslo is still characterized by a strong geographical division between affluent districts in the west and in the inner southeastern villa areas, and much less affluent districts in the northeast and in the very south (Municipality of Oslo, 2019). The aforementioned examples are from urban development, with a particular focus on the building stock. It is of course possible to imagine that higher decoupling rates might be obtained within other sectors of society, and that limited decoupling success in urban development could be compensated through strong decoupling in other arenas of society. This does, however, not seem very plausible. For example, one of the fastest growing sectors in affluent countries today is tourism. The number of flights from Oslo airport (excluding transfer trips) was more than two and a half times higher in 2012 than in 1990, and with a considerably higher share of the longer and more polluting international flights in 2012 (Municipality of Oslo, 2013). Another important growth sector in Norway is private services (Ministry of Local Government and Modernization, 2018). The service sector is often pointed at as a part of the economy putting a low pressure on nature and the environment, since it may seem to require small amounts of energy and raw materials. Substitution of consumption from material commodities to ‘immaterial’ forms of consumption has, in line with this, been envisaged as a way to ‘dematerialize’ economic growth from environmental impacts (Heiskanen & Jalas, 2000; Inglehart, 1995). However, there is considerable material resource consumption associated with most of the activities of the service sector, as illustrated in recent attention to the high energy requirement of Internet servers and its related greenhouse gas emissions. Many service businesses are also quite transportation intensive. Not the least, this is applied to the so-called knowledge

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industries, which are increasingly based on heavily polluting international air travel to research meetings and conferences (Lassen, 2006). Replacing energy and material-intensive types of consumption with consumption of arts and culture has been mentioned as another example of substitution: if I spend my money on expensive art instead of making weekend shopping trips from Oslo to London, the environmental load per money spent will be reduced. But how will the owner of the gallery where I buy expensive paintings use the income from these sales? Maybe on a four-wheeler drive SUV or a trip on a cruise liner? In order for substitution to bring about a degree of decoupling sufficient to make economic growth environmentally sustainable, it must take place among most members of society, not only among a few environmental enthusiasts. The question then immediately arises: Can art and other ‘non-material’ consumption provide bases for eternal economic growth? The fact that the day and night consist of only 24 hours may pose a limit: how many novels can one person read during a given time, how many movies or art exhibitions can she take in, and how often would she like to have her hair styled? In recent years, there has been considerable focus on ‘circular economy’ and ‘cradle-to-cradle’ principles as sustainable solutions for growing cities (World Economic Forum/PwC, 2018) as well as for production in general (McDonough & Braungart, 2002). However, if there is to be growth in the volume of material products and the production is to be based on recycling (i.e. with no more extraction of new non-renewable materials), then increasingly large amounts of recycled material must be provided each year as input to the production. The only way to produce steadily more recycled material without bringing in non-recycled, newly extracted material into the process is to increase the recycling pace. In practice, this implies that the products (including buildings and infrastructures) tying up resources must be taken out of use with increasingly shorter intervals (Høyer, 1997). Instead of making long-life products, the products would need to become increasingly short-life! However, recycling is not environmentally neutral. It ties up and consumes energy and material resources, and even more so if the rate of circulation is speeded up.

Long-Term Growth Now, where does this leave us regarding the realism of the eco-modernist promise of combining continual economic growth with environmental sustainability?

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Needless to say, it is impossible to predict with certainty how future technological development will turn out. Nevertheless, it does not appear very plausible that a sufficient degree of decoupling will be possible to enable growth in GDP and consumption while at the same time reducing current environmental loads from cities and their development down to a level consistent with the requirements of environmental sustainability. Already reaching a sufficiently strong reduction of the environmental impacts of the current affluence level seems a tough task. With growth, increasingly high decoupling factors must be obtained. The higher the growth rate, the higher decoupling rates must be reached. With a growth rate of slightly above 2% annually, the consumption and production will be doubled in 33  years, quadrupled in 66  years and eight times higher in 100 years. With 3% growth per year, consumption and production will be 2.7 times higher in 33 years and more than 19 times higher in 100 years. Of course, one might imagine growth at a lower rate than in these two examples. However, for one thing, such low growth rates of, say, 1% annually are considered highly undesirable by most growth proponents (see Section ‘Sustainability Versus Capitalism’). Moreover, even with 1% growth per year, the level of consumption and production will be nearly three times higher in 100  years than today and more than seven times higher in 200 years. Obviously, exponential growth cannot continue forever, even at a low rate. Eventually, the growth in production and consumption will erode its own resource base—sooner if the growth rate is high, later if it is low. Even a ‘moderate’ growth of 2.1% annually will bring the economy to astronomic levels if it continues long enough. If such growth were to continue for 500 years, the economy would be 32,500 times bigger in 2520 than today! The question is not whether growth must come to a halt, but when. In the already affluent corners of the world, it should cease the sooner the better, in my opinion. According to the International Monetary Fund (2019), the affluence level (measured in purchasing power parity per capita) of more than half of the countries in the world is less than one fifth of the Norwegian level. If this gap is to be reduced, the economic growth rates must be much higher in the poor countries than in Norway. According to the baseline trajectory of the latest official Norwegian long-term economic forecast (Ministry of Finance, 2017: 123), GDP per capita is expected to be 80% higher in 2060 than in 2015. If the gap between poor countries and Norway is to be reduced, let alone filled, growth rates must be much

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higher in the poor countries than in Norway. Bringing the whole world up to the expected future affluence level in Norway would require tremendous growth in not only the 54% of countries where current GDP per capita is less than one fifth of Norway’s, but also in the remaining countries placed lower than Norway on the GDP ranking list. Even with very optimistic assumptions about development and large-scale implementation of ‘green’ technologies, it seems very implausible that economic growth at such a magnitude will be compatible with the requirements of environmental sustainability. It is, of course, possible to imagine instead a scenario where growth continues in Norway and a number of other rich countries but where the gap between rich and poor countries widens instead of being reduced. The global pressure against nature and the environment would then be lower than in the scenario where all countries were lifted toward the aimed-for Norwegian affluence level in 2060. Whether such privileged growth in the already rich nations would be possible from an environmental sustainability perspective is still highly uncertain. The question also remains how such reduced growth or zero-growth in the poor countries would affect the global economy (see Section ‘Sustainability Versus Capitalism’). Anyway, from the aforementioned text, it seems that Norwegian growth policies are based on implicit assumptions of either a highly unrealistic belief in the degree to which decoupling between economic growth and environmental impacts is possible, or an acceptance that the affluence gap between rich and poor countries will be perpetuated, if not widened. Or maybe a combination of these two assumptions. Distinct from policies based on such assumptions and ethical foundations, sustainable development requires strategies where global solidarity is paired with respect for ecological limits. In a Norwegian context, a degrowth trajectory seems much more plausibly to be in line with these requirements. In the European environmental discourse, the perspective of degrowth has gained increasing attention during later years. According to this perspective, the volume of consumption in the EU countries and other wealthy nations is already higher than what can be sustained in a long term if vital natural resources and environmental qualities are to be maintained and people in poorer countries are to be allowed to reach the same consumption level as in the wealthy North (Martinez-Alier, 2009; Spangenberg, 2010). According to degrowth proponents, boundless economic growth is neither environmentally plausible nor socially desirable.

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Human prosperity without economic growth is possible, and fulfilling the goals of human development, wellbeing and ecological sustainability does not require economic growth (Jackson, 2009; Victor, 2008).

Degrowth and Distribution In the Nordic countries, there is a saying that goes like this: ‘When it rains on the vicar, some drops will fall on the parish clerk’. Such plus-sum thinking has arguably been crucial for the class compromise on which the Nordic welfare state model is based. By baking a bigger cake, tough conflicts on its distribution between members of society could be calmed. Economic growth, and the growth in consumption it facilitates and on which its continuation depends, has been a premise for ‘the Nordic model’, which has internationally been considered to connote welfare politics and political progressiveness generally. But what if the cake cannot, due to resource limitations, continue to be baked bigger? As argued earlier, the idea of unlimited, environmentally friendly economic growth is illusory. It is of course not possible to state exactly a level beyond which per capita consumption of housing and other building stock elements should not, from concerns of environmental sustainability and global equity, be further increased. Depending on how far eco-efficiency strategies can in practice be realized, per capita building stock consumption in the Nordic countries may already have passed the level at which floor space per capita should not grow further if global-scale environmental sustainability and a just international distribution of consumption are to be obtained. If this level has not yet been reached, the limit will eventually be passed if the economic growth continues. If no overall escalation is to take place, increased residential floor area per capita among the population groups already having a high number of square meters at their disposal will only be possible if the rest of the population reduce their floor area per capita. If we intend to secure a certain minimum standard for everyone while not exceeding the ‘ceiling’ on per capita consumption, it is necessary to practice a principle of selective standard improvement. Resources must then be allocated to raise the residential quality for the most poorly situated instead of increasing the standard further for the affluent groups. Maximum norms for housing consumption would be a highly relevant measure to this end (Næss & Xue, 2016), following the logics expressed by Gandhi more than 70 years ago: The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.

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Some libertarian philosophers (e.g. Machan, 1984; Nozick, 1974) reject welfare rights and social justice as ethical principles. They build on the seventeenth-century philosopher Locke, who held that one person’s wealth usually did not prevent other people from also becoming rich. Nozick’s and Machan’s arguments do not take environmental and resource limits to consumption growth into regard. It is an example of the thinking referred to as ‘cowboy economy’ (Boulding, 1966) or ‘frontier economics’ (Colby, 1991) in environmental debates some decades ago. More land was always supposed to be available, so if someone put up fences around a large piece of land this would not prevent other people from doing the same. Obviously, this condition is not true in the contemporary situation of global ecological crisis and increasing scarcity of non-renewable resources. Yet, it is still the implicit assumption of neoclassical economics and neoliberal policies. Divergent from this, the United Nations Human Rights Declarations explicitly recognize that all humans have welfare rights. In a situation of scarcity, it is thus in line with the human rights to set limits on luxury consumption if this is necessary to secure a decent consumption level for the least well-off while respecting ecological limits.

Sustainability Versus Capitalism ‘Smart’ urban development strategies applying the eco-modernization strategy of increased eco-efficiency should be pursued for what they are worth, but these strategies are not sufficient. Decoupling can only be partial, not absolute. The narrow focus of eco-modernization on environmental technology and its disregard for social welfare and social justice implies a risk that the implementation of eco-efficiency measures may worsen the living conditions for vulnerable groups and increase social segregation and inequalities. This calls for policies—in urban development as well as in other sectors—that do not take the desirability of growth for granted (Fairclough, 2006) but focus on qualitative improvement instead of making the built environment bigger. This should be combined with measures to safeguard social justice in the distribution of urban benefits and burdens. Meeting basic welfare needs for everyone while keeping within ecological limits requires a society and an economic system that is not dependent on continually increasing levels of production and consumption, and where resources are distributed to meet the basic needs of everyone, including the least well-off members of society, rather than satisfying less

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basic wants of the affluent. However, measures to curb luxury consumption (e.g. maximum limits to the size of dwellings) would be a strong disincentive against the economic competition on which capitalist society is based. In addition, zero- or negative growth is at odds with capitalism’s inherent growth imperative (Gordon & Rosenthal, 2003). According to Karl Marx, expansion is the very kernel of capitalism. Marx used the formula M-C-M´ to illustrate how the engine of capitalist economy is unlimited accumulation. In this economy, all things, raw materials, human labor-power as well as the products resulting from this work, can be understood as interchangeable commodities (referred to as C in the formula). For ordinary people, commodities have ‘use values’ enabling us to meet various needs and wants. In the capitalist economy, however, commodities have a different main function: enable the conversion of some amount of ‘exchange value’—or money, M—into a greater amount M´. At an aggregate level, the capital accumulation of each individual capitalist adds up to economic growth for society as a whole, putting an increasingly heavy load on natural resources (Kovel, 2002). In this context, reduced growth will be problematic as long as competing firms or nations do not reduce their growth to the same extent. A company (or a nation) that wishes to stand still may find that it falls back, as its competitors increase their productivity and lower their prices. A contraction of the economy must be accompanied with redistribution of wealth if it is to be socially sustainable (Martinez-Alier et al., 2010). Obviously, strong social institutions and policies must be in place to tackle the double challenge of reversing the growth trajectory of the economy while securing the quality of life for all members of society. Such institutions and policies would be in inevitable conflict with individual capitalists as well as the interest organizations of the capitalist class. Combining environmental and social sustainability in the development of the urban built environment therefore seems implausible within the confines of capitalism, be it in its neoliberal or in a more Keynesian form (Næss & Xue, 2016). Instead, we need a new paradigm for urban sustainability (as well as for sustainable development in general) that is not committed to (per capita) growth in production and consumption in wealthy countries. This would be a paradigm reclaiming the implicit radicalness of the concept of sustainable development as defined the Brundtland Commission (1987: 43), and with ramifications that go beyond the prevailing eco-modernization framing.

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Concluding Remarks In this chapter, I have argued that: • ‘Decoupling’ between growth and environmental degradation to a degree necessary for making long-term growth environmentally sustainable is highly implausible. In the rich countries of the world, average consumption levels should be reduced rather than continue to increase. • Non-growing or reduced consumption per capita in affluent countries requires radical redistribution of burdens and benefits to meet the welfare needs of the less well-off. This requires not only minimum norms for consumption levels, but maximum norms as well. • Capitalism is unable to provide the societal conditions necessary for combining environmental and social sustainability. We are thus in a situation crying out for radical innovation at an overall societal level. While continued ‘green’ technological innovations should be promoted, the need for societal innovation (Higdem & Hagen, 2020) is much more urgent if a sustainable development is to be achieved. In the current sustainability discourse, radical policies and measures necessary for a transition to sustainable development are often considered unrealistic and impossible. This impossibility of the necessary calls for transformative societal change, where social structures, practices and cultures now standing in the way for sustainability must be replaced with conditions enabling an environmentally and socially sustainable pathway. Radical innovation is highly needed to develop a new, democratic social order that can support sustainability, as well as to explore strategies and pathways for the process of transitioning toward sustainability-conducive societal conditions. In what ways could planners, then, contribute to sustainability innovation? For one thing, planners have a responsibility to point to the likely consequences of proposed policy measures, seen in the light of criteria for sustainable development. This may raise the awareness about the insufficiency of policies confined within the dominant growth-oriented eco-­ modernization paradigm. Such information should be given to politicians as well as the population in general. Compared to planning practitioners, planning scholars are normally in a freer situation to level critique against currently favored policies. Planning scholars therefore have a particular responsibility for pointing at ‘elephants in the room’ such as the ecological

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unsustainability of growth policies. Planning academics should also spend more efforts on innovative development of scenarios for possible sustainable futures and pathways for their realization (Næss & Vogel, 2012). The twin crises of ecological unsustainability and growing inequality call for radical context-specific, strategic planning efforts to promote environmental and social sustainability objectives against the pressures for economic growth and wealth accumulation among the already wealthy. Such planning needs to utilize cracks, contradictions and openings within existing societal conditions to find solutions as environmentally sustainable and socially just as currently possible. However, planning should also raise awareness about the insufficiency of small-step adjustments and point at societal conditions currently blocking truly sustainable solutions. By legitimizing ‘new social objectives or effect a major reprioritization of existing objectives’ (Friedmann, 1966), planning could make its contribution to much needed, radical societal transformation.

References Boulding, K.  E. (1966). The economics of the coming spaceship Earth. In H.  Jarrett (Ed.), Environmental quality in a growing economy (pp.  3–14). Baltimore, MD: Resources for the Future/Johns Hopkins University Press. Brundtland Commission (World Commission on Environment and Development). (1987). Our common future. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Colby, M. E. (1991). Environmental management in development: The evolution of paradigms. Ecological Economics, 3(3), 193–213. Elkington, J. (1999). Cannibals with forks. The triple bottom line of 21st century business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Engebretsen, Ø. (1993). Arealbruk i tettsteder 1955–1992. TØI Report 177/1993. Oslo: Institute of Transport Economics. Fairclough, N. (2006). Language and globalization. London and New  York: Routledge. FAO. (2019). The state of the world’s biodiversity for food and agriculture. Rome: FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture Assessments. Friedmann, J. (1966). Planning as innovation: The Chilean case. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32(4), 194–204. Gordon, M.  J., & Rosenthal, J.  S. (2003). Capitalism’s growth imperative. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 27(1), 25–48. Heiskanen, E., & Jalas, M. (2000). Dematerialisation through services: A review and evaluation of the debate. Helsinki: Ministry of the Environment.

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Higdem, U., & Hagen, A. (2020). Calculate, communicate and innovate. Innovative planning – an upcoming field of interest. In A. Hagen & U. Higdem (Eds.), Calculate, communicate and innovate. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Høyer, K.  G. (1997). Sustainable development. In D.  Brune, D.  Chapman, M. O. Gwynne, & J. M. Pacyna (Eds.), The global environment. Science, technology and management (Vol. 2, pp. 1185–1208). Weinheim: Wiley-VCH. Høyer, K.  G., & Næss, P. (2001). The ecological traces of growth: Economic growth, liberalization, increased consumption – and sustainable urban development? Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 3(3), 177–192. Inglehart, R. (1995). Public support for environmental protection: Objective problems and subjective values in 43 societies. Political Science and Politics, 28, 57–71. International Monetary Fund. (2019). World Economic Outlook Database, April 2019. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. IPCC. (2019). Climate change and land. Geneva: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC. (2014). Synthesis report. Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Geneva: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Jackson, T. (2009). Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a finite planet. London: Earthscan. Kovel, J. (2002). The enemy of nature: The end of capitalism or the end of the World? London: Zed Books/Fernwood Publishing. Larsen, G. R. (2019). Opposisjonen i Oslo på krigsstien etter egen snuoperasjon: – Byrådet gir blaffen i de som bor her. ABC nyheter, June 14, 2019, https://www. abcnyheter.no/nyheter/norge/2019/06/13/195585591/byradet-girblaffen-i-de-som-bor-her Lassen, C. (2006). Aeromobility and work. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 38(2), 301–312. Machan, T.  S. (1984). Pollution and political theory. In T.  Regan (Ed.), Earthbound: New introductory essays in environmental ethics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Martinez-Alier, J. (2009). Socially sustainable economic de-growth. Development and Change, 40, 1099–1119. Martinez-Alier, J., Pasqual, U., Vivien, F.-D., & Zaccai, E. (2010). Sustainable de-growth: Mapping the context, criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm. Ecological Economics, 69, 1741–1747. McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things. New York: North Point Press. Ministry of Finance [Norway]. (2017). Perspektivmeldingen 2017. Oslo: Ministry of Finance.

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Ministry of Local Government and Modernization [Norway]. (2018). Regionale utviklingstrekk 2018. Oslo: Ministry of Local Government and Modernization. Mol, A. (1995). The refinement of production. Ecological modernization theory and the chemical industry. Dublin: International Books. Municipality of Oslo. (2013). Statistisk årbok 2013. Oslo: The Municipality of Oslo, Development and improvement authority. Municipality of Oslo. (2019). Statistikkbanken Oslo. Retrieved August 2019, from http://statistikkbanken.oslo.kommune.no/webview/ Næss, P., & Høyer, K. G. (2009). The emperor’s green clothes: Growth, decoupling and capitalism. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 20(3), 74–95. Næss, P., Næss, T., & Strand, A. (2011). Oslo’s farewell to urban sprawl. European Planning Studies, 19(1), 113–139. Næss, P., Saglie, I.-L., & Richardson, T. (2019). Urban sustainability: Is densification sufficient? European Planning Studies, published online at https://doi. org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1604633. Næss, P., Strand, A., Næss, T., & Nicolaisen, M. (2011). On their road to sustainability? The challenge of sustainable mobility in urban planning and development in two Scandinavian capital regions. Town Planning Review, 82(3), 287–317. Næss, P., Strand, A., Wolday, F., & Stefansdottir, H. (2019). Residential location, commuting and non-work travel in two urban areas of different size and with different center structures. Progress in Planning, 128, 1–36. Næss, P., & Vogel, N. (2012). Sustainable urban development and the multilevel transition perspective. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 4, 36–50. Næss, P., & Xue, J. (2016). Housing standards, environmental sustainability and social welfare. In P. Næss & L. Price (Eds.), Crisis System: A critical realist and environmental critique of economics and the economy (pp.  130–148). London and New York: Routledge. Nordic Council of Ministers. (1999). Factors 4 and 10 in the Nordic countries: The transport sector, the forest sector, the building and real estate sector, the food supply chain. TemaNord. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York, NY: Basic Books. Riksrevisjonen. (2007). Riksrevisjonens undersøkelse av bærekraftig arealplanlegging og arealdisponering i Norge. Dokument nr. 3:11 (2006–2007). Oslo: Norwegian National Auditing Office. Sorensen, A. A., Freedgood, J., Dempsey, J., & Theobald, D. M. (2018). Farms under threat: The state of America’s farmland. Washington, DC: American Farmland Trust. Spangenberg, J. H. (2010). The growth discourse, growth policy and sustainable development: Two thought experiments. Journal of Cleaner Production, 18, 561–566.

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Statistics Norway. (2019). Areal og befolkning i tettsteder, etter tettsted, statistikkvariabel og år. Retrieved from https://www.ssb.no/statbank/ table/04859/?rxid=5a5561ea-67b0-4bed-937bfbb177ba3b82 Strand, A., Tennøy, A., Næss, P., & Steinsland, C. (2009). Gir bedre veger mindre klimagassutslipp? TØI Rapport 1027/2009. Oslo: Institute of Transport Economics. Strannegård, L. (1999). Black-boxing eco-modernization. Nature and Market discourses in leadership practice. Stockholm: Centre for Advanced Studies in Leadership. United Nations. (2015). The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. New York: United Nations. Victor, A.  P. (2008). Managing without growth: Slower by design, not disaster. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. World Economic Forum/PwC. (2018). Circular economy in cities evolving the model for a sustainable urban future. White paper. Geneva: World Economic Forum. Xue, J. (2014). Economic growth and sustainable housing: An uneasy relationship. London/New York: Routledge. Young, S. C. (Ed.). (2000). The emergence of ecological modernization: Integrating the environment and the economy? London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 7

To Enhance Social Equity Through Urban Planning: The Potential for Innovation Hege Hofstad

Introduction The goal of this chapter is to identify how planning can support the development of more socially equal communities and consider innovation needs. Of specific interest is land use planning, as this is the part of planning practice that have proved to be most reluctant to address social inequalities (Hofstad, 2016, 2018). As such, the chapter emphasizes two of Friedmann’s (1966: 194) four aspects of innovative planning, namely to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reordering in the priority of existing objectives by seeking to level up social inequality as a concern for land use planning. Moreover, to translate general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and concrete action programs, by exploring the development of new ideas, practices and instruments of planning to support in a stronger emphasis on reduction of social inequalities. The chapter is based on the research report ‘Kommunal planlegging som redskap for å redusere sosiale helseforskjeller—Oppsummering av erfaringer fra tidligere forskning og workshop med nøkkelaktører’ by Hofstad (2019). H. Hofstad (*) Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_7

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The starting point of this chapter is thus that there is a need for exploring and identifying innovation needs for land use planning to serve as an instrument for reduced social inequalities. This involves delving into an uncertain field by searching for new, untried and creative ideas and actions where no one has the exact answers. Norwegian experiences together with international research results make up the empirical basis of the chapter. Norway is an interesting case, as their public health and planning policies have aimed to integrate public health and social equity as concerns for urban planning since 2008 (MoLGM, 2008). Furthermore, since 2011, Norwegian municipalities are expected to develop a knowledge basis showing the municipalities negative and positive health determinants, and this should lay the foundation for urban planning priorities (MoHCS, 2011) In sum, this actualizes social equity as a concern for urban planning. The chapter delves into the Norwegian experiences through a Delphi panel consisting of 28 Norwegian experts in the field, both academic and practical. All have interest, knowledge and/or experience with the intersection between social equity and urban planning. The experts all play an active role in either practices or studies of residential, urban and community development and have shown interest and/or have experience with urban planning as a tool for social equality. They represent public authorities at the national, regional and local levels; market actors; interest organizations; research professors; and consultants. They participated on a full-day workshop where they discussed the following topics: the existing knowledge base of the field; what opportunities the Norwegian Planning and Building Act provides today; and which planning tools that are lacking or need to be further developed in order to enable a more proactive use of urban planning to reduce social inequalities. Each theme was explored in a session consisting of three prepared presentations, a subsequent panel discussion, group discussions and a panel discussion. Written minutes of these discussions make up the empirical material. This material was then coded and main topics identified. Recommendations from the Delphi Panel The following main topics summarized are identified by the Delphi panel as areas where knowledge gaps exist and where there are challenges related to current practice and there exists a potential for further development:

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• Anchorage of reduced social inequalities as a purpose for planning • Development of comprehensive and locally based knowledge • Planning measures for leveling of inequalities These three topics form the structure of the chapter by figuring as distinct thematic sections. Hence, each section of this chapter starts with a summary of the Delphi panels’ conclusions on each topic. The sections then explore and discuss these themes further by consulting topical research and practical examples. The chapter concludes by identifying gaps in current practices and indicating innovation needs. However, we start out with a brief background section introducing core concepts.

Background: Health Promotion and Social Sustainability Emphasizing Social Equity In the early 2000s, we saw an enhanced interest for planning as a tool for health and well-being (WHO, 2005, 2009). This emanated from a shift from a narrow to a broader understanding of public health. A driving force was World Health Organization (WHO). In particular, WHO’s health promotion conferences with resulting charters, statements and declarations (WHO, 2009). The understanding developed from health as an absence of sickness to ‘a resource for everyday life’ (WHO, 1986), thereby emphasizing not only physical capacities but also social and personal resources. Hence, public health goes beyond healthy lifestyles to well-­ being (ibid.). This shift from a traditional focus on individual and physical health to a broader focus on social capabilities and resources makes health promotion a responsibility not mainly for the health sector, but for the public sector as such. The first health promotion conference in 1986 encouraged governments to ‘build healthy public policy’ that creates awareness to the health consequences of their decisions and for each public sector to accept their responsibility for health (WHO, 1986). A basic prerequisite for the broader understanding of health is, according to WHO, social justice and equity (WHO, 2009). Inequities in health are rooted in inequities in the society as such. A multitude of social factors across social sectors and arenas may potentially influence health positively or negatively. Consequently, these factors or ‘determinants’ are not equally distributed. One’s upbringing environment, education level, work and working conditions and level of income affect which conditions exist in

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the local community in which you live—in your school, workplace, residential premises and living environment—as well as how the wider economic, social and environmental structures affect you (Dahl, Bergsli, & Wel, 2014). Thus, health inequalities have socio-­ economic-­ ecological drivers, and their solution lies in systemic and comprehensive measures dependent on political will and attention (CSDH, 2008). The current understanding of public health has clear linkages to social sustainability. The latter is a dynamic concept highlighting the importance of the following three elements: (a) sustaining people’s basic needs; (b) giving attention to social equity and social justice, that is to the distribution of resources, amenities and opportunities and sharing of negative externalities; and (c) the sustainability of community putting weight on social coherence and social capital (Dempsey, Bramley, Power, & Brown, 2009; Opp, 2017; Vallance, Perkins, & Dixon, 2011). Hofstad and Bergsli (2017) argue that public health and sustainable development emerge from a common line of thinking based on the same diagnosis: the economic and social policies that govern global development have negative consequences for people and the environment that results in an uneven distribution of power and resources where some groups and countries lose systematically. The political goals of public health and social sustainability seek to correct these biases and create equal opportunities for human growth and development (ibid.). Hence, social inequality and social justice is at the core of both these perspectives. The urban planning discourse is continually more attentive to the distributional effects of spatial priorities. However, the day-to-day practices of planning are lagging behind (Hofstad, 2018). Without an awareness to socio-economic effects, urban planning can continue and strengthen existing biases in the community, both in the form of the strategies the plan proposes and in concrete physical planning priorities. Gaining an overview of social determinants is a first step in putting social equality and social justice on the planning agenda. However, the complexity, long-term perspective and the internal tension between competing social determinants is considerable; at the same time, it can be difficult to identify clear causal relations (Petticrew, Whitehead, Macintyre, Graham, & Egan, 2004). In addition, there is not a one-to-one relationship between identified knowledge and actual consideration in planning. Although social sustainability and public health are integrated as strategic aims, these goals have not trickled down the planning hierarchy and been translated to concrete planning measures (Hofstad, 2016, 2018). This is especially true for the aim to reduce social inequalities in health, thereby

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strengthening social equity. In the Norwegian Planning and Building Act (MoLGM, 2008), reduction of social inequalities in health is one of the obligatory purposes of planning, but also the concern least addressed in current Norwegian planning practice (Hofstad, 2018). A core question is how to put social equity on the agenda of urban development.

Anchorage of Reduced Social Inequalities as a Purpose for Planning The Delphi panel came up with three very specific recommendations to strengthen the political-administrative competence and the capacity to lift social equity as a target for planning: • Political and administrative boldness—a clear priority of reducing social health inequalities • Better expertise on negotiations and collaboration with developers concerning new densification areas that will provide predictability for developers Exploration of Innovation Needs The first bullet point emphasizes that what the politicians and administration do themselves, in their own organization, matter. A first place to start is the municipality’s own plans and strategies. However, in Norway, most politicians exercise their position in their spare time and have sparse knowledge on these issues. In order to put them up to the task, the association for Norwegian municipalities, KS, runs a training program for elected officials.1 Lately, the Norwegian branch of WHO’s healthy cities network has developed a specific program on public health. However, none of these programs addresses social inequalities in particular or the broader public health perspective in general (Hofstad, 2019). The administration plays a key role in creating awareness and spread knowledge about social challenges in the municipality. The Delphi panel experience, however, that the capacity and competence in the local administrative apparatus generally are an Achilles heel. A municipality is a complex organization expected to develop locally founded policies, implement political decisions, secure compliance with laws and 1

 https://www.ks.no/fagomrader/demokrati-og-styring/folkevalgtprogrammet/.

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regulations, conduct effective management and ensure learning, improvement and innovation. A municipality is at the same time an authority, a service producer and a community developer. For social equity to climb higher on the local political agenda, the integration of these considerations not only as strategic goal for the municipality’s social development, but also as a goal for the general, administrative management system is crucial. The management system is the administrations’ ‘skeleton’. In order to stimulate administrative boldness, goals for social equity must enter the municipal budget, management plans, assignment letters, management agreements and contracts that are developed in relation to the short-term, yearly administrative cycle, and the longer-term four year cycle (Hofstad, 2019). This means, however, that the goals and ambitions related to these concerns need to be significantly narrowed and specified. This level of detail is not yet developed and will need a broader political will, awareness and understanding of the challenges at hand. social equity potentially contains competing goals that have to be politically weighted and decided upon. The second bullet point gives attention to the political aspect of planning—namely the negotiations and collaboration concerning development of densification areas between local government on the one side and developers and local communities on the other. Urban development mainly takes place in already built-up areas where there often is a multitude of different private landowners (Nordahl, Barlindhaug, Havnen, Nørve, & Aamo, 2011). This provides a more complicated planning process involving several landowners negotiating among themselves and with the municipality on technical and infrastructural solutions, and distribution of ‘burdens’ such as green structure, public space and so on. The municipality itself is rarely a landowner. Urban lands are often owned by the private actors (professional or unprofessional) or by government agencies operating more or less as private actors (ibid., Mäntysalo, Jarenko, Nilsson, & Saglie, 2015). In addition, private actors mostly provide detail planning in Norway. They may outline and suggest detailed plans and have them evaluated and adopted by local government. A pertinent question is how local government can ensure influence over urban development in a situation where the market has significant definition power and controls central implementation tools (Nordahl et  al., 2011: 24). Local government understood both as the politically elected representatives and the administration can derive legitimacy for its position in negotiations with landowners and developers from multiple

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sources. Mäntysalo et al. (2015: 355) identify four different principles that can support local government when seeking to support arguments, claims and positions in negotiations about urban development: • Justice—rules and procedures for balancing individual interests and the interests of the community. • Freedom—to facilitate individual freedom, including business and free use of one’s own property. • Inclusion—open and transparent decision-making, collaboration with key actors. • Accountability, formal decision-making procedures and anchorage in the representative democracy. These ideals point to principles one may bring to the table in urban development negotiations. However, they say little about how to act in order to secure these ideals. So, let us take this a step further by examining whether it is possible to identify specific roles local government may rely on in the negotiation about future urban development. If we start with principles of justice and accountability, local government may enact a role where they draw on their democratic authority to ensure fair and responsible decisions for the community as a whole. Here, local government can take on a value-based, strategic role founded in general considerations in laws and regulations, the municipality’s own strategic plans and formal procedural requirements that ensure fair decisions and equal opportunities. This involves to exercise some form of ‘transformative leadership’ that motivates private stakeholders to look beyond their own interests and contribute to secure common, collective interests (Nye Jr, 2008: 62). If we turn to the principle of freedom, local government may take on a catalyzing role that helps trigger activity and unleash resources through a form of ‘transactional leadership’ where one appeals to the individual self-­ interest of citizens and professional developers (ibid., Sørensen & Torfing, 2012). This may involve adding incentives in the form of public investments to trigger action in line with strategic plans for the area (Nordahl et al., 2011; Nye Jr, 2008: 63). In this negotiation process, local government may play an additional role as convener by providing an arena for negotiating the distribution of burdens and benefits between relevant landowners (Sørensen & Torfing, 2012). If we finally turn to the principle of inclusion, interests of a more general character prevail. A key goal is to ensure that civil society and

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individual citizens are heard and are able to influence decisions. Thus, plan solutions need a wider anchorage, that is representation of citizens and organizations in negotiations that will provide a broader knowledge and resource base. To develop measures that include the ‘silent voices’, those that seldom participate in planning, is particularly important (Young, 2000). Local government may take on a facilitating role to support and bring forth ideas and solutions that improve the negotiation result and strengthen the concern for social equity—either by securing a higher legitimacy in the population or by ensuring that the very solution considers the public good (Sørensen & Torfing, 2012). In sum, the political-administrative leadership exercised here is a mixture of transformational and transactional measures. On the one hand, local government actors can invite to the creation of a common vision. On the other hand, they can appeal to the participants’ self-interest by offering incentives that increase the actors’ interest in contributing to find compromises.

Development of Comprehensive and Locally Based Knowledge The following bullet points sum up the main themes addressed by the Delphi panel: • Development of contextual knowledge • Conducting more systematic studies • Establishment of comprehensive knowledge • A stronger focus on socio-economic challenges Exploration of Innovation Needs Obtaining contextual, systematic and comprehensive knowledge means understanding and presenting relevant influencing factors and their distribution in specific local areas. Such factors can vary considerably from place to place. In addition, the population of an area may have different perceptions of what they deem as the most important positive and negative factors in their local environment (Millstein & Hofstad, 2017). The question of interest here is how knowledge is produced in an urban development or planning process, and to what extent questions of social distribution and

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equity are included as relevant and important concerns. According to Næss (2008: 45), a planner understands a local environment as a spatial entity. Depending on the theme and purpose of planning, a space can be seen as ‘something that enables, facilitates, complicates or hinders various types of human activity, partly as something that affects behavior through symbolic and aesthetic expressions, partly as something that affects our perceptions of which institutions, groups and individuals that have power and status, partly as something that appeals to aesthetic taste, pleasure and identification of group affiliation, and partly as nature’ (ibid.). Regardless of whether one can fully agree with this definition, it shows that plannings’ approach to understand an area must be based on a diversity of knowledge traditions and disciplines in order to understand the locality in its entire breadth. The reason why such contextual knowledge is important is that one assumes that spatial conditions can contribute to, influence and create conditions for human actions: the physical environment creates accessibility and barriers, proximity and distance and allow some activities above others (Næss, 2008: 47). Just as human activities and decisions influence the physical structures of a given area. Places are therefore multidimensional where many factors are at play at the same time, reinforcing, counteracting and activating each other (Næss, 2008: 52). Let us take a closer look at various methods to capture this interplay between physical, cultural, social and economic factors in a given area. Context-sensitive approach. Atdhe Illyrian Belegu, who has won both the Aspelin Ramm Prize and Statsbygg’s Student Prize for his Master’s thesis ‘03 Assembly Palace’, argues for creating urban development ‘inside and out’ (Arkitektnytt, 2018; Bergen School of Architecture, 2017a): All places set its own premises for development. They require diversified approach to develop in the best way and in their own spirit. Unfortunately, far too often the development of a district uses the glasses of an outsider. Often without being aware of or interested in the districts’ own qualities and characteristics.

He thus criticizes today’s practice based on outsiders’ thoughts on necessary and good measures, and the widespread usage of the same recipe across localities without regard to the character of the place. Belegu argues that one should strive to find the place’s own rhythm, history, emotions, experiences and memories in order to let the locality itself find opportunities and answers (Bergen School of Architecture, 2017b). This opens for

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the complex and dynamic at the same time as emphasizing intangible entities, such as emotions, experiences and memories, which are innovative in architecture and planning. These professions are traditionally most concerned with the physical aspects of an area. Another input to contextual knowledge is sociocultural place analyzes, which is an extension of the traditional spatial analyzes where landscapes, buildings and other physical elements to enhance the aesthetic and functional qualities of an area are studied (Ruud, Brattbakk, Røe, Vestby, & Bettum, 2007). However, the physical surroundings affect people differently and are considered differently on the basis of interests, experiences, values and so on. The sociocultural place analysis includes such sociocultural factors by analyzing usage (practice), imageries (performances and representations) and interests (power relations). Government, business, civil society and the media are involved in the analysis. Recently, Norwegian municipalities have taken this a step further by introducing area-oriented work where ‘the municipality initiates a coordinated, systematic and broadly applied initiative in a specific geographical area’. The idea is to lift urban and local communities with complex challenges so that all places in the municipality are perceived as good places to live and grow up in. Living conditions are often a key justification for the effort. In collaboration with the inhabitants of the area it implies area-oriented work to strengthen physical and social qualities and to add new ones. An important measure is to develop social ties and mobilize the population’s own capacity. Both sociocultural place analyzes and area-oriented work are thus concerned with lifting people’s wants and needs into decision-making, and in the latter case to lift the whole area socially and economically. However, these initiatives are criticized for focusing more on beautification of surroundings, construction of new attractions and places people can meet (Ruud, Holm-Hansen, Nenseth, & Tønnesen, 2011). Thus, a key challenge when striving to obtain and let contextual knowledge matter is to bridge the seemingly deep gap between the physical and the socio-economic-cultural by linking planning and its tools and measures with welfare and broader social measures that directly affect people’s living conditions and contribute to social equity. This brings us over to the third and last recommendation from the Delphi panel, namely to develop planning measures capable of leveling inequalities.

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Planning Measures for Leveling of Inequalities These points sum up the main themes addressed by the Delphi panel: • Strategic use of local knowledge in regional and local planning, including in strategic priorities in location issues • A particular focus on developing high-quality services in socio-­ economically weaker areas • Prevention of segregation by designing a clear strategy for social mix that guides planning • Facilitation of housing for families with children in densification areas/public transport hubs • Development of a support scheme for decision-making highlighting the importance of social mix and clarifying topical planning tools to support social mix • Development of social housing models where the state through the Housing Bank takes an active role • Creation of affordable housing by active use of municipal land Exploration of Innovation Needs The above-mentioned points contain key aspects of policy and planning for better living conditions—strategic community development, area-­ specific measures such as service development and stimulation of social mix, as well as development of more general social housing models. The first two points address a core issue when dealing with social inequality in planning, namely that different contexts may have different capabilities and resources that affect their ability and strength to be involved and active in local development processes. Over time, this may have segregating effects where unpopular noisy, polluting or social functions pile up in the socio-economically weaker areas. Hence, it is important to combine context-sensitive and sociocultural approaches with a broader geographical perspective that are sensitive to the distribution of negative and positive determinants across the municipal area. The Delphi panel endorsed this point and highlighted the importance of using local knowledge strategically to prioritize in location issues. Furthermore, they underlined that a good strategy to level the difference between municipal districts was to develop high-quality services in the socio-economically weaker areas. In proceeding, we jump lightly over the last two bullet points mentioned

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above, which is addressing very specific housing models outside the scope of this chapter. Rather, we will linger and explore further the concept of social mixture, baked into points 3–5 in the Delphi panel’s bullet points. According to Galster and Friedrichs (2015: 176) ‘“Social mix” has been considered an urban planning theory, a neighborhood economic— demographic condition, a set of urban transformation strategies, and (ironically) both a neo-liberal and a socialist ideology’. The assessment and understanding of social mix thus diverge depending on one’s professional and political position. In the introduction to a special issue of social mix, Galster and Friedrichs (2015: 176) operate with the following definition: ‘[S]ocial mix is implicitly defined as a state of relative neighborhood diversity according to socioeconomic status, in counter position to spatial concentrations of extremely high- or low-status households’. Social mixing is thus about trying to create greater socio-economic diversity in areas that are socio-economically homogeneous. Often, such strategies target areas that have an accumulation of socio-economically disadvantaged. The aim may be to increase people’s opportunity to realize their potential, to make qualitatively better living areas and to utilize resources more efficiently as the concentration of social problems make area-specific measures relevant (Manley, van Ham, Bailey, Simpson, & Maclennan, 2013: 5). What do we know about the linkage between social inequalities and social mixture? Studies show that to live in an area with an accumulation of socio-economic problems adversely affect the financial opportunities of people with low income (Galster & Friedrichs, 2015). The Norwegian Ministry of Finance endorse this point arguing that individual sick leave and disability benefits are affected by changes in the number of social security recipients in their living area (Meld. St. 29 (2016–2017)). However, it is difficult to identify the exact mechanisms that make social mixture an advantage for socio-economically disadvantaged people. Previous research has not succeeded in identifying interventions that are particularly effective (Galster & Friedrichs, 2015). Geographical areas are multifaceted with complex causalities, which make it difficult to single out concrete neighborhood effects (Manley et al., 2013: 4). Thus, programs and measures developed to create social mix must embody this complexity by containing a diversity of interconnected measures (ibid.). Not least, it is important to keep an eye on not only the area in itself, but be aware of influencing factors outside the area, as pinpointed by the Delphi panel earlier. In addition, it is important to combine location-based and personal-­ based measures. Studies show that measures aiming to affect the local area

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have lower effects than measures directed towards education, health, employment and household conditions (Manley et  al., 2013: 4). Put another way: adding qualities at the area level has less impact than working directly to improve socio-economic conditions. An example from current urban development practice reflects this insight. The area-specific program in Groruddalen in Oslo (2017–2026) aims to combine local community initiatives with welfare measures: The program will contribute to permanent improvements in services and neighborhood qualities in areas in Groruddalen where the needs are greatest, so that more residents in these areas become economically independent and actively participating in their local community as well as in the society in general. (Norwegian Government and the Municipality of Oslo 2016)

The main goal of the City of Oslo’s area policy2 is that all local areas in Oslo are good and safe places to live and grow up in. It combines monitoring of all urban areas in Oslo with implementation of comprehensive and coordinated efforts in particularly exposed local areas as well as steps to counteract negative development in areas showing early signs of vulnerability. To develop social mix, thus, requires a broad specter of initiatives that are internally coordinated and emphasizing welfare measures while being aware of broader conditions outside a given area. Often, attempts to influence and change the social mix of an area goes hand in hand with measures to alter the area’s reputation through physical upgrading and placement of cultural functions. If not combined with welfare measures seeking to strengthen education, health, employment and household conditions, upgrading may have segregating effects.

Innovation Needs and Identification of Key Elements of Healthy Urban Planning For planning to serve as a vehicle for social equity, it not only needs a wider toolbox. More importantly, a broader purpose of planning including social and distributive concerns needs to be developed. This involves not only practical measures and methods, but a cultural change from a 2   For more information: https://www.oslo.kommune.no/politikk-ogadministrasjon/; byutvikling/omradepolitikk/#gref.

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Planning process: Mapping of living conditions and quality of life; enabling inclusion& stakeholder interaction

Strategic prioritization: Prioritizing some socio-economic concerns over others

Plan proposal: Creating linkage betweeen general and place specific needs; spatial and welfare measures Fig. 7.1  Creating healthy urban planning

core focus on economic attractiveness and environmentally/climate sound solutions to socially just and healthy development. How can urban planning practices absorb a wider, social agenda and become what are often deemed ‘healthy urban planning’ (Hofstad, 2011; WHO, 2005, 2009). Based on the discussion in this chapter, Fig.  7.1 summarizes suggested elements for creating healthy urban planning. Healthy urban planning requires a more comprehensive, holistic approach contributing to a more socio-economically balanced development, regionally and locally. A prerequisite for achieving social equity through planning is a holistic and place-adapted approach. This involves building a joint understanding of reality through knowledge development serving as a platform for strategic prioritization and the final planning proposal. In order to make this knowledge basis comprehensive enough and inclusive enough, the planning process must include methods that enable collection of context and socioculturally sensitive information accumulated through involvement of the local community. Thus, this requires collaborative innovation. Using this knowledge basis as a starting point, the next step is to make strategic prioritization of the most pressing

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challenges revealed. This involves making unpopular decisions, namely to prioritize some concerns and some geographical areas above others. This is of utmost importance, as different aims and measures may counteract each other. Thus, clear prioritizations may spur innovation as spatial planners within and outside the public apparatus are required to develop new plans and planning methods to be able to respond to the new requests. Thus, this requires some form of institutional innovation. In the final planning proposal the knowledge basis, strategic priority and new methods developed should create a pathway that enables the creation of a linkage between general and place-specific needs as well as between spatial and welfare measures. Thus, this requires innovation understood as a coupling of formerly decoupled activities, by combining institutional elements in new ways. The Norwegian planning and building act opens for including these three elements in land use planning. However, there is a gap between what the municipality may do with its own resources and its own property and what the municipality can require private actors to do. Hence, a core challenge is that planning only gives the opportunity to interfere indirectly with the social aspects. At a strategic level, planning may highlight knowledge about socio-economic and distributional factors, allowing collective benefits such as public spaces, recreation areas and social meeting places where social interaction and activities can take place. At the same time, in specific detail plans, one can regulate the size and quality of dwellings in vulnerable areas—light, air, energy consumption and so on. These are important general health promotion measures, but these regulations, as underlined above, need to be reinforced by specific, context-sensitive measures. This will require innovation of planning to become an instrument that addresses not only physical factors but also social factors. A firmer combination of general measures that lay strategic and structural foundation for socially and thriving local communities, with specific measures targeting the unique qualities of an area at the same time as welfare measures create opportunities for people to take out their full potential in education, work, family and leisure. This calls for sector-wide approaches, but also legal adjustments that open for using the Planning and Building Act as not only a spatial but also a socio-economic instrument. For example, there is need for instruments that affect the social profile of housing in terms of price level, possibility for development of housing to designated groups or a wider toolbox when it comes to ownership form—condominiums, rental homes or self-owned units (Nordahl, 2018). Thus

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Give strategic direction

Reorient

Co-create

• Learn – understanding the challenge • Define – setting the level of ambition • Prioritize – Emphasizing some social determinants over others

• Build competence & capacity – strengthening the institutional ability • Develop contextual knowledge – identifying place-specific social determinants • Initiate community development – combining spatial and socioeconomic measures

• Institutionalize – building arenas for co-creation • Facilitate & stimulate – social cohesion, activity, place identity • Innovate – stimulating locally sound approaches and measures

Fig. 7.2  Core conditions for health promotion and social health equality

while awaiting wider authority to claim a strengthened focus on social equity, the municipalities are left with acting as transformative and transactional leaders: instigating self-governance by vision-making and persuasion and developing carrots to nudge private action towards taking a wider social responsibility in their projects. Figure 7.2 presents a more fine-grained overview over capacities and roles in need of development for planning to function as a measure for social equity. The first element, providing strategic direction, emphasizes the importance of understanding the challenges of social equity in general and in different parts of the municipality in particular. This involves awareness to important negative and positive factors in the communities as income, work, living environment, community participation, distribution of resources. The strategic element lies in the demonstration of political and administrative boldness by defining the level of ambition and prioritization of which determinants are most important in the municipality as a whole, and in different municipal districts. The second element, to reorient, involves building political and administrative competence and capacity through clear expectations, and ability to exploit the potential of the tools offered by the Planning and Building Act and to seek cooperation with the state to change rules and guidelines creating a window of

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opportunity for setting social equity at the agenda. The third element, to co-create, emphasizes that the municipality is completely dependent on the efforts of a wide range of actors to reduce social inequality and create social equity. Thus, by establishing arenas for collaboration, developing place-adapted, contextual knowledge together with relevant actors and facilitating social activity and coherence one can lay the foundation for healthy communities that planning are incapable of achieving alone.

References Arkitektnytt. (2018, September). Prisvinner vil byutvikle nedenfra og opp, 20. https://www.arkitektnytt.no/nyheter/prisvinner-vil-byutvikle-nedenfraogopp. lastet ned 5. mars 2019. Bergen School of Architecture. (2017a, November). Atdhe Belegu is the winner of Statsbygg`s Student Award 2017, publisert 30. http://www.bas.org/ Nyheter/Atdhe-Belegu-is-the-winner-of-Statsbygg-s-Student-Award-2017, lastet ned 5. mars 2019. Bergen School of Architecture. (2017b). Diploma 2017: “THE 03 ASSEMBLY PALACE” – A contextualized restructure and adaptation of local assets, http:// www.bas.org/Prosjekter/Diploma-2017-THE-03-ASSEMBLY-PALACEAcontextualized-restructure-and-adaptation-of-local-assets-in-Fjell-Drammenby-Atdhe-Belegu, lastet ned 5. Mars 2019. CSDH. (2008). Closing the gap in a generation. Health equity through action on the social determinants of health. C. o. S. D. o. Health. Dahl, E., Bergsli, H., & Wel, K. v. d. (2014). Sosial ulikhet i helse: en norsk kunnskapsoversikt. Oslo: Oslo and Akershus College of Applied Sciences. Dempsey, N., Bramley, G., Power, S., & Brown, C. (2009). The social dimension of sustainable development: defining urban social sustainability. Sustainable Development, 417. Friedmann, J. (1966). Planning as innovation: The Chilean case. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32(4), 194–204. Galster, G. C., & Friedrichs, J. (2015). The dialectic of neighborhood social mix: Editors’ introduction to the special issue. Housing Studies, 30(2), 175–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2015.1035926 Hofstad, H. (2011). Healthy urban planning: Ambitions, practices and prospects in a Norwegian context. Planning Theory & Practice, 12(3), 387–406. Hofstad, H. (2016). The ambition of Health in All Policies in Norway: The role of political leadership and bureaucratic change. Health Policy, 120(5), 567–575. Hofstad, H. (2018). “Folkehelse – proaktivt grep i PBL 2018, hva er status ti år etter?”, kapittel 13 i Hanssen, G.S og Aarsæther, N. (red), Plan- og bygningsloven – en lov for vår tid? Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

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Hofstad, H. (2019). Kommunal planlegging som redskap for å redusere sosiale helseforskjeller—Oppsummering av erfaringer fra tidligere forskning og workshop med nøkkelaktører, NIBR-rapport 2019:6, Oslo. By- og regionforskningsinstituttet NIBR, OsloMet. Hofstad, H., & Bergsli, H. (2017). Folkehelse og sosial bærekraft, ensammenlikning og diskusjon av begrepsinnhold, målsettinger og praktiske tilnærminger, NIBR-­ rapport 2017:15. Oslo: By- og regionforskningsinstituttet NIBR, OsloMet. Manley, D., van Ham, M., Bailey, N., Simpson, L., & Maclennan, D. (2013). Neighbourhood Effects or Neighbourhood Based Problems? A Policy Context. In kapittel 1 i Manley, D., van Ham, M., Bailey, N., Simpson, L. og Maclennan, D (red.) Neighbourhood Effects or Neighbourhood Based Problems? London. Springer. Mäntysalo, R., Jarenko, K., Nilsson, K. L., & Saglie, I.-L. (2015). Legitimacy of informal strategic urban planning—Observations from Finland, Sweden and Norway. European Planning Studies, 23(2), 349–366. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/09654313.2013.861808 Meld. St. 29. (2016–2017). Perspektivmeldingen 2017. Oslo: Finansdepartementet. Millstein, M., & Hofstad, H. (2017). Fortetting og folkehelse – hvilke folkehelsekonsekvenser har den kompakte byen? NIBR-rapoprt 2017:2. Oslo: Norsk institutt for by- og regionforskning, OsloMet. Ministry of Health and Care Services. (2011). Lov om folkehelsearbeid (Folkehelseloven). Oslo: Helse- og omsorgsdepartementet. Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation. (2008). Plan- og bygningsloven. LOV-2008-06-27-71. Lovdata. Næss, P. (2008). Rom i planleggingsperspektiv. Formakademisk, 1(1), 45–57. Nordahl, B. (2018). ‘Boligbyggingog boligpolitikk. Plan- og bygningslovens trange handlingsrom’, kapittel 14 i Hanssen, G.S og Aarsæther, N. (red), Planog bygningsloven – en lov for vår tid? Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Nordahl, B., Barlindhaug, R., Havnen, E., Nørve, S., & Aamo, A.  S. (2011). Utbyggerstyrt byutvikling? NIBR-rapport 2011: 21. Oslo: Norsk institutt for by- og regionforskning. Nye, J. S., Jr. (2008). Public Diplomacy and Soft Power. Annals AAPSS, 616, 23. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716207311699 Opp, S.  M. (2017). The forgotten pillar: A definition for the measurement of social sustainability in American cities. Local Environment, 22(3), 286–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2016.1195800 Petticrew, M., Whitehead, M., Macintyre, S., Graham, H., & Egan, M. (2004). Evidence for public health policy on inequalities: 1. The reality according to policymakers. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 58(10), 811–816. Ruud, E. M., Brattbakk, I., Røe, P. G., Vestby, G. M., & Bettum, L. C. (2007). Sosiokulturelle stedsanalyser, veileder. Akershus: Fylkeskommune.

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Ruud, M.  E, Holm-Hansen, J., Nenseth, V., & Tønnesen, A. (2011). Midtveisevaluering av Groruddalssatsingen, Samarbeidsrapport. NIBR/ TØI 2011. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2012). Introduction- collaborative innovation in the public sector, The innovation journal: The public sector innovation journal, 17:1, artikkel 1. Vallance, S., Perkins, H. C., & Dixon, J. E. (2011). What is social sustainability? A clarification of concepts. Geoforum, 42(3), 342–348. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.01.002 WHO. (1986). Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. First International Conference on Health Promotion. Ottawa, 21 November 1986. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO. (2009). Milestones in health promotion statements from global conferences. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO-Europe. (2005). Statement, designing healthier and safer CITIES: The challenge of healthy urban planning. Mayors and Political Leaders Statement of the WHO Healthy Cities Network and The European National Healthy Cities Networks 23 September 2005, Bursa, Turkey Young, I. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 8

Climate Leadership: Developing Innovative Strategic Tools to Improve the Partnership Mode of Planning Gro Sandkjær Hanssen and Hege Hofstad

Introduction Handling the contemporary climate crisis requires collective, new practices, as societal and economic transitions are needed to curb the emissions. Cities are considered to have a pivotal role, as important emitters, and by currently taking the lead in pursuing goals of resilient, low-carbon urban development (Den Exter, Lenhart, & Kern, 2015; OECD, 2008; UN, 2019). Hence, cities are key actors and arenas for addressing the UN sustainable developmental goals (SDGs), and their success depends upon their ability to set and achieve objectives, solve problems and exercise their authority (OECD, 2008: 39). In Norway, national government now expects regional and local planning to ensure the 17 SDGs.1 In the literature, these challenges are seen 1

 National expectations to Regional and Local Planning, from May 2019.

G. S. Hanssen (*) • H. Hofstad Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_8

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to call for a shift from a more regulative, bureaucratic approach toward a more strategic and collaborative approach (Albrechts, 2004, 2006, 2011; Healey, 2007; Bulkeley, 2013). Norwegian land-use planning is often characterized as a hybridity, often characterized as partnership mode of planning (Hanssen, 2013), where “hierarchical tools” are combined with elements of “market-oriented” and “network-oriented” logics (Hanssen, 2013). Thus, the Norwegian planning system seems to be well suited to pursuing the SDGs. Here the SDGs can spur innovative strategies and collaborative efforts to unleash resources across the public and private sectors through new forms of co-governance (Hofstad, Vedeld, & Tønnesen, 2020). In this chapter, we study a forerunner city in Norway, the City of Oslo: it being the European Green Capital in 2019. Our focus is how urban climate leadership is performed in this institutional “hybrid” planning landscape, with a special attention on the role of strategic planning in climate transition. Strategic planning represents effective meta-governance instrument for mobilization and anchorage of policy goals, strategies and institutional networks with multiple actors, including citizens (Sørensen, 2014). Thus, our research question is: How are strategic planning tools used in the performance of climate leadership? How do urban planning tools spur/hinder the innovation needed for climate transition?

The studies of forerunners can be important contributions to the international academic discourse about innovative planning, as such studies identify new governance innovations and gain insights in the hindrances and drivers for innovation and climate transition (Alber and Kern in OECD, 2008; Kern & Kettunen, 2019; Den Exter et al., 2015).

Theoretical Perspectives: Climate Leadership and Strategic Planning Our point of departure is an institutional governance perspective, and the chapter tries to bridge new literature on climate leadership (Bulkeley, 2013; Sørensen & Torfing, 2009, Hofstad & Torfing, 2017) with strategic planning literature (Albrechts, 2006; Bryson, Crosby, & Bryson, 2009; Bryson, Edwards, & Van Slyke, 2018). We also relate to relevant public

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sector innovation literature (Sønderskov, 2019; Bason, 2007; Hartley, 2005; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011; Røiseland, 2019; Holmen & Ringholm, 2019). The climate leadership literature has a strong institutional governance perspective (Bulkeley, 2010, 2013; Bulkeley & Newell, 2015; Hofstad & Torfing, 2017; Taylor, Cartwright, & Sutherland, 2014; Alber and Kern in OECD, 2008). Leadership can be defined as the power to (re-)orient and mobilize others for a shared purpose, or an attempt to achieve a particular set of goals by influencing the behavior of and interaction between different actors (Sørensen & Torfing, 2019). The point of departure is that different governance modes exist in parallel: the traditional hierarchical steering tradition of public administration (PA), a more marked-based steering logic, often denoted “New Public Management”, and a more network-oriented mode of governance (often called “New Public Governance” (Holmen & Ringholm, 2019). Thus, climate leadership requires the ability to navigate and utilize the steering potential inherent in the different modes of governance, they being a “hybridity” of different governance logics and instruments (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). As climate leadership implies societal transitions, the political leadership dimensions of Tucker (1995) are of special relevance: ability to identify the societal challenges, (interactively) develop a solution that addresses these challenges and finally working to gain support for the chosen solutions. Leading transformative societal change—such as climate transition— requires hard work gaining support for the chosen measures. Hence, climate leadership involves performing transactional and transformational leadership. The former denoting the stimulation of self-interest of followers by setting rules and/or offering rewards, while the latter describes envisioning a shared desirable future, articulating how it can be reached, setting examples to be followed, securing high standards of performance and stimulating innovation (Moynihan, Pandey, & Wright, 2011; Hofstad et al., 2020). Hence, to assess climate leadership, we need to capture “the mix” of all efforts used by the political (and administrative) leadership— utilizing instruments from all modes of governance. As an attempt to develop more refined analytic tools, Alber and Kern (in OECD, 2008: 39) have shown how climate leadership must embrace four categories of steering mechanisms implementing climate change policies. As Fig. 8.1 shows, the four categories provide instruments of different strength. Local governments can resort to “[g]overning by authority: the municipality as regulator”, which includes their strongest hierarchical

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Market actors, associations, citizens

THE CITY/ MUNICIPALITY ORGANISATION 1.Governing by authority: the municipality as regulator (internal organization) 2. The municipality as provider (energy etc) 3. Self-governing: the municipality as consumer

1. Governing by authority: the municipality as regulator (external actors)

4. Governing through enabling: the municipality as facilitator (partnerships, co-creation)

Fig. 8.1  Illustrating how climate leadership must embrace four categories of steering mechanisms (based on Alber and Kern in OECD, 2008: 39)

steering tools. These regulatory instruments have two steering potentials: (1) internally in the municipal organization—stimulating change of practice by vertically steering, cross-sector cooperation, mainstreaming of new attitudes and new approaches; (2) regulatory instruments also give authority to regulate external actors (market actors and citizens), for example in transport and land-use. The second category is, “The municipality as provider (energy etc)”, where the city has a significant impact on local climate change action as the majority shareholder in the local utility companies for energy, transport, water and waste (Alber and Kern in OECD, 2008: 39). Thirdly, “Self-governing: the municipality as consumer” refers to the steering potential in being a climate-conscious consumer. Cities often have introduced the purchaser-provider model, which allows them to utilize their market power which is a huge purchaser of services and goods. By including climate requirements in their tenders, they can stimulate climate transition in production practices of industries and private firms. Fourthly, “Governing through enabling: the municipality as facilitator” refers to the different forms of tools that can work as weaker, indirect steering mechanisms, stimulating collaboration with private and community actors, establishing public-private partnerships, establishing network arenas, nudging mechanisms and so on.

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In studying how a forerunner city is navigating between these modes, choosing a “mix” of steering logics and instruments, we are interested in the role strategic planning and tools play. Is strategic planning used in all these four modes? In what ways? The attention to strategic planning has become stronger, even if planning always had strategic elements (Bryson et al., 2018). In 1999, the EU’s European Spatial Development Perspective underlined the need to develop strategies that would provide a basis for urban planning and development. The emphasis on strategic planning— being more political processes—also emerged from the need for coordination and collaboration in resolving complex issues (Healey, 2007; Hillier, 2007; Albrechts, 2004, 2012; Faludi, 2000; Ringholm & Hofstad, 2018). As Higdem and Hagen stress (2020), a vital aspect is the ability to coproduce results in a multi-actor and multilevel context. Strategic planning is visionary, as it must set a long-term direction, thinking carefully about purposes, goals for making decisions and visions for a desired future (Bryson et al., 2009). It enhances integration, as the direction must ensure that sector departments see their activities in context (Albrechts, 2006). This also implies systems thinking, including the interrelationships among subsystems (Bryson et al., 2018). Strategic planning is selective, as it makes political priorities and interest clarifications, therefore involving anchorage in political institutions. It is also relational, processual, context specific and action oriented, as the goal is to enhance a city’s collective potential by engaging a wide range of relevant actors, paying careful attention to stakeholders on the one hand, while also ensuring professional control. Strategic planning thus is an important ingredient in Friedmanns’ (1966) understanding of “innovative planning”. The Norwegian planning system,2 as part of a general European trend, reflects this strategic turn (Hanssen and Aarsæther 2018a, 2018b). It is often characterized as a hybrid system (Hanssen, 2013), where “hierarchical tools” are combined with elements of “market-oriented” logic and “negotiated planning”, and where the interplay and relation between public and private actors is essential. The hybridity implies that the cities must find new ways of giving direction in planning, as they cannot solely rely on traditional hierarchical steering.3

 According to the Norwegian Planning and Building Act (2008).  However, even if the Act reflects a strategic turn, the evaluation of the Act shows that the planning instruments and tools introduced with such purpose are not necessarily used adequately in practice—except for the large cities—as the forerunner city studied here (Oslo) (Hanssen & Aarsæther, 2018a, 2018b; Kvalvik, 2018; Aarsæter & Hofstad, 2018). 2 3

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When discussing how strategic planning is used in climate leadership— through both traditional governing tools (jfr modes 1 and 2 in Fig. 8.1) and more indirectly (3 and 4), we are interested in the “governance of governance” (Jessop, 2004, 2016). This is characterized as meta-­ governance, which Jessop (2016) considers to be a key state activity for securing coherence among different modes of governance and providing an appropriate balance between different actors. This literature brings political leadership to the core, now being expected to be leaders, meta-­ governors and interpreters (Sørensen & Torfing, 2009), where strategic planning can be effective tools. Sørensen and Torfing (2009) distinguish between four meta-governance categories: hands-off framing and institutional design, as well as hands-on management and participation. The first two are most relevant when discussing strategic tools in climate leadership. Tønnesen, Krogstad, Christiansen, and Isaksson (2019) argue that the “framing” category implies political goal setting, fiscal conditions, legal basis and discursive storyline. Here, goal setting is of special interest, as goal setting and translation into more specific measures on the ground are essential for realizing the steering potential (Bache, Reardon, Bartle, Flinders, & Marsden, 2015). Jung (2012) emphasizes the importance of avoiding ambiguity in the goal setting, to ensure organizational performance. However, in climate transition, leadership also requires agreements among a set of actors to develop shared collective goals. Thus, the second type of meta-governance is relevant, network design, which involves influencing scope, character, composition and institutional procedures of how the organization works—for example involving external actors in the market and civil society. One of our aims is to illuminate if and how new ways of climate leadership contribute to public sector innovation, involving innovation in governance and policy (Hartley, 2005). Here, one seeks innovation by introducing new processes; creating more nuanced understandings of policy problems; formulating new political visions, strategies and goals that trigger action; and new role perceptions among the actors (as “boundary-­spanners”). The local political leadership and administrative leaders are often core drivers (Sørensen, 2014; Hartley, 2005; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011; Ringholm, Teigen, & Aarsæther, 2013; Røiseland, 2019; Holmen & Ringholm, 2019). Furthermore, it is critical that key actors involve and coordinate networks between stakeholders at different scales in innovation processes. Thus, strategic planning provides a good vehicle for innovation (Albrechts, 2012; Healey, 2006).

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Method and Data Our data is a qualitative study of the City of Oslo as part of the GREENGOV research project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. The research objective of the project is to study which leadership strategies and mechanisms can effectively support co-creation, learning and innovation in favor of the green shift. This chapter uses data material from the study of Oslo, which includes document studies of strategies (including their knowledge base), plans and other steering documents of the city, as well as in-depth interviews with 45 key actors in Oslo, including political and administrative leadership, planners, civil servants, environmental organizations/ foundations, idealistic share holding companies, businesses and city districts.

Analysis of the Role of Strategic Planning Tools in Urban Climate Leadership in Oslo The performance of climate leadership in Oslo has a political (the City Government) and administrative (the Climate Agency and the administrative leadership in the different municipal agencies) basis. The climate leadership by the City Government is our main focus. Oslo has a parliamentary system,4 which means that the City Government derives support from a majority in the city’s “parliament”, the city council, and governs as long as they have their trust. The political climate leadership is the responsibility of the whole City Government, but the “Governor for environment and transport”, “Governor for urban development” and “Governor for Finance” are responsible for relevant sector fields. In the environmental policy literature (OECD, 2008) a key issue for implementing local climate policies is the institutionalization and integration of such policies and strategies within the local administration—a kind of mainstreaming or Environmental Policy Integration (Lafferty, Ruud, & Larsen, 2004). In our case, this resembles how the political leadership in Oslo is using strategic planning as meta-governance tools, for framing and institutional design.

4  For more information, see https://www.oslo.kommune.no/politikk-og-administrasjon/ politikk/slik-styres-oslo/

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Framing According to Tønnesen et  al. (2019), the meta-governance category of “framing” implies political goal setting, fiscal conditions, legal basis and discursive storyline. We here argue that the City Government has used strategic tools to frame—and make—a steering structure over their use of the four modes of governance instruments in the category of Alber and Kern (OECD, 2008). S etting Ambitious Climate Goals in the Climate Strategy Addressing the challenges of climate change was not new in Oslo, as there had existed a cross-political awareness to create an ambitious climate policy for many decades (Hanssen, Hofstad, & Saglie, 2015; Hofstad et al., 2020). However, the City Government being elected in 2015, and reelected in 2019 (Labour, Socialist Party, the Green Party), had from the outset an expressed goal of accelerating the achievement of Oslo’s climate goals to pursue climate transition. The goals now are to reduce emissions by 50% by 2020, and by 95% by 2030 (Climate Strategy 2019), far more ambitious than the national goals of Norway, and in accordance with the Paris Agreement (95% by 2050). Thus, one of the most important elements in the climate leadership of Oslo is to set bold goals for a desired future and enshrine them in the Climate Strategy and the overall Municipal plan. Therefore, the City Government had a need to revise these strategic planning documents. In June 2016, a climate and energy strategy was formally adopted based on the previous City Governments’ strategy, including 76 new climate and energy initiatives across 16 administrative sectors. This required decentered efforts across administrative departments and agencies to fulfill the disaggregated climate goals, with monitoring and systematic follow-up as a part of the city budget (Hofstad et al., 2020). The strategy was interlinked with the new Municipal plan (societal part) “Smart, safe and green: Oslo towards 2030—Municipal Plan (2014–2030)”. In 2018, the second-generation Climate Strategy was presented, increasing their ambitions, now having one of the most ambitious reduction goals in the world (NRK 9 August 2019). The goal of reducing the climate emissions of Oslo by 95% by 20305 was upheld, referring to direct emissions. But 5  Oslo’s direct greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by 95% by 2030 compared with 2009 levels. The goal includes all sectors in the official greenhouse gas emissions statistics (Oslo : 12, høringsutkast).

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according to the knowledge basis for the strategy,6 the City Government also intends to include indirect emissions related to Oslo’s consumption. Moreover, it combines climate mitigation and adaptation reflected in 14 prioritized areas. The ambitious goals represent clear political priorities, being emphasized as an important part of strategic planning (Albrechts, 2006; Bryson et al., 2018), and as we will see later these ambitious goals function as mobilizator and catalysator for developing new strategic tools.  ainstreaming of the Overall Municipal Plan M The literature stress that “mainstreaming” is a crucial point to achieve goal attainment in environmental policy (Lafferty et al., 2004), and this is the approach of the City Government. The governor for environment and transport, Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, has expressed: Climate measures are not going to be implemented somewhere else, in another place, or by someone else. Oslo must take responsibility and use all available municipal means to act here and now. (City of Oslo, 2016)

Thus, the City Government explicitly aims to make the whole municipality responsible for the climate policy (City of Oslo, 2016). One of their main tools is the overall Municipal plan, consisting of a societal part and a land-use part. Both have strategic potentials, but the societal plan has the most. However, earlier studies illuminate how the societal part often fails to do so (Hanssen & Aarsæther, 2018b). Not so in Oslo, as the City Government has utilized the strategic potential of the plan in framing municipal activities. The societal part was revised in January 2019, integrating the ambitious climate goals of 95% reduction by 2030. The City Government wanted more involvement in the planning process than earlier, and citizens were invited by SMS, in hearings, public meetings and workshops. By these involvement methods, the City Government received a large number of inputs and engaged discussions. Earlier studies have shown a gap between municipal planning related to “spatiality” (urbs) and to “society” (civitas), being mirrored in a lack of linkages between the societal part and land-use part of the Municipal plan (Hanssen & Aarsæther, 2018b). To bridge the gap, the City of Oslo introduced a “spatial strategy”. It is not juridical binding, but operationalizes the overall goals of the societal part into principles for land-use. The 6

 Kunnskapsgrunnlaget, the city of Oslo 2018.

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strategy gives clear direction to planning regarding the preferable way of operationalizing the ambitious climate goals: continued densification from the inner city and outwards, especially around public transport nodes. By using a spatial strategy as a bridge one may increase the attention to the political values and principles in the societal part and integrate municipal sector departments (Hanssen & Aarsæther, 2018b; Børrud, Hanssen, & Fausa, 2018).  ainstreaming by the Climate Budget M The literature (Bryson et al., 2018: 332) emphasizes the need for integrating strategic planning with other strategic management processes, to improve performance. In Oslo, the ambitious goals of the Climate Strategy have spurred development of a new governance tool, “the Climate Budget”. This is one of the first climate budgets in the world, and works as a reporting budget system to the city governor of finance, who also has the responsibility for the ordinary budget. The Climate Budget requires a two-year process, where the first year is used for planning and investigating measures, while in the second year the various municipal entities responsible for implementing the measures report on their progress (Hofstad et al., 2020). Key informants consider the Climate Budget to be at the heart of the “climate steering apparatus” of the city, which is an exceptional strong coordinating tool. It coordinates the effort for reducing Co2-emissions in all sector silos within the municipality. As a key informant states “The most important long-term effect is that the budget will lead to a mainstreaming (of the climate goals) in the whole municipal organization”. The idea is to decentralize the climate responsibility in the organization, by enforcing the departments and agencies to take climate responsibility in the same way as they take economic responsibility for their activities. The Climate Budget institutionalizes this decentralization in a way that is easy to measure and control.  sing Climate Goals to Trigger Innovation in Sector Agencies: Example U from Land-Use Planning The Climate Strategy states that the City has to strengthen the knowledge about the consequences for climate of different types of land-use and that the City has to develop new methods for this. In addition, the Climate Strategy states that the City shall actively use a climate accounting system for forests, land-use and land-use changes.7 7  They are currently waiting for the data from the National Environmental Agency for being able to do this.

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Having their ambitious climate goals as their point of departure, the new City Government requested the following to the Planning and Building Agency of the City (PBA) in the assignment letter in 20168: The City Government want a change of pace in the climate policy, and want to illuminate the consequences for climate in every planning- and building case being decided. The City Governor Department (for urban development) ask the Planning and Building Agency to incorporate this in the cases where this is relevant. The City Governor Department (for urban development) ask the Planning and Building Agency to contribute to the overall goal of the City Government to reduce the mitigation with 50% by 2020.

However, how this system of illuminating the consequences was to be developed was up to the agency to find out. This seems to be the general approach in their climate leadership, not to instruct their sector agencies in detail, but rather stimulate them to have decentralized innovative processes. As developing a new system took time, the request was repeated in later letters, even more explicitly. In 2018, the request was linked to the Climate Budget9: The City Government presented a climate budget for 2018–2021 where the measures for achieving the goals is presented … all plans are to contribute to the goals. … The climate consequences of planning proposals are to be assessed and illuminated. The assessment should be presented in the planning cases, and in the documents sent to the City Government. The Agency is requested to find a set of criteria to assess the climate consequences. In the reporting routines the criteria and effects are to be presented.

In the letter from 2019, the request also includes a specific instruction to cooperate with the Climate Agency. This new set of assessment criteria was recently introduced (November 2019),10 and contains six categories: (1) green mobility, (2) bluegreen structure, (3) surface water, (4) energy, (5) recycling and reuse and (6) fossil-free construction. The criteria set is integrated in the digital system for the planning process, and pops up when the private developer fills in the digital forms, as requirements to  “Tildelingsbrev 2016—Plan- og bygningsetaten. Oslo kommune”, p. 3.  “Tildelingsbrev 2018—Plan- og bygningsetaten. Oslo kommune”, 4.2.1 (Measures in the Climate Budget). 10  “Kriteriesett for vurdering og synliggjøring av klimautslipp og klimatilpasning i planprosessen” til innsendte detaljreguleringer (fra utbyggere). 8 9

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describe how the projects are delivering on different dimensions. For example, criteria 5 “Recycle and reuse” is operationalized as aims to “reuse the existing technical infrastructure, buildings and building-components”, “Use building material with low emission throughout the life-span of the product, including transport” and so on. The set of criteria is mixing criteria that the City has authority by law to require, with criteria lacking this authority by law. Thus, the criteria set is meant to make private developers more conscious about how they ensure the six dimensions in their planning proposal, stimulating changes in attitudes. Private developers have to describe how their project “delivers” on the different criteria, and then the Planning and Building Agency of the City (PBE) summarizes the (qualitative) scores and concludes if they can recommend the proposal or not. Both descriptions are sent to the politicians taking the final decision. Thus, the criteria set consists of an interesting mix of “soft law” and “hard law” instruments. This case illustrates how leadership by the use of strategic planning in framing of activities, and not by detailed instructions, opens up for steering innovation in the sector agency (led by administrative leaders).  ainstreaming by Public Procurement (Purchaser Role) M As Abler and Kern (OECD, 2008) emphasize, the city can also use their role as purchaser (consumer) to give direction and stimulate changes in private sector. The City Government has used this role strategically to achieve their ambitious climate goals. Among others, the city administration now asks for emission-free construction sites, stimulating different firms to develop electric tools and change their routines. Here they have a focus on nurturing business cases in order to commercialize needed solutions (Hofstad et al., 2020). The City has invested in electric excavators and trucks, in cooperation with the region and neighboring municipalities, to rent out to firms that are chosen to provide services. By using the role as a purchaser, they stimulate potential providers of services to develop new technologies in the transport, energy and construction sectors. Institutional Design The City Government has also been an active meta-governor through institutional design, to encourage internal and external collaboration. In the yearly assignment letters, the City Government has expressed a general “collaboration expectation”, expecting all agencies to collaborate across

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sectors and to mobilize citizens, business community and others to contribute to Oslo being a leading, green city. In addition, institutional design is used to encourage this.  stablishing the Climate Agency E One of the important strategic decisions of the City Government was to establish a “Climate agency”, in 2016. The Agency is mandated to be an internal driving force for Oslo’s climate transition by nudging, guiding and pushing the different sector administrations to take action. The Agency is small, comprising 30 people, and does not implement any measures itself. Its role is to be a driver, facilitator and supporter for all other agencies implementing climate measures. Thus, this special agency is acting as a service agency with cross-departmental tasks within the city administration, which is also observed in Zurich (OECD, 2008: 40). They also lead the processes of revising the Climate Strategy. I nstitutional Design to Facilitate Network Arenas with External Actors City authorities cannot effectively address the massive challenges posed by climate change without widespread grassroots involvement of a wide variety of actors in civil society (OECD, 2008: 41). There is a wide acceptance for this in the City Government, and climate leadership by strategic planning is performed in an active interplay with external actors. For example, the revised Climate Strategy and Municipal plan were developed through wide involvement of external actors in new collaborative arenas. The City Government has also established “Business for Climate Network”, a partnership for climate collaboration between the city and a broad range of private business and firms in the Oslo region. The Climate Agency holds the secretarial function. Each of the 180 partners is required to enhance Oslo’s climate goals, carry out climate proofing in own business organization and report on progress annually (Hofstad et al., 2020). The partnership gave important input to the Climate Strategy, ensuring ownership. According to the informants, Oslo’s “green shift” is about stimulating innovation within the public sector and society, and they want the city to be a test bed for innovation and cooperation. Hence, the city administration establishes a wide range of arenas, networks, projects and arrangements to involve and activate citizens and stakeholders.

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I nstitutional Design as “Boundary Spanning” The administrative and political leadership has found that they need more effective planning tools to achieve the ambitious climate goals. Hence, they have initiated cooperative workshops for discussing proposals for law amendments. The workshops bring together different sector departments within the city administration, external experts (researchers, professors, lawyers), national ministries and agencies, and developers and practitioners. The specifications of their needs for law amendments are sent to the Ministry of Modernization and Local Government to encourage them to start preparation for law amendments. Some of the suggestions are new regulatory provisions to demands11 climate accounting system from private developers, zero-emission zones, fossil-free construction sites and authority to require reuse or circular economy of building materials. Summing Up The chapter has shown how a forerunner city performs climate leadership and how strategic planning tools are used for this purpose. The City Government operates as strong meta-governors, by means of strategic planning in framing the activities of the city and in new institutional designs (jfr Sørensen & Torfing, 2009). Of special importance are the Climate Strategy and the overall Municipal plan, with clear, ambitious goals giving direction. These strategic planning tools have been used in an innovative way—framing the “mix” of steering tools in all four “modes” of Alber and Kern (OECD, 2008): as “regulator” (internally, externally), “provider”, “consumer” (purchaser) and “facilitator”. Of special interest is the integration of strategic planning (Albrechts, 2006: 1163), with new supporting, strategic tools like the “Climate Budget” and “Public Procurement system”. Together these instruments works as a comprehensive a holistic system for guiding political steering and everyday decision-­ making, as well as orchestrating activities in the private sector. The climate leadership performed in Oslo is characterized by a strong meta-governor approach, rather than detailed instructions. This reflects the principles of strategic political leadership, where politicians are setting the goals, while the administration are operationalizing and effectuating them. Nevertheless, they are an insisting and impatient meta-governor— as the case of developing a set of assessment criteria in land-use planning  PBE 2019: referat fra arbeidsverksted 10.9.2019.

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has shown. Both the hands-off meta-governance approach and its impatient attitude seem to have spurred much innovation at lower levels. Thereby, administrative climate leadership has been allowed to develop innovative new sectoral steering tools and new practices. Recent research (Hintea, Profiroiu, & Țiclău, 2019: 247) shows that local governments often strive with formulating expedient strategies, which can influence significantly their organization and communities. In the Oslo case, it seems like the ambitious climate goal of the City Government, being one of the most ambitious in the world, works well for this purpose. The strong strategic planning approach of the City Government (Albrechts, 2006; Bryson et  al., 2018) is reflected in their need to immediately revise the main strategic documents from the former City Government—even if they were relatively new. The visions and bold goals for a desired future, which represent clear political priorities, have functioned to mobilize and catalyze for developing new innovative strategic tools at lower levels. The climate leadership in Oslo is predominantly performed by the City Government (politicians), which is also found in other studies (Ringholm et al., 2013; Sønderskov, 2019; Hintea et al., 2019: 243). However, it is striking how the political and administrative leadership strategies are nested in Oslo (Hofstad et al., 2020). Another interesting finding is that the climate leadership role is taken by the whole City Government, collectively. This deviates a bit from other studies, often finding that the mayor plays the essential role (Hintea et al., 2019; Ruano, 2019; Holmen & Ringholm, 2019). However, it is in line with the purpose of the parliamentary model. Finally, a more collaborative approach in formulating the strategic planning tools (Climate Strategy and Municipal plan) seems to have increased the acceptance of quite unpopular solutions (like car-free city center, toll roads). This corresponds with recent research by Ruano (2019), who finds that the success of strategic planning depends on the capacity to mobilize social, political and economic stakeholders in the urban community, and their commitment to reach long-term objectives. This requires continuous attention and effort, especially when approaching the interventions seeking to eradicate fossil energy from the local economy to reach, in Oslo’s case, the goal of 95% cut in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030.

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Kvalvik, K. J. (2018). Kommunal planstrategi - frå politikk til administrasjon? (Municipal planning strategy - from politics to administration?), chapter 9 in G. S. Hanssen, and N. Aarsæther (2018a) Plan- og bygningsloven- fungerer den etter intensjonene? (141–155). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Lafferty, W., Ruud, A., & Larsen, O. M. (2004). Environmental policy integration: How will we recognize it when we see it ? The case of green innovation policy in Norway. In Governance of innovation systems. Volume 3: Case-studies in cross-sectoral policy. OECD Publishing. Mahoney, J., & Thelen, K. (Eds.). (2010). Explaining institutional change: Ambiguity, agency, and power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moynihan, D. P., Pandey, S. K., & Wright, B. E. (2011). Setting the table: How transformational leadership fosters performance information use. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(1), 143–164. NRK. (2019, August 9). Klimaforsker kaller Oslos klimamål “ufattelig ekstremt ambisiøst”. Retrieved from https://www.nrk.no/ostlandssendingen/ klimaforsker-kaller-oslos-klimamal-_ufattelig-ekstremt-ambisiost_-1.14655160 OECD. (2008). Competitive cities and climate change. OECD Conference Proceedings Milan, Italy, 9–10 October 2008. Ringholm, T., & Hofstad, H. (2018). En strategisk vending i planleggingen? In G. S. Hanssen & N. Aarsæther (Eds.), Plan- og bygningsloven 2008—en lov for vår tid? Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Ringholm, T., Teigen, H., & Aarsæther, N. (2013). Innovative kommuner. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Røiseland, A. (2019). Politisk lederskap som arena for innovasjon. In A. K. Holmen & T. Ringholm (Eds.), Innovasjon møter kommune (pp. 31–48). Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Ruano, J.  M. (2019). Actors, aims and challenges of local strategic planning in Spain. In C. E. Hinte̦a et al. (Eds.), Strategic planning in local communities, governance and public management. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Sønderskov, M. (2019). “Innovasjonspolitikeren”: Betingelser for en interaktiv politikerrolle. In A.  K. T.  Holmen & T.  Ringholm (Eds.), Innovasjon møter kommune (pp. 49–65). Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Sørensen, E. (2014). The metagovernance of public innovation in governance networks. Paper presented at the Policy & Politics conference in Bristol, 16–17 September 2014. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2009). Making governance networks effective and democratic through metagovernance. Public Administration, 87(2), 234–258. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2011). Samarbejdsdrevet innovation i den offentlige sektor. In E. Sørensen & J. Torfing (Eds.), Samarbejdsdrevet innovation i den offentlige sektor (pp. 19–37). København: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2019). Unpublished document about climate leadership from the Fossvik seminar.

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Taylor, A., Cartwright, A., & Sutherland, C. (2014). Institutional pathways for local climate adaptation: A comparison of three South African municipalities. Paris, France: Agence Francaise de Development. Tønnesen, A., Krogstad, J., Christiansen, P., & Isaksson, K. (2019). National goals and tools to fulfil them: A study of opportunities and pitfalls in Norwegian metagovernance of urban mobility. Transport Policy, 81, 35–44. Tucker, R.  C. (1995). Politics as leadership. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. UN. (2019). The future is now. Science for achieving sustainable development. Global Sustainable Development Report 2019.

CHAPTER 9

Innovative Planning in Rural, Depopulating Areas: Conditions, Capacities and Goals Josefina Syssner and Marlies Meijer

Introduction Rural areas are generally not considered to be hotspots for innovative planning practices. In both academia and planning practice, rural, peripheral and especially depopulating areas are regarded as backward and conservative, suffering from severe deprivation and lacking prospects. And yet, alternative voices increasingly stress the innovative potential of such areas. These voices demonstrate that rural depopulating areas are becoming the frontrunners of tomorrow’s spatial planning (Bock, 2016; Eder, 2019; Lagendijk & Lorentzen, 2007; Ónega-López, Puppim de Oliveira, & Crecente-Maseda, 2010; Shearmur, 2015). In this chapter, we start out from these contradictory representations of the rural, and reflect on the conditions, capacities and goals for planning in rural areas.

J. Syssner (*) Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] M. Meijer Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

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The introductory chapter in this volume draws heavily upon the intellectual heritage of John Friedmann (1966), who made a distinction between planning as allocation and planning as innovation. Planning as allocation—at that time the dominant planning paradigm—sought to reallocate scarce common resources and attempted to distribute them among a variety of needs in society in an allegedly “optimal” way. Innovative planning, on the other hand, was understood as a form of planning that sought to “legitimize new social objectives” or to reorder the ways in which existing objectives were prioritised in society. Innovative planning, Friedman argued, seeks to link certain understandings of what is valuable to both concrete action and new institutional settings. Resources, Friedman argued, are to be actively mobilised rather than just passively reallocated (Friedmann, 1966: 196). In this chapter, we link back to the understanding of planning as a set of activities that involves both the allocation of limited resources and the mobilisation of new ones. We endorse the argument that there is a need for new and innovative modes of planning for the future in both urban and rural areas. In our understanding, however, there is no contradiction between the allocation and distribution of scarce resources and the attempts to mobilise new ones. On the contrary, we would argue that, as long as resources are limited—which is fairly often the case—planning will continue to involve an element of prioritisation, balancing and allocation. We would also argue that, if the existing resources are allocated in a transparent, well-founded and long-term way, it is more likely that there will be room for more innovative and creative forms of planning. Our interest in the relation between the allocation of scarce resources and the mobilisation of new ones has its roots in our common experience of studying local development and planning in rural and depopulating parts of Germany, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands (Meijer, Diaz-­ Varela, & Cardín-Pedrosa, 2015; Meijer & Syssner, 2017; Syssner & Meijer, 2017). These areas are often (if yet not always) characterised by diminishing access to vital societal resources. Thus, several studies have established that depopulation affects the resource base of a society in a multitude of ways. Access to an educated workforce diminishes, and the willingness among external investors and local entrepreneurs to invest declines (for an overview, see Meijer & Syssner, 2017). Real-estate and labour-related tax revenues tend to diminish; the physical infrastructure becomes excessive and properties can be difficult to sell or rent out. For private property owners and small enterprises, it can be hard to get loans

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for real-estate renovations, since an investment will not always lead to increased market value. Our joint experience of studying planning in rural contexts leads us to argue that planning in communities characterised by depopulation requires different strategies and methods than planning in growth areas. This is a statement that has been made by several voices before us. Several authors have called for alternative planning strategies for areas facing long-term population decline, or even for a paradigm shift in planning (Wiechmann, 2008; Hospers, 2014; Kempenaar, van Lierop, Westerink, van der Valk, & van den Brink, 2016). During the last decade, several planning theorists have successfully responded to the call for further studies on planning practices in a context of depopulation. Many such studies have, however, been accomplished in an urban context. Studies of planning in rural, depopulating areas are rarer. In this chapter, this is the centre of our attention. In the text that follows, we endorse the need for innovative planning practices in depopulating, rural areas. To develop such planning practices, however, we need a greater understanding of three interrelated aspects of planning: (1) the planning conditions in depopulating, rural areas, (2) the planning capacity of public agencies in such places, and (3) the role of societal goals and objectives in the planning of places undergoing long-­ term population decline.

Conceptualising the Rural How to define the rural has been a topic of debate among rural researchers for decades. The first conceptualisations discuss rural areas as dichotomous to urban areas: areas where urban structures—such as high-rise buildings, industry, high population densities and diverse and high levels of services—are absent. Additionally, small settlements, farmland, forests and nature are typically mentioned as attributes of the rural (Woods, 2005, 2015). During the 1990s, these descriptive definitions were slowly replaced by more constructivist views of the rural, paying more attention to what it meant to actually live in rural areas, and moving away from exact descriptions or trying to identify what is essential to rural areas (Cloke & Little, 1997; Halfacree, 1993). On the one hand, these constructivist conceptualisations present an image of a “rural idyll”: an ideal countryside, away from chaotic and busy city life, where life is calm and beautiful and where close-knit communities prevail. On the other hand, this positive

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image is countered by darker conceptualisations of the rural, highlighting backwardness, lack of innovative potential, unemployment and conservative and closed communities (Liepins, 2000; Woods, 2005). Currently, the debate is moving towards more individual experiences with the rural. Rural areas can be perceived in diverse ways, depending on age, gender or your relation with these areas: being a mobile resident, autochthonous inhabitant, out-migrant or newcomer (Haartsen, Groote, & Huigen, 2003; Rye, 2006; Willett & Lang, 2018). Also, differences between growing and vital rural regions and declining, peripheral rural regions have become more apparent (Beetz, Huning, & Plieninger, 2008). In this matter, a distinction has been made between higher and lower amenity areas, where the latter includes depopulating, sparsely populated areas experiencing a lack of commercial and public services and limited potential for business development (Vuin, Carson, Carson, & Garrett, 2016). This development has led to more diverse and balanced representations of rural areas. However, it also demonstrates the impossibility of providing a clear, absolute and satisfying definition of the rural. Yet, scholars such as Michael Woods (2005) argue that conceptualisations of the rural by planners and rural policymakers matter, and have significant impact on the formulation of rural policies and development paths: from conservative, ignorant or protectionist to a focus on economic diversification and community development.

Methods and Data The arguments in this chapter are based on broad experience from several previous and ongoing studies accomplished in rural and depopulating parts of Germany, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands. In most of our studies, we have used a broad ethnographic approach. In some, we have focused specifically on local government representatives and formal planning agents (Syssner & Olausson, 2016), whereas in others, we have focused on informal community groups and bottom-up planning initiatives initiated by them outside of the governmental planning process (Syssner & Meijer, 2017). The ethnographic approach implies that we have made on-site visits to a large number of rural locations over the years. In most of these studies, we have also included policy documents (e.g. comprehensive and framework plans), newspaper articles and websites (i.e. of community-led planning projects) in our analysis.

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In this chapter, however, we will refer particularly to one on-going sub-­ study, where we have an interest in understanding how rural planning is conceptualised by those who are professionally involved in it. In our study, we arranged one workshop with a group of rural planners in Sweden. Those who took part in the workshop were all involved in Coast4Us—an Interreg project in which local and regional planning authorities are seeking to achieve sustainably planned and managed marine and coastal areas. The planners involved in the Interreg project are seeking to develop an inclusive approach to the planning process, through involving stakeholders with different interests. We have also distributed an online questionnaire among a wider network of rural planners or rural strategists, all of whom are members of a closed community on Facebook, called Rural Developers in Municipalities, Regions and County Administrative Boards.1 The group is hosted by the Swedish Network for Rural Development, established in 2007 as a result of the EU Commission’s decision that each member state that received EU funding for rural development should gather together stakeholders who are important to achieving the objectives of EU rural policy. The members of the community were given the opportunity to respond to a set of eight questions in an online questionnaire. The questions were open ended, and there was no limit to the length of their answers. Fourteen members responded to the questionnaire.

Conditions, Capacities and Goals for Planning In our contribution, we reflect upon the conditions, capacities and goals for planning in rural, depopulating areas. We will use data from our workshop and survey, but will also refer to previous studies to illustrate our broader arguments. Next, we will first examine how the rural planners involved in our studies understand the planning conditions in depopulating, rural areas. We elucidate how they define rural areas and reflect upon the eventual implications of these definitions for planning practice. Subsequently, we will focus on how these planners understand the planning capacity in the areas concerned. Finally, we reflect on how they relate to the objectives, goals and visions for the future in the locations where they are active.

1

 Landsbygdsutvecklare på kommuner, regioner och länsstyrelser in the original.

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The Rural and Its Planning Conditions The results of our workshop and survey demonstrate that the rural planners in our study seem to start out from a negative or binary understanding of the rural. That is, rurality is defined first and foremost in negative terms or in terms of what it is not, that is in terms of non-urbanism. We have not inquired into how “urban” is understood by our informants or in other contexts. However, based on our theoretical frame of how the rural is conceptualised in general, we doubt that urban is defined or understood in a corresponding way—as deviating from the rural. The excerpts given next, drawn from our open-ended survey, illustrate the negative or binary understanding of the rural pretty well: My thoughts often go to “non-density”—as opposed to “the city” as a concept. I would say that the rural and the countryside is everything that is not a city …. In our region we define it as everything “outside the central city”. I would define it as everything outside the urban area …. What the rural is can be very different in different parts of the municipality. It could be “everything outside the central city” for instance.

Other respondents brought up numerical definitions as the most relevant ones. During our workshop, some informants were very keen to stress that numerical definitions have the advantage of being simple and non-normative. The following excerpt, drawn from the survey, point in a similar direction: In my work, I define the rural as everything except places with more than 3000 inhabitants …. The municipality where I work uses the definition of the Leader method, that is every place with less than 10,000 inhabitants is rural. Personally, I like the distance-based definition. Places with a travel time of over 45 minutes to a town with 3000 inhabitants (…) are sparse. The archipelago without a bridge connection to the mainland is always sparse.

Some of our informants saw rural areas primarily as remote and distant: places with few services that were sparsely populated. These definitions are in line with a very descriptive conceptualisation of the rural, as described earlier.

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It’s difficult to find a definition that fits throughout the country, but I like that this is about service and distance. I would also think about … sparse structures, small businesses, agriculture and forestry, recreation, natural resources, outdoor life, cultural heritage and traditions, associations and the people living in the countryside (local identity).

When we continued by asking what rural development agents understand as the most important planning conditions in rural areas, they framed the rural both in terms of resources and assets, and in terms of challenges. Concerning the resources and assets, three categories arise (see Fig. 9.1). First of all, the planners included in our study referred to those goods that cannot be produced or delivered by urban areas but are still essential for the livelihood of our society—in rural as well as in urban environments. Examples of such goods are steel, coal, wood, water-power, wind-power and food. These are resources that can be exported from rural areas—that is produced in a rural setting but sold to and consumed in cities. The planners in our study also referred to place-based resources that cannot be moved from or exported by the rural areas. In this category, we find representations of the rural as an idyllic, calm, peaceful and quiet place for recreation. The value of silence and calm may not be essential for society, and it cannot be transported from one setting to another, but it is still represented as a place-based, rural resource that brings improved quality of life to those who partake of it. A third category of strengths involves the innovativeness of the people who live there. The commitment, engagement and multiple competences of people living in rural areas are understood as leading to new and creative solutions for the problems experienced.

Planning resources

Resources for export

Fig. 9.1  Planning resources

Place-based resources

Innovative human capacity

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When we asked about challenging planning conditions in rural areas, the rural planners—in both the workshop and the survey—came up with a rather long list of examples. Our analysis is that the rural planners in our material return to four basic, interrelated challenges, that is long distances, lack of political influence, weak financial capacity and destructive social attitudes (see Fig. 9.2). Distance is mentioned as a planning condition with a whole range of implications. Our informants referred to sparse service structures, requiring citizens to travel long distances to gain access to public or commercial services. Others referred to distances as an obstacle when recruiting a new workforce. Long distances also imply high costs for infrastructure maintenance, or—from a citizen’s perspective—as something fostering car dependency and generating high costs for mobility. Digital accessibility could compensate for the effects of physical distance. However, network availability is not always guaranteed in rural, and especially peripheral, areas, which increases the remoteness of such areas.

Planning challenges

Distances

Political influence

Finances

Societal attitudes

Sparse service structures

Neglect of rural areas

In public sector

Traditionalism

Low access to workforce

Structural conditions

In private sector

Polarisation

Technical digital infrastructure Private mobility

Fig. 9.2  Planning challenges in depopulating rural areas

Distrust

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The planners included in our study also referred to a lack of political influence as a challenging planning condition. The lack of priority compared to urban areas is understood to result in rural areas being granted fewer financial resources and a poor understanding of the special needs that arise in sparsely inhabited environments. Population decline, it is argued, implies that rural areas host a shrinking part of the electorate— which is believed to imply that rural votes are given less attention among political parties. It is not mentioned in the data, but we could add that local governments and planning authorities in rural, depopulating areas have limited options for making an impact on those trends that underpin all of their planning conditions, that is structural change and urbanisation. The lack of financial resources in both public and private sectors are repeatedly referred to as a problem. Social welfare structures, it is argued, are consistently under-funded in rural areas, and many small-scale businesses, private entrepreneurs and households have experienced a lack of financial capital, and a limited ability to invest in maintenance or new projects. Lastly, the rural planners in our study referred to destructive societal attitudes as a challenging planning condition. Citizens are sometimes referred to as being conservative or sentimental, or protectionist against influences from new residents in the area. The informants also explained, however, that the lack of adequate finances and priority given to rural areas prevents an adequate distribution of services and that this, in turn, stimulates sentiments of polarisation, exclusion and diverting interests at the community level. The Rural and Its Planning Capacity It is obvious that the planning conditions in a small, shrinking, rural municipality differ from those in large growing municipalities. But how could the planning capacity of planning authorities in these areas be described? That is, what capacity do the planning authorities in rural areas have to act on the conditions they face? The distinction between planning conditions and planning capacity is based on the notion that good conditions can be ruined by organisations with limited capacities, and vice versa, that troublesome planning conditions can be compensated for by a well-­ developed planning capacity. Based on our previous studies (Syssner, 2018), we would argue that, although differences can be identified, planning authorities in rural,

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depopulating areas share some central characteristics that are important to identify if we are seeking to gain a deeper understanding of planning in such areas. To begin with, planning departments in rural and depopulating areas tend to be small. During our field studies, we have visited planning departments where one single planner is responsible for all the planning issues in the municipality. In such an organisation, there is no room for planning specialists. In a larger organisation, colleagues in the planning department could focus on different aspects of planning: environmental planning, physical planning, strategic planning, infrastructure, investments, maintenance and so on and benefit from each other’s expertise and ideas. Small organisations do not have that option; here, the planners must be true generalists. The generalist perspective can be an advantage in many ways; it is easier to adopt a holistic perspective and generate policies based upon the interests of the entire organisation. At the same time, they lack the in-depth and expert perspective that can be found in larger organisations. Rural, depopulating areas are also characterised by close relationships between planners, policymakers and stakeholders (Jakobsen & Kjaer, 2016; Oliver, 2014). Proximity is a major advantage in many contexts. It is very feasible for local government to have an ongoing dialogue with citizens. Citizens are generally well informed about who controls and works in the municipality. Community needs are often communicated at an early stage with municipal officers, which greatly increases the adaptive capacity of both governmental and community organisations to find solutions. With some financial and procedural support, communities can, for example, take over or establish public services themselves. But even though there are advantages to proximity, it also presents challenges. When planners or elected officials are closely related to those affected by decisions, there is a risk of bias. Unpopular but necessary decisions thus become difficult to make. Conversely, the risk of positive discrimination or patronage by close acquaintances may increase as well. Furthermore, the external networks of planning authorities differ between rural depopulating areas and dense growth areas. In some rural localities, a single employer can account for a large proportion of the private labour market. In other localities, the private sector is dominated by a web of small family businesses. Both situations are important for determining what the planning authorities’ external network may look like. The rural planners in our studies habitually refer to civil-society organisations and private village initiatives as important for their planning practice

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(Syssner & Meijer, 2017). Such partners are often referred to as a resourceful and innovative pool of planning potential (Bjärstig & Sandström, 2017). From our previous studies, we know that rural communities are capable of taking over planning tasks that hitherto were in the realm of the public sector. Local communities generally feel responsible for the future of their village and have a history of taking matters into their own hands. It is important not to underestimate the planning capacity of such rural communities: we found that initiators rely on local as well as professional knowledge (e.g. many of them are highly educated and have experience of working in administration, engineering, accounting, construction or the public sector). Building on their networks, these initiators found creative ways of attracting new pools of resources, including financial (sponsorship, subsidies, community businesses), human (volunteers, man-power), physical (locations, vacant buildings) and organisational (NGOs such as Hela Sverige Ska Leva, new forms of public meetings) (Syssner & Meijer, 2017). Against this background, we would argue for a broadened and context-­ sensitive interpretation of what planning capacity may mean. Local governments and public planning agents in rural and depopulating areas may lack many of the resources that can be found in large planning organisations in dense, urban growth areas. However, in the setting under study in this chapter, it is obvious that societal organisations and businesses also need to be included in innovative governance models. The Rural and Its Planning Goals Friedman’s distinction between planning as allocation and planning as innovation is commendable. In some ways, this distinction is a precursor to the contemporary distinction between policies for distribution and policies for growth and development. Even though we endorse Friedman’s call for more proactive planning, we would say that most local planning models of today start out from the premise that growth is both a planning condition and an unequivocal aim. In the shrinking cities literature, severe criticism has been directed towards the habitual framing of growth as something positive, and the common-sense idea that depopulation and shrinkage are by definition something negative (Hollander & Németh, 2011; Mallach, 2017; Schlappa, 2017). From our perspective, it seems as though policy and planning agents are stuck in a given configuration of path dependencies (see Beunen,

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Meijer, & De Vries, 2019; Van Assche, Beunen, & Duineveld, 2014). One such path is goal dependence, previously understood as the dependence on shared visions of the future (Beunen et al., 2019), or as “the effects of previous choices” (Van Assche, Hornidge, Schlüter, & Vaidianu, 2019: 4). In a previous volume (Syssner, 2018), we have argued that the determination to plan for growth can be hard to alter. If a local government has spent years investing in growth rhetoric, giving up on that goal may either signal that the former goals were mistaken or signal that the local government failed to reach the goals set at the outset. Both options are undesirable for an organisation that is dependent on the legitimacy it gains from citizens. In the literature on shrinkage, alternative planning goals have been put forward. Several voices have advocated that depopulation can bring benefits, if it is skilfully handled (Hospers, 2014; Hospers & Reverda, 2015; Pallagst, Fleschurz, & Said, 2017: 2). When shrinkage is framed as an advantage, or as an opportunity that cannot be missed, certain features tend to be brought to the fore. Sousa and Pinho (2013: 6) conclude that fewer people means significant traffic reductions, reduced lanes, less traffic in side streets and better parking options. Hospers and Reverda (2015: 44) stress that that fewer people mean “less fuss, less air pollution, and more space”. Often, the shrinking cities literature tells us that, in shrinking urban environments, land previously used for parking, houses, roads, or unattractive buildings can be converted into green areas (Pallagst, Martinez-Fernandez, & Wiechmann, 2015). Old shopping centres could be converted (Audirac, 2015) and a renewed zoning system could provide improved options for shrinking cities (Hollander, 2018). In the literature, this discourse is referred to as smart shrinking (Pallagst et al., 2009). In the rural and sometimes extremely sparsely populated areas that we have studied, it is difficult to see any advantage at all arising from numbers becoming even fewer. The advantages of a lower population density may be immense in an urban planning context but in remote and rural areas such advantages are completely invisible. Politicians, planners or citizens do not experience any lack of green areas, and “greening the area” is not a very promising planning measure here. In locations where the main traffic issues are long distances, poorly maintained roads and sparse public transport, traffic reduction is not a positive trait either. This indicates that some of the theoretical thinking on smart shrinking cities, based on studies of large industrial cities in Europe and the USA, might not be applicable in a rural and sparsely populated context.

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In these areas, there is a need for innovative planning that attempts to mobilise further resources (Bock, 2016). There is, however, also a need for innovative ideas on how to adapt and adjust local government operations to a diminishing resource base. Here, we endorse the argument that the planning of depopulating areas “calls for a new vocabulary” (Cunningham-Sabot, Audirac, Fol, & Martinez-Fernandez, 2015: 14) capable of describing both the processes of shrinkage and their effects (see also Hollander, 2018: 41). In recent publications (Syssner, 2016, 2018, 2020), we have made a distinction between Plan A and Plan B—that is between policies and planning for growth, versus policies and planning for adaptation. In simple words, Plan A may be to plan for growth and the mobilisation of new and expanding resources. But if Plan A does not work out, there is a genuine need for a Plan B, that is a policy and a plan for how to adapt the region to a new demographic situation. This plan will inevitably include elements of what Friedmann (1966) might have referred to as the allocation of scarce common resources, and attempts to distribute them in the best possible ways along a variety of sometimes competing needs within society. In previous publications, we have demonstrated that adaption to new demographic conditions in depopulating areas involves prioritisation and a variety of harsh decisions—on closures, savings and layoffs (Syssner, 2016, 2018, 2020). We have also argued that these decisions could be better prepared for if they were processed in dialogue with citizens and other local governments that are experiencing a similar situation. We have also called for more explicit adaptation policies, formulated and established by politicians who can be held accountable in public elections. Figure 9.3 illustrates the differences between local growth policy and local adaptation policy. Our argument here is not that plans or policies for growth should be replaced by policies or plans for adaptation. Rather, we argue that these are two different policy areas and two different planning practices. These plans and policies need to be developed according to their own prerequisites but should also link to and support each other in a positive way. In the words of Scott, Gallent, and Gkartzios (2019), planning in rural areas should be positioned as an enabler of, rather than a barrier to, rural economic and social development.

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GROWTH POLICY

ADAPTATION POLICY

MEASURES Stimulating entrepreneurship, investments, business climate, communications.

MEASURES Inter-municipal collaboration, concentration, budget cuts, cooperation with civil society, increase taxes.

AIMING AT creating supply as well as demand at local markets, creating growth and a more diversified local labour market

AIMING AT adapting the municipal service and organisation to current and coming conditions

RESULTING IN better preconditions for welfare services in all parts of the municipality.

RESULTING IN an economy in balance, high welfare services quality despite shrinking resources. Transparency and inter-municipal learning.

Fig. 9.3  Local growth policy and local adaptation policy. (Source: Syssner, 2018)

Conclusion In the planning literature, there is a growing demand for innovation. Some of these calls stem from a distinction between planning as the allocation of scarce resources and planning as a means to mobilise new resources towards new social objectives (Friedmann, 1966). In this chapter, we have approached planning as a set of activities that involves both the allocation of limited resources and the mobilisation of new ones. That is, allocation and innovation are not contradictory practices but complementary and overlapping. Based on our studies of planning in rural and depopulating parts of Germany, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands, we have argued that, if existing resources are allocated in a transparent, well-founded and long-term way, it is more likely that there will be room for innovative and creative forms of planning. Throughout our studies, however, we have noticed that the conditions, capacity and goals for planning in rural areas may differ from the conditions, capacity and goals in dense, urban growth regions. Any inquiry into more innovative planning practices in rural areas thus needs to consider the specific context of such areas. The planning conditions in rural areas are shaped to a large extent either by resources that can be exported and consumed outside of the rural context, or by place-based resources that must be experienced and

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consumed in a particular place. Silence, calm and peaceful surroundings are examples of such place-based resources. The planning conditions are, however, also shaped by long distances, limited access to political influence and scarce financial capital. In our material, societal attitudes are referred to in both positive and negative terms; citizens are referred to both as conservative and protectionist—and as committed and innovative. In our discussion of the planning capacity in rural areas, we advocate a “broadened interpretation” of the term. Citizens, societal organisations and businesses have to be included in innovative governance models as well. Where urban areas can rely on local governments and their capacity to plan, sparsely populated areas lack affluent resources (e.g. budgets, services and specialists). On the flipside, this leads to more loosely organised administrative bodies, less restrictive regulations and accessible officials. Under these conditions, the capacity of other stakeholders to plan can lead to alternative development paths and planning goals, focusing on adapting rather than forcing unrealistic futures. Municipalities in metropolitan areas are also being urged to undergo budget cuts and deregulation, and to search for collaborations with businesses, society and other public bodies. Yet, rural areas may very well become frontrunners in developing new planning practices, because of depopulation, and not in spite of it. In this chapter, we have also argued that the planning goals in rural depopulating areas need to diverge from planning goals in growth regions. Still, there is no vocabulary for such alternative goals. Shifting the debate from smart growth to smart shrinkage barely covers the challenges faced by rural peripheral areas. To plan and innovate in rural, depopulating areas, a clear diagnosis of its challenges, limitations, strengths and assets is incomprehensible. Such a diagnosis (based on population statistics, economic performance and available budgets) provides an honest view of what we are waiting for. This in turn is necessary to avoid trivialisation and to formulate alternative planning goals, focusing on new possibilities and the positive aspects of living in sparsely populated area. Altogether, we call for a planning practice that endorses and communicates the need for the allocation of scarce resources. Limited financial resources and scarce public finances are a matter of fact in many rural communities today. However, we also call for planning practices that are innovative in their interpretation of what a resource is and what planning capacity may mean. Planning agents in rural areas may be deficient in some of the resources that can be found in urban environments. But with a more context-sensitive and open-minded interpretation of what a resource

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may be, rural planning can become more successful in mobilising them. Lastly, we urgently call for alternative planning goals in rural areas. In any event, there will also be rural areas facing depopulation in the future. For these areas, there is a need for innovative policies and plans for how to adapt society to a new demographic situation. Acknowledgements  Parts of the research activities referred to in this chapter were financially supported by Interreg Central Baltic (Coast4Us, Project number 627).

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Oliver, J.  E. (2014). City size and civic involvement in metropolitan America. American Political Science Review, 94(2), 361–373. https://doi.org/ 10.2307/2586017 Ónega-López, F.-J., Puppim de Oliveira, J. A., & Crecente-Maseda, R. (2010). Planning innovations in land management and governance in fragmented rural areas: Two examples from Galicia (Spain). European Planning Studies, 18(5), 755–773. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654311003594067 Pallagst, K., Aber, J., Audirac, I., Cunningham-Sabot, E., Fol, S., Martinez-­ Fernandez, C., … Rich, J. (2009). The future of shrinking cities: Problems, patterns and strategies of urban transformation in a global context. Retrieved from Berkeley, http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7zz6s7bm Pallagst, K., Fleschurz, R., & Said, S. (2017). What drives planning in a shrinking city? Tales from two German and two American cases. Town Planning Review, 88(1), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.3828/tpr.2017.3 Pallagst, K., Martinez-Fernandez, C., & Wiechmann, T. (2015). Introduction. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications (pp.  3–13). London and New York: Routledge. Rye, J.  F. (2006). Heading for the cities? Gender and lifestyle patterns in rural youths’ residential preferences. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift—Norwegian Journal of Geography, 60(3), 199–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00291950600889988 Schlappa, H. (2017). Co-producing the cities of tomorrow: Fostering collaborative action to tackle decline in Europe’s shrinking cities. European Urban and Regional Studies, 24(2), 162–174. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0969776415621962 Scott, M., Gallent, N., & Gkartzios, M. (2019). New horizons in rural planning. In M. Scott, N. Gallent, & M. Gkartzios (Eds.), The Routledge companion to rural planning. New York: Routledge. Shearmur, R. (2015). Far from the madding crowd: Slow innovators, information value, and the geography of innovation. Growth and Change, 46(3), 424–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.12097 Sousa, S., & Pinho, P. (2013). Planning for shrinkage: Paradox or paradigm. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 12–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965431 3.2013.820082 Syssner, J. (2016). Planning for shrinkage: Policy implications of demographic decline. Journal of Depopulation and Rural Development Studies, 20, 7–31. https://doi.org/10.4422/ager.2015.14 Syssner, J. (2018). Mindre många. Årsta: Dokument Press. Syssner, J. (2020). Pathways to demographic adaptation: Perspectives on policy and planning in depopulating areas in Northern Europe. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

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CHAPTER 10

Lost or Found? Translating Innovative Participation Toril Ringholm

Introduction: Translating Innovative Participation Participation has been a core element in planning theory and practice for decades. A multitude of forms has developed, varying from hearing procedures and traditional public meetings, to workshops, digitally based participation and the use of different creative techniques. New issues, along with the recognition of new groups of citizens as important in different planning contexts, call for expanding the scope of perspectives and knowledge that are channelled into the planning process (Fung, 2015; Nyseth, Ringholm, & Agger, 2019). We want to hear the voices of children, of the elderly, of those not familiar with formal meetings, of the passers-by, of the not-the-usual-suspects. Innovative practices are employed in order to record those voices (Innes & Booher, 2010; Nyseth, Pløger, & Holm, 2010). The innovative practices come in many shapes. In Norway, and possibly in other countries, it seems like neither the formal processes nor the research has actually kept track with much of the new and expressive forms

T. Ringholm (*) UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_10

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(Ringholm, Nyseth, & Hanssen, 2018). They can have the form of gatherings and events, and also appear as creative and expressive uses of an area (Sim, 2016). Both planning and development authorities and citizens initiate such events. They are for example known from the type of processes that are often labelled “City-lab” (Evans et  al., 2017; Smas, Schmitt, Perjo, & Tunström, 2016). In a recent survey more than 55% of the municipalities confirmed that “creative inputs” had been the case in the spatial plan, and 38% in the master plan (Ringholm & Nyseth, 2018). The survey does not show how the politicians or other participants conceive of their experiences from these settings, or how they use them in the decision-­ making. Such questions are interesting and important. Firstly, because they can produce insight into what impact these forms of participation have on the decisions. Secondly, because they can shed light on the compatibility between the innovative participation and the formal framework of the decision-making process. Such knowledge can contribute in the assessment of the democratic dimensions of the activities. Therefore, the main question of this chapter is: How is the knowledge, experiences and ideas that are generated at the innovative arenas of participation translated into the decision-making? On the one hand, the innovative participation practices have the potential to be acknowledged as conveyors of really new and useful insight that is included in the decision. On the other, they may be regarded as the “icing on the cake” of an otherwise traditional and not-so-innovative planning process. Or, to use Arnstein’s terms, as “therapy” (Arnstein, 1969). There are indications that the more open and informal participation initiatives may have more of an advisory function, and that it can be difficult to trace whether they have an impact (Nyseth, 2011; Nyseth et al., 2019). It should be noted, though, that a situation close to the latter need not be intended by the authorities. The motivation could be a genuine wish from the planners and politicians to bring in new voices and gather new knowledge and viewpoints. However, the tools that are at hand for the bureaucracy need to be sufficient for conveying the voices and insights into the process of decision-making, and the connections between the specific forms of participation and the decision-making must be established. To a great degree, this challenge is connected to the question of how the knowledge, experiences and ideas that are generated at the innovative participation arenas are framed and translated into the planning

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process. Who are the “translators”? Does the translation vary with regard to the type of actors that are involved? And, finally, we also have the question of whether there are elements that are in fact impossible to translate? To sum up: What is lost and what is gained in the translation? These questions will be analysed in a case study of elements from a city-­ lab process in a small Norwegian city. Section “Requirements and Performance of Participation in Norwegian, Municipal Planning” introduces aspects of the Norwegian Planning and Building Act (PBA), and section “Theoretical Background” presents the analytical approach, which is anchored in a democratic innovation perspective and a translation perspective. In section “Data”, the method is presented, and sections “The Case: Innovative Arenas in a Medium-Sized Town” and “Lost or Found?” contain the analysis and tentative conclusions of the case.

Requirements and Performance of Participation in Norwegian, Municipal Planning Participation is mandatory in public planning in Norway, and is enshrined in the Planning and Building Act (PBA). The PBA (Lovdata) gives the citizens rights as legitimate actors in planning, and after a revision in 2008, groups in need of particular facilitation, such as children, people with foreign or indigenous backgrounds and disabled people are especially mentioned. The mandatory requirements of the PBA are information and consultation. In general, the municipalities follow the minimum requirements (Ringholm & Nyseth, 2018). As the law does not pose limitations on what participation to activate, the municipalities are free to use additional forms of participation. Most municipalities do more that they are required to. Around 72% arrange public meetings, more than 50% carry out workshops or similar methods and 7% use creative techniques and expressions (Ringholm & Nyseth, 2018). However, an impression that arises from search on the Internet and from conversations with planners is that there is an ambition, possibly a trend, among the municipalities to widen the scope of participation, and of combining the more traditional and the expressive forms.

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Theoretical Background Three strands of theory have guided the analysis: democratic participation theory, theory on public sector innovation and translation theory. How the translation of innovative participation takes place is essential in order to assess democratic aspects of the innovation. Democratic Innovation The debate on democratic innovation has to a large extent been connected with participative and communicative democracy. “Creative experimentation” is one label that planning theory offer to some of the innovative participative practices. Experiments are speculative methods of knowing, working with doubts and uncertainty (Hillier, 2007:76). The label has been put on participative practices characterised by a situational openness and fluidity (Hillier, 2008). Hillier emphasises the organising of “good encounters, or of constructing assemblages in which powers of acting and the active affects that follow from them, are increased” (Hillier, 2008: 230). Participation based on such thoughts, more inclusive, open and creative imaginations of the past-present-future seems to be gaining ground among planners. Significant contributions have been made in order to evaluate participative innovations, based on criteria that go beyond the democratic institutions and identify democratic values (Agger & Löfgren, 2008; Geissel, 2013; Smith, 2009). The evaluations contribute with concepts of democratic goods such as inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgement, transparency, efficiency, transferability, meaningfulness, improvement of legitimacy, quality of deliberation, improvement of effectiveness and enlightenment of citizens. Of these, Geissel (2013) particularly highlights the inclusiveness and meaningfulness as the essential values. However, the experimental forms of participation in planning have rarely been analysed or evaluated with regard to these aspects. Meaningfulness—if the participants and decision-makers perceive of the innovative participation as meaningful is among other a question of the impact it has on the process and on the planning decisions, which again is connected with how the experiences are brought into the decision-making. Archon Fung (2006) introduces three dimensions that create the variation in participation: who participates, how communication and decision-­ making take place and the degree of authority and power. The participants

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vary on a continuum from expert administrators to open self-selected, which is where the author draw the line of what can be regarded as democratic participation. The “diffuse public sphere” is not included in the cube (Fung, 2006:71). It is in the outskirts of the participants’ axis of the cube we find the innovative practices that this chapter deals with; open gatherings and events that are often self-selected. Where they should be placed on the other two axes, authority and power, and communication and decision mode, is a matter that is closely connected to how the practices are played out and how the input from them is conveyed into the decision-making. The participant axis also has a relationship with the distinction between invited and invented spaces of citizenship (Miraftab, 2009). Invited spaces refer to the formal processes of participation initiated and organised by local governments, like formal hearings in a planning process. Invented spaces refer to collective actions that confront the authorities and challenge the status quo. As the case study of this chapter was initiated and organised by the planning authorities, it belongs to the category of invited space. A Translation Perspective Is participation in the outskirts of the cube being translated into a form that corresponds with the general framing of the planning process? The question is if the translation helps or hampers such connections. The translation perspective has developed within public management theory, mainly in order to understand how new ideas travel and are transformed from one context to another (Czarniawska & Jorges, 1996; Røvik, 2016; Wæraas & Nielsen, 2016). The perspective is less, if at all, applied in planning studies. It can, however, be a fruitful approach to understanding how new participative developments are received by planning institutions. By applying a translation perspective, one recognises that even if practices origin from the same idea, and are applied in organisations that apparently have much in common, they can display a considerable degree of diversity when put into practice. Such differences can be explained by factors that contribute to embed the new practice, such as differences in institutionalised values, different power relations, varying degrees of enthusiasm for the idea and differences in the competence that is put into realising the idea. Implementing innovative ideas into existing institutions and practices is, thus, a process that several researchers label “the translation

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process” (Czarniawska & Jorges, 1996). In this perspective, the introduction of an idea, and the process of transforming the idea into practices is: “a complex process of negotiation during which meanings, claims and interests change and gain ground” (Wæraas & Nielsen, 2016:237). The translation perspective underlines the unpredictability connected with the output—and outcome—of innovation in participation. To what degree experiences from innovative participation are translated in ways that comply with the formal planning process will depend on several aspects. The written language is an institutionalised tool for translation. The bureaucracy is strongly characterised by text-based presentations— preparatory works, reports and minutes—as information to the decision-­ makers is normally conveyed through documents. On the other hand, we have the individual experiences of the participants. Such experiences are made from the viewpoints and knowledge that is gathered from the participative arenas, and also coloured by the participants’ overall assessment of the participative arenas themselves. One must expect that these assessments will be brought into the decision-making. In other words, the translation will happen both through the textual presentation provided by the administration and through the impressions that are gathered by those who participated. Together, the two will contribute to the “storytelling” of the particular planning context (Sandercock, 2003).

Data The data is gathered by a mixed methods approach, consisting of a document analysis and interviews from a CityLab strategy process; ByLab in Norwegian. ByLab was the final part of a town strategy process which had lasted for approximately a year and a half, and consisted of several arenas for participation. The documents that are included in the analysis are six reports from the whole strategy process, three of them from the ByLab: (1) Youth workshop, (2) Business workshop, (3) Citizens workshop, (4) Report from ByLab, (5) ByLab workshops and (6) Summing up of the ByLab. Documents 1–3 have formed a backdrop for my understanding of the context, while documents 4–6 serve as data for this chapter. The interviews with seven municipal actors were carried out in the spring of 2019—one year and eight months after the strategy was decided by the local council. The actors had different roles in the ByLab arenas: four politicians, one planner, one head of the planning department and

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one leader of the board of the local organisation for business and town development. The interview guide is enclosed (App. 1). Two of the informants had participated in one single arena, and one, from the administration, had been present in all of them. The others had taken part in all the different types of arenas, however not in all of them—not all the workplace and school visits.

The Case: Innovative Arenas in a Medium-Sized Town The ByLab-process was carried out in a town of 15,000 inhabitants, aiming for a development strategy for the city area. Such strategies are not mandatory, but are often used in order to visualise the challenges and aims for upcoming planning. The challenges can be summarised into three factors: (1) the general idea of compact city, urging new ways of thinking with regard to the built environment and transport, (2) ageing population and (3) the desire of the municipality to bring new life into the city centre, particularly in order to attract young people. The Process Summarised The whole strategy process was carried out in the period from autumn 2015 to winter 2017, while the ByLab took place in October–November 2017. The strategy process was initiated by a collaboration between the municipality, the county authorities, the national road authorities and a network organisation that advocates for activity in the city. Prior to the ByLab, three workshops had been carried out, with different groups of citizens: youth, business people and one that was open for citizens of any age and occupation. The ByLab lasted three weeks and was the final part of the strategy process. This kind of participation had not been carried out in this municipality before, and the purpose was to gather insight for shaping future images and concept development. ByLab combined informal meetings in new arenas, written suggestions from the citizens in the form of short statements by the thumbs up or down, citizens’ photos of important places. Children and young people were deliberately involved, along with citizens of all ages. The arenas were set up not only in order to engage the citizens but also with the purpose of facilitating direct contact between the politicians and the citizens. People from the administration were also present in all the arenas.

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Table 10.1  Types of participation and arenas in the ByLab process Participation arena at ByLab

Participants

Type of invited space

Politicians’ lunch in the pedestrian area Meeting people in the shopping centre Politicians’ sofa at the city hall Walking with young parents out rolling with the babies in prams Visit to workplaces

Open, self-selected/ diffuse public sphere Open, self-selected

Outdoor moving/ informal Indoor, informal

Open, self-selected Semi-open, self-selected

Indoor, informal Outdoor, moving/ informal Indoor meeting/ semi-formal Indoor, semi-formal Outdoor, informal, expressive Outdoor/indoor, informal, expressive

Visits to schools Thumbs up/thumbs down at various places in the town Citizens’ photos of important places at the town hall and the schools

Semi-open, self-selected Semi-open, self-selected Open, self-selected Open, self-selected

In Table 10.1, the arenas are listed according to the categorisation of participants developed by Fung (2006). The invited space for the arenas is also briefly described. Table 10.1 shows that ByLab consisted of informal and semi-formal arenas. The participants were to a large degree self-selected and expressive elements were included. Translation by Text: Gathering Inputs Into Documents How are the input, the knowledge and viewpoints that are generated by innovative, informal participation framed when they are conveyed into the formal decision-making process? The framing consists of the form that the presentation is given, and of the resources that are allocated for the presentation. A team was set up for processing the input from the different participation arenas, consisting of one person from the municipality, one from the regional authorities, one from the road authorities, one from the town network organisation and one from a consultant agency that was hired to assist with the facilitation. The writing job was mainly carried out by the hired consultant. The inputs from all the arenas were summed up in altogether three reports. The documents were made accessible on the projects homepage,

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Table 10.2  Number of people that the politicians/planners have had a dialogue with during the ByLab Visits to the city hall 163

Workplace visits (6)

School visits (4)

Workshop and public meeting

City talk at shopping mall/young parents

Sum

88

252

70

80

653

Source: Report on the ByLab, retrieved from the municipality’s webpage

which also enabled responses. The responses, however, were not available after the town strategy had been decided. The report also contains the number of participants in the different arenas (Table 10.2). The overview (Table 10.2) does not separate between the different occasions at the city hall. The opinions and pieces of information from the citizens were carefully noted by the municipal administrators who were present at the different arenas. These opinions are also listed in the report. They are presented in a short form, and listed according to the respective arenas that they come from. Here is an example, gathered from the city talk in the shopping mall (my translation): • Positive to development and densifying • [name of town] can take tall houses • Yes to more residential houses in the town centre • We are ready for densifying • Important to take care of the old things From this particular event, 34 bullet points are listed, filling one whole page. Altogether, the bullet points from the different arenas fill nine pages of the report. The report also contains photos, five from the school visits and four thumbs up/thumbs down. The photos from the school visits show where the students have put red and green pins on a map of the town centre, in order to express an opinion of this particular spot. The photos are not accompanied by any explaining text. The reader is not oriented of whether each colour has a particular meaning—though it is close at hand to assume that red means something bad and green something good. Under each of these photos some statements are referred, and one gets the impression

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that they must be uttered by some of those that the visitors from the municipality met at the schools. As there is no explaining text, the reader is not being informed of what kind of participant that has said what. One of the photos, for example, displays a section of the town map that shows the railway and bus station area, including a pedestrian area. On this photo are 75 pins. Under the photo, we find the following three statements (my translation): –– The station should be renovated –– It is not nice to stay here –– The pedestrian street is dilapidated and has little to offer the youth The three text points are possibly the essence of the opinions that were made on this particular area of the town in school meetings. However, there is no text to explain whether these are the opinions from one school in particular or of whether there are variations of any significance. The photos of the thumbs up/thumbs down show the thumbs placed in different places of the town, with an opinion of the particular location handwritten on each of them. Altogether ten thumbs appear on the photos. Of the ten, the text is readable in three or four. On the other photos the text is blurred due to lack of sharpness, and impossible to read. “Future pictures” (my translation) is a working paper preceding the strategy, that was developed by the project team and presented in the policy documents that were prepared for the business and city development committee. “Future pictures” to a certain degree sums up the input from the . However, the composition of the text is such that it is difficult to trace the viewpoints to particular arena and stages of the process. The process as a whole is referred to in general terms, and the document is short. The formal arenas that preceded the ByLab, the workshops and the meetings, are to a greater degree possible to identify in the documents than the ByLab arenas. Arenas like the politicians’ lunch and the thumbs up/thumbs down, are not referred to explicitly in the way that the input from some of the early workshops are. The final strategy document does not refer explicitly to any of the arenas, but concentrate on conveying the different aspects of the strategy for the town centre. In other words, the summing up of the ByLab input has not undergone an editorial work apart from the listing that is referred earlier. If exchanges of viewpoints or heated discussions occurred, they do not protrude from the documentation. Even if different viewpoints can be extracted from

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some of the listings, what the working paper does is not helpful with regard to identifying a “communication & decision mode” in terms of Fung’s democratic cube (Fung, 2006). The ByLab offered new arenas, and some of the people who are generally absent from municipal planning were engaged, like children, youth and young parents. It is, however, fairly easy to map the arenas, while getting a comprehensive picture of who the participants on the arenas were is more of a challenge. Also, it is impossible to detect what kind of person(s) that is behind the viewpoints. To a certain extent, some are possible to guess: the school visits gathered pupils and teachers, the workplace visits gathered employees and leaders. Nevertheless, the reports give the readers little to go by in terms of putting faces to the inputs or telling if there were differences of opinion, for example between the schools or between leaders and employees. When asked about possible challenges with presenting the experiences from the ByLab arenas in a written form, the interviewees had varying opinions. Some, in particular in the administration, were of the opinion that the reports are good and meticulous—that they wrote down everything that was being said, and that it can be found in the documents referred earlier. Others, both politicians and administration, point to the importance of the exchange of viewpoints. Especially one politician, who participated at all types of arenas, emphasises that a lot of what was being said and discussed in the arenas was not necessarily written down: “But then there are all these small discussion that have occurred. They are not documented. … They are something that the politicians perhaps have brought into the political processes” (my translation). There is, in other words, an opinion among the officials that the discussions and conversations may have contributed to forming their views on the town strategy, and that this input is not being comprehensively conveyed through the report. Translation by Memories: The Municipal Actors’ Impressions All the interviewees agree that the ByLab process as a whole was interesting and worthwhile, and it is vivid in the memory of the participants. They do, however, have different opinions on what were the most interesting arenas, and what purposes that were fulfilled by the process.

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 he Process as a Whole T When asked about the process as a whole, the general impression is that the interviewees think it was useful and interesting. The enthusiasm seems to rise with the number of arenas they attended, as those who were present at several types of arenas were more positive about the usefulness and relevance than those who only participated once. A part of the enthusiasm was connected to the multitude of arenas, and the fact that they could meet people in different ways. Those who participated in different forms of arenas expressed that it was precisely the combination of arenas that contributed to give a more comprehensive picture of the citizens’ opinions. In addition, the fact that the ByLab was quite “compact”, carried out within a time span of three weeks, made them keep up the energy and concentration. One said that it made them more receptive to the inputs they gathered. They also described it as a new and very energising experience. The positive attitude to the innovative participation was confirmed by their opinions on whether arenas such as those in the ByLab process should be employed in other planning context. On this question, the agreement was unison among the interviewees. This also goes for those who only attended one of the arenas. Their positivity stems also from what they have heard from others who attended more, both politicians and citizens, and from observing that the process and the strategy was still referred to in discussions both in the local council, the committees and in the social media. Especially, they point to the work place- and school-visits, and the informal meetings they had with the citizens in the shopping centre and in town. One also mentioned that in such arenas the politicians are to a certain extent “freed” from party politics, and speak more openly with the citizens, and point to this as a positive experience.  he Most Important Experiences of the Process T While there was a general agreement that the process as a whole was good and useful, the interviewees vary with regard to what the most important, interesting and useful aspects and arenas of the process were. The importance of the input they got from the citizens in new and innovative ways was emphasised by all the informants. It is no doubt that one main aim of the process was to gain insight into people’s images of their town in the future. The workplace and school visits and the city talks (shopping centre, politicians’ lunch, parents with prams) were often mentioned as good arenas for getting new knowledge of people’s viewpoints

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and their reasons for acting as they do. The all connected this to the informality of the arenas, and that they talked with other people than those who usually turn up at meetings and other, more formal occasions. One of the politicians said (my translation): “As politicians we often meet people with strong interests. More seldom do we meet ‘the silent majority’. In the shopping centre we met some of them.” The other experience that all the interviewees emphasise was that the process was important for anchoring the town-centre strategy. This was in particular expressed with regard to anchoring among the politicians, but also with regard to the citizens and the business actors. They explain it in mainly two ways. Firstly, it is about anchoring the new ideas of city development that is connected to the challenges of reducing the use of fossil energy and enhancing public health, which necessitates densification and use of collective transport, cycling and walking. Though many embraced these thoughts, there was certainly also resistance to them. Much of the residential areas in the town centre consist of detached houses with gardens, and people in general tend to use their car a lot, very much on short trips of just a few hundred metres. The interviews revealed that much of the discussions and inputs were related to these topics. Secondly, anchoring these overarching ideas of city planning and development was also directed towards the politicians. Generally, many municipalities experience that their politicians do not engage much, neither in planning nor in strategy processes (Kvalvik, 2018; Ringholm & Nyseth, 2018). The idea of engaging the politicians got few, if any, objections when the process plan was presented to the politicians. Participation was voluntary, but a lot more politicians than was usual in for example a public meeting engaged in the ByLab.1 The politicians felt obliged to be well prepared for discussions with the citizens, and had made more effort than they usually would, to obtain knowledge of the ideas and the implementation consequences. The political anchoring of these ideas and the strategy document among was pointed to as an important achievement of the process. The following quote from one of the administrators is illustrative for the general opinion (my translation): “The fact that all the important politicians have participated, has given them such an ownership to it [the strategy document] and that they speak positively about it”. “Now they [the politicians] have got it ‘drip-wise’ in several rounds. Then it is easier to get a large plan.” 1

 An exact number of participating politicians was not possible to obtain.

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The meetings and conversations with the citizens had also given knowledge that called for nuances regarding how the ideas of a vivid and dense town centre could be developed. Both the administrators and the politicians said that they would have to think again about the cars and parking facilities, about the height of new buildings, and about how to deal with the existing green areas in and around the town centre. They connected this directly to input from the citizens in the ByLab process. According to the interviewees, some of these opinions have been embedded in the strategy document. It is, however, impossible, they say, to follow the trace from the particular arena and into the strategy. One has to look at the process as a whole and consider the input in light of the editorial work done by the administration. My interpretation of this is that if we hold the experiences up against the third dimension of the democratic cube (Fung, 2006), the “authority and power”, the ByLab input seems to have been able to advise and possibly have a certain degree of communicative influence. The emphasis of it is, however, impossible to detect from these data. When the strategy document was put before the local council, it was approved with little or no discussion. The interviewees all claim that this was unusual, and they think the explanation is that the extensive participation had contributed to forming a general agreement on the strategy prior to the council’s decision.

Lost or Found? This analysis shows that both of the expected means of translation were in use—the written text and the impressions that form in the minds of the participants. The translation was not only carried out by one actor; the one responsible for forming the text. In fact, both the politicians and the administrators who took part in the arenas have had the opportunity to contribute to the translation, the politicians by conveying their impressions into the discussion in political forums and the administrators by authoring and editing the strategy document. In this case study, however, it was not possible to trace the different inputs and experiences from the participation arenas into the final document. The underlying question in this case study is if the informal, sometimes expressive forms are possible to translate into formal decision-making or if the experiences they bring are “lost in translation”. The answer, based on the findings in the ByLab case, is both “yes” and “no”. To start with the “no”, we have seen that the translation in the

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report was presented as unedited lists of utterances in the reports, sorted by arena, whereas the strategy document does not refer to any of the arenas or participants in the strategy presentation. This makes it difficult to judge the emphasis of the viewpoints and the discussion and possible level of conflict connected with them, which are crucial elements of a political debate. Of course there are good reasons for this. Such an exercise is very time consuming and would demand more manpower than was available for carrying out the process. The findings also indicate other explanations. One is that that the administrators found this way of referring a good and thorough one, and within the standards that are applied by the planning organisation. The lack of explanation and clarity of the photos indicate that they were not given much importance from the administrations’ side. We have also seen that a process like this contains elements that might be impossible to translate into the formality of the planning system, like the enthusiasm or heatedness of a certain situation, the agreement or disagreement on certain issues, the mutual understandings that can suddenly occur and the experience of being part of a forward-looking conversation. Such experiences protrude from the interviews, but not in any of the documents. As for the “yes” part of the conclusion, the experiences presented earlier are also part of the stories that the process forms in the heads of the politicians and administrators, shaped by the meetings with people and the conversations in the arenas. These appear as important vehicles, the “good encounters”, in moving from “what is” to “what if”, and make planning practice a process of “becoming” rather than of fixing (cf. Hillier, 2008). The interviews indicate that these stories also played an important role prior to the agreement on the strategy in the local council. The strategy has become a point of reference for subsequent political discussions and planning projects, first and foremost among the politicians and administrators, but possibly also among other actors. If these forms of participation gain weight, the questions regarding mechanisms for translation are likely to be more outspoken, as this seems to be an important route to trace the impact that participants may have on the decisions, and in the long run: the meaningfulness that the participants experience (cf. Geissel, 2013). The “stories” can easily be “lost in translation”, as the case show, if short, written fragments and blurred photos are what is presented from the process. On the other hand, such shortcomings might emphasise the importance of the impressions and memories of those who were present, when documents are written and decisions are made. In turn, increased emphasis on these innovative forms of

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participation might also spur more active involvement on the politicians’ side, if these arenas become the places where “the buzz” is, and where the stories about the future are made.

Appendix: Interview Guide . What are your experiences with the ByLab process? 1 2. What experiences are conveyed to you from others who participated in other parts of the process than yourself? 3. Is this way of designing participation useful for the planning and development work in the municipality? 4. Do you think the presentation of the process and the experiences from it, as it appears in the documents, are in accordance with your impressions from participating in the process? 5. Was the discussion in the local council different from discussions that you have experience from, regarding other planning contexts? If so, in what way? 6. Do you see any limitations or disadvantages with these forms of participation? 7. Do you have thoughts or ideas of other, new forms of participation? 8. Concluding remarks.

References Agger, A., & Löfgren, K. (2008). Democratic assessment of collaborative planning processes. Planning Theory, 7(2), 145–164. Arnstein, S. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Planning Association, 35(4), 216–224. Czarniawska, B., & Jorges, B. (1996). Travels of ideas. In B.  Czarniawska & G.  Sévon (Eds.), Translating organizational change (pp.  13–48). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Evans, J., et  al. (Eds.). (2017). The experimental city. London and New  York: Routledge. Fung, A. (2006). Varieties of participation in complex governance. Public Administration Review, 66, 66–75. Fung, A. (2015). Putting the public back into governance: The challenges of citizen participation and its future. Public Administration Review, 75(4), 513–522.

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Geissel, B. (2013). On the evaluation of participatory innovation. In B. Geissel & M.  Joas (Eds.), Participatory democratic innovations in Europe. Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers. Hillier, J. (2007). Stretching beyond the horizon: A multiplanar theory of spatial planning and governance. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hillier, J. (2008). Interplanary practice: Towards a Deleuzean-inspired methodology for creative experimentation in strategic spatial planning. In J. van den Broeck et al. (Eds.), Empowering the planning fields: Ethics, creativity and action (p. 43). Leuven: Acco. Innes, J., & Booher, D. (2010). Planning with complexity. London: Routledge. Kvalvik, K. (2018). Kommunal planstrategi—frå politikk til administrasjon? In G. S. Hanssen & N. Aarsæther (Eds.), Plan- og bygningsloven 2008: Fungerer loven etter intensjonene? Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Lovdata. Plan- og bygningsloven [The Planning and Building Act]. Retrieved from https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/2008-06-27-71 Miraftab, F. (2009). Insurgent planning: Situation radical planning in the global South. Planning Theory, 8(1), 32–50. Nyseth, T. (2011). The Tromsø Experiment: Opening up for the unknown. Town Planning Review, 82(5), 573–593. Nyseth, T., Pløger, J., & Holm, T. (2010). Planning beyond the horizon. The Tromsø experiment. Planning Theory, 9(3), 223–247. Nyseth, T., Ringholm, T., & Agger, A. (2019). Innovative forms of citizen participation at the fringe of the formal planning system. Urban Planning, 4(1), 7–18. Ringholm, T., & Nyseth, T. (2018). Medvirkning. In G. S. Hanssen & N. Aarsæther (Eds.), Plan- og bygningsloven—fungerer loven etter intensjonene (pp. 317–333). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Ringholm, T., Nyseth, T., & Hanssen, G. S. (2018). Participation according to the law. European Journal of Spatial Development, 67, 1–20. Røvik, K. A. (2016). Knowledge transfer as translation: Review and elements of an instrumental theory. International Journal of management Reviews, 18(3), 290–310. Sandercock, L. (2003). Out of the Closet: The Importance of Stories and Storytelling in Planning Practice. Planning Theory & Practice, 4(1), 11–28. Sim, K. E. A. (2016). The art of participation: The case of creative communities in Indonesia. Community Development Journal, 52(1), 171–185. Smas, L., Schmitt, P., Perjo, L., & Tunström, M. (2016, June 22–24). Positioning urban labs—A new form of smart governance? REAL CORP 2016 Proceedings. Smith, G. (2009). Democratic innovations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wæraas, A., & Nielsen, J. A. (2016). Translation theory ‘translated’: Three perspectives on translation in organizational research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(3), 236–270. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12092

CHAPTER 11

Planning for Innovation as Innovative Planning? Ann Karin Tennås Holmen

Introduction The pressure on the public sector and especially at the local level to be innovative is increasing. The municipality as a prominent service producer in Western countries is pushed to provide solutions that are more efficient and that enhance the quality of its services. There is also a demand for the municipality to create an overall culture and institutional structures that support innovation. Municipalities understand and approach innovation in various ways, but a common understanding is that innovation is a complex, creative, and open-ended search process that develops and realises new ideas in ways that lead to stepwise changes that transform the way that we are imagining and doing things (Eggers & Singh, 2009). When municipalities aim to develop a culture and an infrastructure to stimulate innovation, the planning systems are put into play. Within this context, municipalities’ approaches and paths in framing an overarching policy for innovation into the existing institutional planning system may differ.

A. K. T. Holmen (*) University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_11

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In this chapter, we revisit Friedmann as the significant contributor connecting planning and innovation. He identified innovative planning as complementary to allocative planning and argued for creative innovation as a necessity in an age of change (Friedmann, 1966: 196). Research has shown that innovative planning is interactive, meaning that innovations develop through collaboration between diverse actors (Edquist, 2005; Healey, 2006; De Vries, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2016; Bryson, Sancino, Benington, & Sørensen, 2017; Powell & Grodal, 2005, Agger & Sørensen, 2018). In this perspective, planning innovation does not necessarily concentrate on the planner or the institutional body of planning, but rather a complexity of ideas, actors, and actions. According to Holmen and Ringholm (2019), the encounter between innovation and such an institutional body is dynamic and can lead to different outputs. This chapter builds on a combination of Friedmann’s framework of innovative planning and institutional logics by asking, how can we explain variations in how municipalities translate the idea of innovation into their institutional planning systems? Few studies have explored the early phases and choices of paths in the translation of innovation into the institutionalised planning system of a municipality. Through the study of two municipalities which plan for innovation in order to build a culture and an infrastructure for innovation, this chapter contributes to the understanding of innovative planning.

Understanding Encounters Between Innovative Planning and Institutional Logics There is an intuitive contradiction between innovation and planning. Definitions of innovation refer to dynamic step-changing activities that might lead to new solutions. Still, innovation is only evident if it is used and can be considered useful for more than one person (Eggers & Singh, 2009). Innovation is, according to these definitions, something we cannot decide on or plan, but rather a state that can evolve in the meeting between an idea and an institutional setting (Holmen & Ringholm, 2019). Planning is a systematic and anticipatory decision-making process that helps in coping with complexity. A planning process involves making and evaluating each set of interrelated decisions. It is the selection of missions, objectives, and “translation” of knowledge into action and involves thinking about activities required to achieve a desired goal. The contradiction is that innovation is likely to happen in open systems and open-ended

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decision-making processes, meaning that the innovation is unknown when it is put on the planning agenda (Hartley, Sørensen, & Torfing, 2013). Innovative Planning Friedmann was also aware of this contradiction when discussing the relation between innovative and allocative planning. Thus his approach to innovative planning from 1966 is also relevant for understanding how municipalities currently approach and frame innovation within their institutional systems. Innovative planning was considered by Friedmann as: (1) seeking to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reordering in the priority of existing objectives, (2) concerned with translating general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and concrete action programs, (3) being more interested in the mobilization of resources than in their optimal use, and (4) proposing to guide innovation processes through information feedback of the actual consequences of action. (Friedmann, 1966: 194)

Friedmann argued that innovative planning appears as a form of action intended to change the nature of reality and appears as complementary to allocative planning. In allocative planning, the ends are invariably given and the problem is to find the most efficient means to reach these ends. Innovative planning provides an instrument for opposite situations, where you do not necessarily know the problem or the ends. Still, the relevance of innovative planning is greater in times of crisis or of significant need for change. Research on planning addresses the importance of a multi-actor and collaborative approach in planning (Albrechts, 2012; Hartley et al., 2013; Booher & Innes, 2002; Healey, 1992). Freedman also used the term “innovative planners” loosely, arguing that the agent of planning could be multifaceted and not necessarily held by a professional planner. With this multiple actor approach in mind, Friedmann illustrated two situations in order to explain how innovative planning and allocative planning are related. First, an innovative planner with the goal to legitimise new purposes will seek to incorporate them into existing structures and ends. Second, the planner will attempt to specify and concretise new ideas in line with already-accepted normative structures (Friedmann, 1966: 202). In this chapter, I present two municipalities that have the goal of including and implementing innovation as a culture and as a part of their

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institutionalised systems. The two cases illustrate Friedmann’s above-­ mentioned situations, though with quite different outcomes. Solution B led to changes while solution A led to resistance. Referring back to our research question, we seek to find explanations for this variation.

Explaining Variations in the Encounter Between Innovation and Institution Seeking explanations for variations in how new ideas and logics are accepted in the municipality brings us into perspectives of institutions and institutional logics. We can understand institutions as both the values and norms that define and govern practises and as more or less formalised rules (Douglas, 1986; March & Olsen, 1989; Peters, 2011). Institutions therefore appear in both formal and informal shapes and have an impact both within organisations and in relations between organisations (Scott, 1995). Institutions contribute to stabilising and providing predictability in the organisation, but they are possible to change. New institutions develop when the existing ones are challenged. Douglas refers to such changes as an interplay between remembering and forgetting (Douglas, 1986). This implies that some elements can survive the challenge, others are pushed to the side, and others go through different degrees of change. The perspective on institutional logics (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012) builds on several contributions dealing with the relation between structures and actors and institutional change. This perspective seeks to overcome dichotomies like rational versus non-rational actors by: [examining] how action depends on how individuals and organizations are situated within and influenced by the spheres of different institutional orders, each of which represents a unique view of rationality. (Thornton et al., 2012: 10)

Friedmann also emphasised that innovative planning is concerned with translating general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and concrete action programs (Friedmann, 1966: 195). Still, few studies have provided a deeper understanding of how the translation of general value propositions is transformed into new institutional arrangements. How can we explain what happens when new ideas encounter institutions or when an innovative planning approach meets the allocative planning system?

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The typology developed by Thornton et al. (2012) can provide a step closer to this understanding. They present a typology to understand changes in institutional logics, including both transformative changes and developmental changes. Transformative change refers to situations where an institutional logic is replaced by logics from another field, which creates new practises, frames, and narratives. Sometimes logics mix or develop into new logics. Developmental change refers to situations where the institutional logic is maintained but is affected by other logics. Still, in the encounter between new ideas and institutions, change is not necessarily the result. March and Olsen (1989) argue through the perspective of norm-based new institutionalism how institutions remain stable over time. Within this perspective, actors act through rules and norms for proper behaviour. The argument is that institutions remain stable because the actors within them support traditional arrangements and rules instead of pushing for change. Institutions can be affected, but ideas can also change in this encounter. Translation theory addresses how ideas form, react, and develop when they enter new contexts and often emphasises the role of particular actors—the “translators”. The translation process is perceived of as a process of negotiation, where the journey of the idea depends a lot on the institutional values of the actor and the way they are communicated (Akrich, Callon and Latour, 2002; Røvik, 2007). Friedmann’s perspective on innovative planning provides a solid framework for exploring similar situations in today’s municipalities. Still, understanding different outcomes when innovative planning meets institutional norms calls for a perspective of institutional change. In particular, we need to explore sources of translation and translators in the process of legitimising new purposes.

Methods There are few empirical studies of how municipalities choose paths for implementing plans and strategies for innovation into their institutions. In what follows, we present the results of a longitude study over three years of two Norwegian municipalities in the period 2014–2017.1 A team of four researchers monitored the process in the form of a trailing research 1  R&D project: Employee-driven innovation in Norwegian municipalities. Funded by the regional research fund in Norway (RFF North and West). The four municipalities included

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project. The team gathered and processed data and gave feedback to the municipalities over the course of the three years. The data consisted of surveys and interviews trailing the whole period. Surveys: Two surveys were carried out, the first of which was in 2015 when the process of creating a strategy for innovation had just begun. The purpose of the survey was to map the knowledge and consciousness of innovation as a phenomenon among all types of employees. It also aimed to gain knowledge of when and where employees discussed and made reflections on innovation, and possibly got ideas that could lead to innovation. We repeated the survey after two years to look for changes. In total, 30% of the employees answered the survey of both years (2015/2017), which corresponds to about 1900 respondents. The surveys were sent electronically to all employees, including leaders on different levels, in the four municipalities. Interviews: We conducted 113 interviews with politicians, administrative management, project staff, and others involved in the innovation work during the period.2 This included both individual semi-structured interviews and group interviews. The number of informants interviewed during the period was 136. In all the municipalities, we carried out interviews through three different periods of the process: spring 2015, autumn 2016, and spring 2017. The interviews included the top managers, unit managers, and employees without a leading position. The interviews concentrated on what had motivated the innovation, how they interpreted innovation, how they carried it out in practice, what they regarded as results, and what obstacles they met during the process. Trailing the development of a strategy of innovation and specific innovation projects: The municipalities decided on and defined which activities and projects should have priority in order to support the strategy for innovation. We followed 20 of these specific innovation projects. Knowledge of those projects stems from the interviews and the participative observation material. Triangulation of data from different sources over time has provided a multifaceted insight into the decisions, actions, challenges, and learning along this path. While each of these data sources is insufficient on their own, they provide a deep insight into the complex process when used in combination. represent mid-sized municipalities (20,000 inhabitants and approximately 200 employees in the organisation). In this chapter, I only refer to two municipalities in the study. 2  Interviews: mayors and part-time politicians, managers at all levels in the municipality and front-line employees involved in projects. Some interviews were organised as group interviews.

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Positioning Innovation Within the Municipality: Two Cases Norwegian municipalities have initiated and implemented innovative solutions to service challenges, organisation, and social development for many years. Still, the use of innovation as a term and concept found its way into national policy documents only 10–15 years ago (Holmen & Ringholm, 2019). The White Paper “Innovation in care” (NOU, 2011: 11) was the first specific policy push towards municipalities to adopt innovation as a tool and strategy to develop new and improved services. Municipal care services have great potential for innovative approaches and innovation in relation to, e.g. new technology, new architecture and residential forms, organizational development in the form of user influence and research and development. (NOU, 2011: 11; 10–11)

The White Paper gradually gained legitimacy and was an important source for the increased focus on innovation in municipalities. Now municipalities had to find a path to approach this “order”. We followed two municipalities in this process towards developing a culture for innovation and building an infrastructure to facilitate and stimulate for innovation. This approach included specific projects, but most important was a series of activities encouraging all employees and managers to think differently. The municipalities needed to develop an understanding of the concept of innovation and to gain knowledge about how they include innovation in their institution. The process started out with the formulation of a policy for innovation, followed by activities targeting unit managers in the two municipalities. Unit managers were considered the most important link for developing a culture and embedding innovation as part of the municipality’s institutional system. Formulating a Policy for Innovation The two municipalities had histories of demanding financial situations. They needed to change and wanted to stop budget cuts and to start “working differently”. Innovation in the public sector was presented by

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the government as a necessity for future development in the municipalities, especially for the healthcare sector (NOU, 2011: 11 Innovation in Care). In both municipalities, the chief executive took the initiative towards the politicians’ suggestion that the municipality should develop a strategy for innovation. The visions should be clearly political, while the development of goals, strategies, and policy programmes towards implementation should be a result of co-creation between politicians and the administration. In both municipalities, the strategy should involve building a culture among employees to continually improve, simplify, and renew working processes and services in their area. It also included developing an infrastructure to enable the organisation, managers, and employees to innovate. There was a broad political agreement in the municipalities to this suggestion, and the administration received the space and time to develop a strategy and a map for this journey. From this point, the politicians had a limited role, but the administrations in both municipalities considered several choices of directions. The list of questions was longer than the list of solutions: Where do we start? What methods should we use? How do we build a concept for the organisation to follow? What is innovation, and what should we call this strategy? How do we engage managers and employees? From this point, the politicians in the two municipalities and the chief executives in the municipalities together with other top managers and a few administrative staff enthusiasts constituted the main group in this early phase. I will refer to this group as top management. Both municipalities searched for inspiration and valid experiences by visiting other municipalities in Norway and in Denmark. They also sought out methods suitable for changing culture and working methods in organisations. Through this search phase, the group made a choice of methods and planned some significant activities to start with. The ambition was not to “know it all”, but to take one step at a time. The approach should create a basis for the idea, strategy, and implementation of innovation as a natural part of the culture. The main tools for developing an infrastructure for innovative behaviour were the unit managers in the municipalities. Unit Managers as Gatekeepers for Innovative Planning The main tool for both municipalities in approaching innovation was to address unit managers in this process. Unit managers in Norwegian municipalities are managers for a specific unit such as a school, a

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kindergarten, an elderly home, or a specific technical unit. The argument was that unit managers were the main gatekeepers for innovation. In order to stimulate employees to look for and initiate new solutions in different parts of the municipality, managers needed the competence to facilitate and accommodate this. Through the top-management and unit-­ management levels, innovation should develop both as a culture among employees and as an anchored platform of priorities, strategies, and activities. This is where the similarity ends, and how they chose to approach the managers in order to translate the idea of innovation into the institutional system differed in several ways. In municipality A, the main choice of paths was to introduce the unit managers to a specific method of stimulating and developing innovative ideas. Following this introduction, the top-management group required the unit managers to create an innovation plan for their units based on the method. The facilitators argued that this plan would supplement the existing plan for the unit, but with a specific focus on needs and not solutions. The plan was a part of the chain to commit this management level to using the terminology and basic ideas of the method and through this secure the use of the method as a natural part of all working processes. However, managers participating in this process expressed uncertainty and confusion during the process. They could not see the benefit of such a plan, nor could they see a difference between the present unit plan and the innovation plan: This is what we already do. We build the plan for the unit based on specific needs in our field. (Unit manager Municipality A, 2014)

Despite this reaction, the top-management group pushed the unit managers to deliver an innovation plan. Interviews two years later revealed that the innovation plan did not trigger additional actions. The methods learned were in some sense useful to train themselves and employees in using time to explore needs rather than only seek solutions. The unit managers maintained the original plan for the unit and today there are no traces of the method or of the innovation as a term in the overall municipal plan. In municipality B, the main choice of path was to develop a common understanding of innovative management. The top-management group developed a unit-management programme, and the goal was to raise awareness, develop a common understanding of innovation as a concept,

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and show how it could be a part of the managers’ development of the unit. This means that the end and outcome gradually grew throughout the process. The programme consisted of plenary sessions, group work with specific tasks, and a mentoring programme where two unit managers with different backgrounds worked together. In the first round of interviews (the early phase), the unit managers were sceptical about crossing different backgrounds, and they were not aware of how this programme was connected to other “innovation” activities going on in the municipality. The interviews two years later revealed the maturation of innovation as a natural strategy in the daily life in the units. I am more aware that we need to create the flexibility and the room for employees to manoeuvre—also in our plans. I have also learned a lot from other unit managers in how to stimulate employees to seek new solutions, but also through our plan be able to make a selection of ideas to push forward. (Unit manager Municipality B, 2016)

The programme institutionalised follow-up of unit managers who had participated, but also including new managers. Mentoring as a tool was considered important in order to spread the notion of innovation and to stimulate innovation in the unit. Today co-creating for innovative solutions is the overarching element throughout the overall municipal plan. For the unit managers, this is a well-known term translated into the everyday operations in their unit.

Planning for Innovation as Innovative Planning? Our study of municipalities illustrates institutional systems starting a process of incorporating an idea of innovation. When starting this journey the municipalities had no clear path—only a “fuzzy” goal “to build a culture for innovation and an infrastructure to do so”. They planned specific activities to stimulate this innovation path—and they planned for innovation by using innovative planning. Few studies have explored what actually happens in such early phases when an overall concept of innovation is to be translated into the institutionalised system of a municipality. This chapter explores variations in how municipalities translate the idea of innovation into the institutional planning system, and it seeks explanations for these variations.

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Friedmann’s definition of innovative planning provides a possibility to describe how the municipalities approached “innovation” as a term and concept within their institutions (Friedmann, 1966: 194). First, both municipalities had formulated a goal to create a policy for innovation. This included the development of a culture for innovation among employees, but also an institutionalised system to facilitate and stimulate for innovation. They wanted to legitimise new social objectives or effect a major reordering in the priority of existing objectives. Second, both municipalities adapted methods for innovation that could work as tools in the translation of general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and concrete action programmes. Third, both municipalities mobilised resources through top managers and unit managers who acted as gatekeepers in order to stimulate employees to find solutions and to facilitate innovation. Still, here we found differences in the sense that municipality B was more interested in the mobilisation of resources than in their optimal use than municipality A. Fourth, both municipalities had the ambition to propose to guide the innovation process through information feedback of the actual consequences of action. In municipality A, they wanted a continuous feedback process where the unit managers through their method of innovation and the innovation plan for the unit stimulated employees for innovation. When developing the innovation plan, the unit managers worked together at workshops, but this did not create a culture for feedback loops or for learning in the process. In municipality B, the bottom-up process of developing a common understanding and translation of innovation and innovation management led to the opening of doors for feedback and communication between units. Additionally, most unit managers reported developing an understanding of employee-driven innovation and of developing systems to facilitate this. Our findings show that municipality A’s path started out according to Friedmann’s definition of innovative planning, but it was drawn towards more established institutional structures during the process. Municipality B followed the path of innovative planning. How can we explain this difference between the municipalities? Combining Innovative Planning and Allocative Planning Municipality A struggled to find a balance between innovative and allocative planning. Here also we can turn to Friedmann’s explanation for how innovative planning and allocative planning are related. According to

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Friedmann, the innovative planner whose goal is to legitimise new purposes can choose to seek to incorporate them into existing structures and ends or can attempt to specify and concretise new ideas in line with already-­ accepted normative structure, but where there are yet no corresponding programmes and procedures (Friedmann, 1966: 202). In our cases, the innovative planner is not one person, but the top-management group. This group set out a path for how to incorporate this strategy for innovation into the whole municipality, but the two municipalities chose different paths. Municipality A had a clear goal to incorporate new visions into existing structures (path 1). The strategy of tasking unit managers with creating an innovation plan to replace the existing unit plan should be a direct link into the allocative planning system. Municipality B had the goal of incorporating new visions by taking the time to specify and concretise the understanding of innovation and innovation management. Unit managers used the management programme to interpret this vision into their own context (path 2). The two paths illustrate different strategies where path 1 represents a stronger push into the existing structures and path 2 opens up for more flexibility and possible new structures. Translating Innovation Into an Institutional System: The Co-creative Turn In the previous section, we presented differences in the processes and choices of paths in innovative planning between the municipalities. How can we explain the resistance to change from the unit managers in the two cases? The typology developed by Thornton et al. (2012) provides a possible framework to understanding changes in institutional logics. Understanding the changes in institutional logics in municipality B can be related to what Thornton et al. refer to as transformative change. Through the choice of path 2, unit managers interpreted the concept of innovation and through the management programme developed a structure adapted to their own unit and created a situation where an institutional logic was replaced by logics from another field and thus created new practises, frames, and narratives. The unit managers alone and together with other unit managers functioned as translators of a logic from another field, thus creating relevance for their own context. This also anchored new practises between unit managers and stimulated feedback loops and learning between units in the municipality. Understanding the more limited changes of institutional

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logics in municipality A can be related to developmental change. The choice of path 1 where unit managers were pushed to incorporate an innovation plan into the existing unit plan created a situation of limited change. The methodology and framework of the innovation plan followed a specific set-up, which did not correspond to the existing institutional logic. The existing institutional logic was maintained, and the new logic of innovation only affected this in a limited way. The top-management group was the main translator of the new institutional logic in this case. This translation was not familiar or relevant to the unit managers, nor was there a process among the unit managers to interpret or transform a common version of this “order”. March and Olsen’s (1989) arguments on strong and stable institutions are evident in this case. Institutions are hard to change, and they remain stable because actors within them support traditional arrangements and rules instead of pushing for change. Our findings illustrate the importance of the translation of ideas in the process of innovative planning at the operative level in order to stimulate processes of change. They also illustrate that changes in institutional logics are co-­ creative, meaning that changes presuppose a common understanding and acceptance across groups such as the unit managers.

Conclusion When municipalities aim to develop a culture and an infrastructure to stimulate for innovation, the planning systems are put into play. This chapter set out to investigate what actually happens in the early phases when the concept of innovation is to be translated into the institutionalised planning system of a municipality. Revisiting Friedmann’s perspective on innovative planning provides a useful framework to describing planning approaches to innovation. Our two municipalities had similar motivations and goals, but they chose different paths for translating innovation into the institutionalised planning system. Our main findings illustrate that municipalities planning for innovation do not necessarily execute such plans through innovative planning, and the choice of path affects the impact of the planning process. This study also provides possible explanations for variations in the chosen paths. Choosing an innovative planning path where planners specify and concretise new ideas in line with already-­ accepted normative structures had a significant impact on the municipality and their planning for innovation. Still, our findings show the importance of operative translators. In this study, managers at different levels

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interpreted and adapted the concept of innovation into their own units, and in this way institutional logics were replaced and created new practises. This study also illustrates that changes in institutional logics are co-­ creative, meaning that changes presuppose a common understanding and acceptance across groups like the unit managers. The findings from this study can be interpreted in combination with perspectives dealing with co-creation and collaborative governance that provide an evident understanding of planning as a multi-actor co-creation process (Edquist, 2005; Healey, 2006; Powell & Grodal, 2005). Our study stresses the need for translation in order for the innovative planning to be included and anchored within the existing system of allocative planning. This study thus contributes to a deeper understanding of institutions planning for innovation. Innovation includes risk, and by choosing a top-down allocative planning approach, the possibilities for transformative changes are reduced. Taking a co-creative and open approach in which managers at lower levels define and interpret needs and possible new directions makes it more likely that a climate of transformation and innovative planning will develop.

References Agger, A., & Sørensen, E. (2018). Managing collaborative innovation in public bureaucracies. Planning Theory, 17(1), 53–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1473095216672500 Akrich, M., Callon, M., & Latour, B. (2002). The key to success in innovation part I: The art of interessement. International Journal of Innovation Management, 6(2), 187–206. Albrechts, L. (2012). Reframing strategic spatial planning by using a coproduction perspective. Planning Theory, 12, 46–63. Booher, D. E., & Innes, J. E. (2002). Network Power in Collaborative Planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 21(3), 221–236. https://doi. org/10.1177/0739456X0202100301 Bryson, J., Sancino, A., Benington, J., & Sørensen, E. (2017). Towards a multi-­ actor theory of public value co-creation. Public Management Review, 19(5), 640–654. De Vries, H., Bekkers, V., & Tummers, L. (2016). Innovation in the public sector: A systematic review and future research agenda. Public Administration, 94(1), 146–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12209 Douglas, M. (1986). How institutions think. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Edquist, C. (2005). Systems of innovation. In J.  Fagerberg, D.  C. Mowery, & R.  R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of innovation (pp.  181–209). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Eggers, W. D., & Singh, S. K. (2009). The public innovators’s Playbook: Nurturing bold ideas in government. Cambridge, MA: Ash Institute, Harvard Kennedy School. Friedmann, J. (1966). Planning as innovation: The Chilean case. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32(4), 194–204. Hartley, J., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2013). Collaborative innovation: A viable alternative to market competition and organizational entrepreneurship. Public Administration Review, 73(6), 821–830. Healey, P. (1992). Planning through debate. The communicative turn in planning theory. Town Planning Review, 63(21), 143–162. Healey, P. (2006). Urban complexity and spatial strategies: Towards a relational planning for our times. London: Routhledge. Holmen, A.  K. T., & Ringholm, T. (2019). What happens in the encounter between ideas and institutions? In A.  K. T.  Holmen & T.  Ringholm (Eds.), Innovation meet municipal. Oslo: Cappelen Damm akademiske (Norwegian book). March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1989). Rediscovering institutions the organizational basis of politics. New York: The Free Press. NOU. (2011). White paper Norwegian Government. 11, 10–11. Peters, B.  G. (2011). Institutional models of governance. In I.  M. Bevir (Ed.), Handbook of governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Powell, W., & Grodal, S. (2005). Networks of innovators. In J.  Fagerberg, D. Mowery, & R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Røvik, K. A. (2007). Trender og translasjoner: Ideer som former det 21. århundrets organisasjon. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Scott, R. (1995). Institutions and Organizations. Ideas, Interests and Identities. London: SAGE. Sørensen, E. (2017). Political innovations: Innovations in political institutions, processes and outputs. Public Management Review, 19(1), 1–19. https://doi. org/10.1080/14719037.2016.1200661 Thornton, P.  H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics perspective. A new approach to culture, structure and process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 12

Innovation in Planning Theory: The Upcoming Perspective Aksel Hagen and Ulla Higdem

Introduction The point of departure for this book was that society, and not least the public sector, has adopted innovation as a new imperative. Public planning is increasingly concerned with innovation in a broad sense (cf. the contributions in this book). We argue that this change in planning practice must be reflected in planning theory. Harper and Stein had a similar starting point when they wrote Dialogical Planning in a Fragmented Society (Harper & Stein, 2012). They argued that the planning profession in Western liberal democratic societies had been in a state of turmoil for several decades. It was important for planners and for planning practices to adapt to change and fragmentation in their cultural, social and political contexts (Harper & Stein, 2012: xv). The authors chose a distinct normative focus for their examinations of how planning theory should address these challenges, and noted that many planning theorists had proposed new planning paradigms. However, they recommended a more inclusive, dialogical approach that embraces both

A. Hagen • U. Higdem (*) Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Hagen, U. Higdem (eds.), Innovation in Public Planning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46136-2_12

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instrumental/scientific/technical rationality and communicative and critical rationality, as well as integrating aspects from the work of a number of planning theorists. They claimed that planning does not need a paradigm shift in the most radical Kuhnian sense, and that what is needed is more dialogue and interaction between different theories, broader forms of rationality and a shared approach (Harper & Stein, 2012: 17–19). Harper and Stein discuss 16 aspects of planning in their book. The table ‘Changing Approaches to Planning’ in the first chapter serves as an organizing principle for this thorough discussion. The table contains a brief presentation, using keywords, of the different aspects in relation to the old approach/old paradigm and emerging approaches. Calculate is the main planning focus of the old approach, whereas the emerging approaches are more communicative/dialogical (Harper & Stein, 2012). Harper and Stein claim that the field of planning theory is still dominated by these two main perspectives with respect to rationalities and planning focus. In this, the final chapter of this book, we refer to the arguments in Chaps. 2 and 3 to argue that calculate and communicate have today been established as equal approaches. The calculate and communicate perspectives are moreover layered within planning practice (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010) and in mainstream planning theory, and they are even embodied in planning laws, cf. the Norwegian planning and building law of 2008 (PBA, 2008). Given the position of innovation within the public sector, including public planning, it is innovate rather than communicate that we should consider as an emerging approach. Thus, calculate, communicate and innovate can be seen as three interacting perspectives that describe and prescribe planning. In this chapter, we outline a framework description of innovative planning and explain the differences and similarities between innovative planning and the two established approaches. However, we acknowledge that our contribution is incomplete, and we encourage a discourse on further development of the innovate perspective. We summarize the first two approaches in Table 12.1, much as Harper and Stein did, by using keywords. We only present 14 aspects of planning (not the 16 that Harper and Stein used), because 2 aspects, ‘Implicit normative ethical basis’ and ‘Core values’, have no importance for our argument that innovate constitutes a third approach. The keywords in the ‘Innovate’ column of Table 12.1 indicate both similarities and differences between this approach and the two established approaches of ‘Calculate’ and ‘Communicate’. We will argue that the differences between innovate and the other two

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Table 12.1  A framework for innovative planning Aspect of planning

Calculate Cf. old approach/ old paradigm

Communicate Innovate Cf. emerging approaches

Planning theory

Rational, comprehensive

Communicative action, social learning, progressive, equity

Planning focus

Calculation

Communicative, dialogical

Philosophical basis Knowledge sought

Positivism

Pragmatism

Universal, foundational, certain

Contextual, contingent, fallible

Theoretical focus Rationality

Causal

Scope of planning Political orientation

Synoptic, comprehensive Planning is technical

Ethical orientation

Planning is value-free

Form of democracy emphasized Ideal of politics

Representative

Intentional, interpretive Instrumental plus Multiple, according to communicative, critical planning task. Strategic instrumental dialogue for co-creation. Strategic communicative Incremental, strategic Innovative, strategic, incremental, radical Planning is both Planning is technical, technical and political politically meta-governed and co-produced in networks Planning is value laden Planning is contextspecific, value laden to achieve public value and sustainable social objectives Deliberative, Interactive participatory

Conflict

Collaboration

Organizational form

Bureaucracy (pyramidal), vertical, hierarchical

Horizontal (flat), non-hierarchical

Instrumental

Strategic, territorial, societal co-produced change that breaks with established practices Innovative, different forms of public innovation New value proposals, radical or incremental Contextual, ‘sticky’, fallible, new turn in knowledge basis— de-growth, sustainability Interactive

Co-creation, policy innovation Institutionally layered hierarchical, horizontal and networked innovation systems

(continued)

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Table 12.1 (continued) Aspect of planning

Calculate Cf. old approach/ old paradigm

Agent of change State

Tools

Technical, quantitative analysis (e.g., Benefit–cost)

Communicate Innovate Cf. emerging approaches Civil society

Multiple agents—state/ public sector bodies, civil society, NGOs, business, intermediary organizations Less technical, plus Context-specific, consensus building, place-based social dialogical, economic analysis communicative, critical Methods and tools for approaches (e.g. wide various forms of reflective equilibrium) innovation

approaches are large enough and numerous enough for innovate to be seen as a separate, third approach. Planning theory. All keywords that describe the calculate and communicate approaches also make sense for innovative planning. Although we still think that there is a planning theoretical justification for innovate as a separate approach, we agree with planning theorists who argue that creativity and innovation are restrained by planning theories rooted in Cartesian rationality and the calculate tradition (Hillier, 2008), as well as by the Habermasian communicative theories (Mäntysalo, 2002; Harper and Stein, 2012; Tewdwr-Jones, 1998). Neither the calculate nor the communicative approach has an inherent innovative focus. This is one of the main reasons that we need innovate as a separate, third approach. In this book, we have no ambition to define this planning theoretical position further than calling it ‘innovate’. The planning focus is innovation mainly through different forms of public innovation (policy, organizational, procedural, institutional). Innovative planning emerges mainly as systematic, territorial, societal (Bafarasat Ziafati, 2015) and co-produced change. This type of planning breaks with established practices. As Friedmann (1966) formulated it is one that seeks to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reordering in the prioritization of existing objectives. All of the chapters in this book either examine different types of innovative planning or argue for

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the need for this type of planning. For example, in Chap. 11, Holmen describes a situation in which municipalities were pushed to provide solutions that were more efficient, which required them to understand and approach innovation in various ways. In Chap. 9, Syssner and Meijer call for innovative planning practices to deal with depopulation. Similarly, Hofstad (Chap. 7) sees a role for innovative planning in reducing social inequality, Næss (Chap. 6) believes innovative planning can be used to promote environmentally and socially sustainable societal development, and Hanssen and Hofstad describe (Chap. 8) how strategic planning represents effective and innovative meta-governance instrument for mobilization and anchorage of policy goals for resilient low-carbon urban development. We must also note that strategic planning tools can be seen as innovations within the institutional planning context of a country, cf. Grankvist & Mäntysalo, Chap. 5. By employing institutional theory to understand institutional change (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010), they contribute to an understanding of institutional innovativeness in strategic planning. Institutional innovation, which often occurs in an evolutionary manner through innovative policy practices, is driven by a need to close the theory–practice gap between strategic and statutory planning. Hanssen and Hofstad (Chap. 8) illustrate how a front-runner city create new strategic tool bridging the strategic and the spatial planning. Philosophical basis. We argue, as Friedmann does, that today’s challenges require the establishment of new value propositions in societal and strategic planning that enhance radical innovations. Positivism in the calculate approach and pragmatism in the communicate approach are not sufficient to meet the great challenges of our time. All of the contributors in this book stress the need for radical changes in values, goals and working methods in politics and planning. For example, Næss (Chap. 6) raises our awareness “about the insufficiency of policies confined within the dominant growth-oriented eco-modernization paradigm”. The philosophical normative basis for innovative planning should be a de-­growth position in wealthy countries to help them develop possible sustainable futures. Syssner and Meijer (Chap. 9) call for courage in the handling of depopulation, to shift the focus from smart growth to smart shrinking. In Chap. 8, Hanssen and Hofstad discuss how to develop innovative strategic tools to improve the partnership mode of planning for climate transition, one of the ‘greatest and most wicked’—to use the term by Rittel and Webber (1973)—challenges of our time.

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The knowledge sought in innovative planning is contextual, as in Harper and Stein’s work on emerging approaches (Harper & Stein, 2012: 19). The so-called sticky knowledge relates closely to a territory and thus cannot be easily applied to another territory (Asheim & Gertler, 2005; Edquist, 2005; Fagerberg, 2005). Context-specific knowledge is also vital to innovative planning approaches in rural and depopulating areas, cf. Syssner and Meijer in Chap. 9. With context-specific knowledge, future challenges and possibilities for development in these areas can be adequately described, rather than simply comparing them with an urban growth context. Such an approach may lead to the development of alternative planning goals in which shared visions, including new value proposals, are within reach. Sticky knowledge is also vital for mobilizing new and alternative resources (in addition to local governments) in declining societies. Knowledge is generated by different kinds of networks, and it is in the common interest to gather as much diverse knowledge as possible Therefore, certain universal, contingent and fallible types of knowledge are also included. A possible difference between the communicate and the innovate approaches is that the knowledge sought in the latter approach involves innovative methodological challenges, cf. Chaps. 10 and 11. The theoretical focus of innovative planning is interactive, as innovations are most often created through collaborations between diverse actors (Edquist, 2005; Healey, 2006; Powell & Grodal, 2005), and the output is co-produced (Albrechts, 2012). Such an interactive focus will inevitably elicit theoretical bases from the different actors, such as causal as well as intentional and interpretive bases. The interactive nature of innovative planning is visible throughout the contributions to this book, including reflections about innovative policy practices in planning, innovative forms of participation, collaborative processes, partnerships in planning, politicians’ roles in planning and innovation to advance social equity in urban areas. Rationality. Innovative planning has multiple rationalities, depending upon the planning task, or even within the different phases of the planning process. Hence, the planning rationality may shift between instrumental, communicative and strategic co-creation perspectives. The scope of planning is strategically innovative, which means comprehensive, societal planning with spatial/territorial implications, which Friedmann described as translating new value propositions into new

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institutional arrangements and concrete action. Hence, planning is value laden, which means that one of its goals is to produce change that has public value (Hartley, Sørensen, & Torfing, 2013). What motivation does the public sector have in trying to innovate given the numerous interests and stakeholders involved? We have already given some answers to this question in Chaps. 1 and 2, related to complex and wicked problems, which seem to demand new and innovative solutions rather than ‘more of the same’ answers. In planning theory, we find that innovate is an upcoming concept, especially with respect to strategic planning (Hagen & Higdem, 2019). Innovation is likely to happen in open systems in which different actors may be involved as problem-solvers and co-creators (Bryson, Crosby, & Bloomberg, 2015). Innovation may well be open-­ ended, which means that the nature of the innovation required is unknown when the problem complex is placed on the planning agenda. Co-creation of innovation is perceived as a new and promising strategy in the realization of public value. Public sector bodies and agencies will search for innovations that have public value; otherwise the public sector is not able to justify the efforts, the gains and the legitimacy for the citizenry (the demographics), and votes may change at the next election. In Chap. 6, Næss calls for radical, context-specific, strategic planning efforts to promote sustainability. Syssner and Meijer (2012) argue that the relationship between allocative and innovative planning is important, especially for rural planning in declining areas. Innovative planning practices foster policy innovation in situations in which there is simultaneous attention to how sparse resources are allocated in society, as well as to spur the mobilization of new actors and resources in planning. Such an approach breaks with established practices and creates new value propositions, such as changing the common planning condition from local growth policy to local adaptation policy. Political orientation. It is crucial to build a culture for innovation and to create new social objectives, cf. Holmen in Chap. 11. In Chap. 7, Hofstad challenges politicians to ensure fair and responsible decisions in their communities and to take on a value-based, strategic, catalysing and convening role. In Chap. 4, we argue for an innovative type of societal planning in which political activity, politics and politicians are clearly present. Planning must deal with an increasing number of wicked problems or unruly issues (Rittel & Webber, 1973). Such wicked problems call for new approaches to policy development and new strategies and measures within the planning arena (Hagen & Higdem, 2019; Hofstad & Torfing, 2015).

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Hanssen and Hofstad argue in Chap. 8 that ambitious and clear political priorities (e.g. the 95% cut in climate emissions by 2030), emphasized as an important part of strategic planning, and these ambitious goals function as mobilizator and catalysator for developing new strategic tools. Planning is both technical and political, as reflected by the keywords associated with the communicate approach. We argue that planning also needs a political orientation towards co-creation. Planning, like politics, must involve creative activities and co-creative activities. Ethical orientation. As with the communicate approach, ‘value laden’ is a key term for the innovate approach. The ethical orientation of a planning approach in an innovative framework relies on co-creating public value. We have many contributions dealing with various forms of public values in this book, such as sustainability and de-growth in urban and rural contexts (albeit for different reasons) (Næss, Chap. 6; Syssner and Meijer, Chap. 9), social equality and public health (Hofstad, Chap. 7), democracy and participation (Amdam, Chap. 3; Hagen and Higdem, Chap. 4; Ringholm, Chap. 10). The theory and understanding of public value, how it is created and by whom, have developed over time with the main waves of public management, which in broad terms have been public management (PA), new public management (NPM) and new public governance (NPG) (Osborne, 2010). Different perspectives of public value theory seek to incorporate the multilevel and actor frameworks of NPG into a co-creation perspective (Bryson, Sancino, Benington, & Sørensen, 2017), including the possibilities to co-create innovation (Hartley et al., 2013) also in policy (Sørensen & Waldorff, 2014), while recognizing the importance of politicians and policy-making in collaborative innovation (Agger & Sørensen, 2016; Sørensen, 2016). Innovation should be of public value, whether it is a service innovation or, as is the concern of this book, related to the societal development responsibilities that planning authorities assume within a territory. For example, planning seeks to create attractive places where people visit, stay, work and live. Therefore, in strategic planning terms, public value also has a territorial dimension. In a territorial governance context, Patsy Healey (2006) describes ‘episodes of policy formation with transformative power’ in the development of a new policy or strategy, or when designing a major project. Therefore, the possibilities for innovations in planning will be derived from ‘sticky knowledge’ and attributes or conditions that are related to a geography (Edquist, 2005) in urban and rural areas. Several

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authors in this book reinforce this important claim (Næss, Hofstad, and Syssner and Meijer in Chaps. 6, 7 and 9, respectively). Expanding on Hartley et al. (2013), we define public value development in regional terms as a collective effort of societal improvement of public value within policies and strategies approved by public authorities in a given geographical area. This implies that actors outside the public sector also contribute to the regional societal development of public value. However, where public value is (co-)created it may also be (co-)destroyed—and a given innovation may not be of value to all citizens within a territory. In the end, it is the politicians’ (the planning authorities’) task and privilege to decide what is of public value, which means the assessment is informed by the politicians’ ideological point of view. The forms of democracy in which innovative planning exists include the new democratic forms of governance (Osborne, 2010) that have developed from perspectives of participatory co-production and co-­ creation of planning (Agger & Sørensen, 2016; Higdem, 2014; Mäntysalo, 2002), in which politicians take on new roles as meta-governors (Peters, 2010; Sørensen, 2006) to ensure democratic anchorage. These new forms encompass deliberative and participatory approaches. As we know, in traditional liberal democratic states, government and governance exist side by side in planning situations (Hanssen Sandkjær, 2012; Higdem & Sandkjær Hanssen, 2014), wherein the representative bodies are the formal planning authorities and decision-makers (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). Ideal of politics. In Chap. 3, Amdam shows that collaborative planning is an established perspective in which collaborative and pragmatic concerns produce incremental innovations. Amdam understands collaborative planning to be “a situated and pragmatic process where politicians, academics and practitioners from public, private and volunteer sectors collaborate with citizens as equals in partnerships to increase their common capacity and legitimacy to solve problems and satisfy needs” (Chap. 3, p. 41). Many other contributions in this book also touch upon this theme. Holmen (Chap. 11) describes planning as a multi-actor co-creation process, and Hofstad (Chap. 7) asks politicians to participate in the creation of common visions for reducing inequalities. Hofstad argues that local and regional governments should play a value-based strategic role to encourage innovation in planning. In addition, politicians ought to play roles as catalysts and conveners in innovative planning processes. In Chap. 8 Hanssen and Hofstad argue how climate leadership must embrace several

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forms of steering mechanisms implementing climate change policies leadership. Hence, research needs to capture ‘the mix’ of all efforts used by the political (and administrative) leadership—utilizing instruments from all modes of governance. Because innovative planning is value based and democratically anchored, politicians must manage and steer public social planning. We argue in Chap. 4 that politicians must come to the forefront of innovative societal and strategic planning; they should not only be involved but also manage, steer and co-create planning. The focus on the planners’ viewpoint in planning theory (Hagen and Higdem in Chap. 4), needs to be complemented by the corresponding viewpoints of politicians. Therefore, we suggest a new research agenda that addresses how innovative societal planning can absorb and positively apply the inherent ideological contradictions of politics, letting political conflicts become sources of development and innovation, and how planning can become a political tool for innovation in the politics and policies of public value. Organizational form. Innovative planning exists within a layered, hybrid, side-by-side set of organizational forms that correspond to the democratic forms of planning in society (see above). Hierarchical and bureaucratic structures organize the formal administrative–political structure and the public, decision-making authority of planning. Simultaneously, innovative planning is situated within or coupled to multilevel governance networks that comprise different societal actors in addition to politicians and administration, local or regional innovation systems in planning, and even looser forms. Hence, planning is a hybrid system composed of different but parallel logics (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). In Chap. 10, Ringholm provides a vivid example of how innovative planning arenas are not compatible with the hierarchical structure and logic of decision-making within them. Holmen (Chap. 11) emphasizes the importance of understanding encounters between innovative planning and institutional logics. Syssner and Meijer (Chap. 9) argue that it is obvious that policy-makers, stakeholders, societal organizations, businesses and so on need to be included in innovative governance models. Agent of change. As several of the chapters in this book illustrate, the innovation perspective highlights the multiple sets of actors that are capable of bringing about change within the democratic arena that planning may represent. A strategic, instrumental dialogue for co-creation is often a pragmatic approach for a planning body. Therefore, ‘the planner’ does not need to be one person or entity, but in many cases can include many

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politicians. This is particularly evident in collaborative planning processes. Among the consequences of planning practice is the fact that the rationality of strategic planning is more complex than previously thought, and there may be planning situations of democratic surplus or democratic deficit (Higdem & Sandkjær Hanssen, 2014; Sørensen, 2006) that develop into a multi-actor governance system in which government actors must meta-govern (Higdem, 2015; Sørensen, 2006). “Strategic planning represent effective meta-governance instrument for mobilization and anchorage of policy goals, strategies and institutional networks with multiple actors, including citizens”, illustrates Hanssen and Hofstad in Chap. 8. In Chap. 9, Syssner and Meijer contribute to this agent of change debate by introducing a broadened and context-sensitive understanding of a society’s planning capacity, wherein citizens, societal organizations and businesses can contribute to the total planning capacity. Rural, depopulating municipalities increasingly engage societal actors in planning practice to increase local government’s contextual knowledge and competence in planning, but also to help mobilize the society’s net resources for development. Tools. Innovative planning needs a wider toolbox that includes contextual, place-based analysis in urban and rural planning, such that contextual and honest knowledge is a prerequisite for bold policy-making (c.f. Næss, Chap. 6, Hofstad, Chap. 7 and Syssner and Meijer, Chap. 9). An exploration of innovation needs is important, as Hofstad states in Chap. 7, and in Chap. 11 Holmen describes innovative planning as a complex, creative and open-ended search process that realizes and develops new ideas. She presents municipalities that have developed methods for innovation that could work as tools in the translation of general value propositions into new institutional arrangements and action programmes. As Grankvist and Mäntysalo reminds us in Chap.5, also institutional changes of strategic planning itself, may represent innovations.

Summing Up Innovation is imperative in planning today. The growing number of unruly and wicked problems related to societal issues places an imperative on innovation in the public sector, similar to Friedmann’s concerns in 1966, but with new forms and shapes. The need for new collective practices and action in complex and interrelated issues is most visible today, as the chapters of this book illustrate.

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Some planning theorists have started to apply the concept of innovation, and this book contributes to this development by highlighting a number of important issues that have co-created innovative (strategic) planning at the core. Our efforts have led to the introduction of a theoretical framework for how to understand innovation in planning today. We have outlined innovative planning by describing 14 aspects of planning. Inspired by Friedmann’s understanding of innovation combined with today’s multi-actor and co-production governance systems, we have defined innovative planning as mainly strategic, territorial, societal and co-­ produced change that breaks with established practices and seeks to legitimize new social objectives or effect a major reordering of the prioritization of existing objectives.

References Agger, A., & Sørensen, E. (2016). Managing collaborative innovation in public bureaucracies. Planning Theory, 1(21), 1–21. Albrechts, L. (2012). Reframing strategic spatial planning by using a coproduction perspective. Planning Theory, 12(1), 46–63. Asheim, B., & Gertler, M.  S. (2005). The geography of innovation: Regional innovation systems. In J. Fagerberg, D. C. Mowery, & R. R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation (pp. 291–318). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bafarasat Ziafati, A. (2015). Reflections on the three schools of thought on strategic spatial planning. Journal of Planning Literature, 30(2), 132–148. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0885412214562428 Bryson, J., Crosby, B., & Bloomberg, L. (2015). Introduction. In J.  Bryson, B.  Crosby, & L.  Bloomberg (Eds.), Public value and public administration. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Bryson, J., Sancino, A., Benington, J., & Sørensen, E. (2017). Towards a multi-­ actor theory of public value co-creation. Public Management Review, 19(5), 640–654. Edquist, C. (2005). Systems of innovation. In J.  Fagerberg, D.  C. Mowery, & R. R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation (pp. 181–209). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fagerberg, J. (2005). Innovation: A guide to the literature. In J.  Fagerberg, D.  C. Mowery, & R.  R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation (pp. 1–28). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedmann, J. (1966). Planning as innovation: The Chilean case. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32(4), 194–204.

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Hagen, A., & Higdem, U. (2019). Calculate, communicate and innovate: Do we need innovate as a third position? Journal of Planning Literature, I–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412219851876 Hanssen Sandkjær, G. (2012). Negotiating urban space: Challenges of political steering in market- and network-oriented urban planning. Scandinavian Political Studies, 35(1), 22–47. Harper, T. L., & Stein, S. M. (2012). Dialogical planning in a fragmented society: Critically liberal, pragmatic, incremental (2nd printing ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Hartley, J., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2013). Collaborative innovation: A viable alternative to market competition and organizational entrepreneurship. Public Administration Review, 73(6), 821–830. Healey, P. (2006). Network complexity and the imaginative power of strategic spatial planning. In L. Albrechts & S. J. Mandelbaum (Eds.), The network society. A new context for planning? (pp. 146–160). London: Routledge. Higdem, U. (2014). The co-creation of regional futures: Facilitating action research in regional foresight. Futures, 57, 41–50. Higdem, U. (2015). Assessing the impact of political partnerships on coordinated meta-governance of regional government. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 19(4), 89–109. Retrieved from http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/ index.php/sjpa/article/view/3302/2817 Higdem, U., & Sandkjær Hanssen, G. (2014). Handling the two conflicting discourses of partnerships and participation in regional planning. European Planning Studies, 22(7), 1444–1461. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.108 0/09654313.2013.791966 Hillier, J. (2008). Plan(e) speaking: A multiplanar theory of spatial planning. Planning Theory, 7(1), 24–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095207085664 Hofstad, H., & Torfing, J. (2015). Collaborative innovation as a tool for environmental, economic and social sustainability in regional governance. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 19(4), 49–70. Mahoney, J., & Thelen, K. (2010). A theory of gradual institutional change. In J. Mahoney & K. Thelen (Eds.), Explaining institutional change: Ambiguity, agency and power. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mäntysalo, R. (2002). Dilemmas in critical planning theory. Town Planning Review, 73(4), 417–436. Retrieved from https://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/tpr.73.4.3 Osborne, S. P. (Ed.). (2010). The new public governance? Emerging perspectives on the theory and practise of public governance. London: Routledge. PBA. (2008). Lov om planlegging og byggesaksbehandling. [The Planning-and building act].

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Peters, G. (2010). Meta-governance and public management. In S.  P. Osborne (Ed.), The new public governance? Emerging perspectives on the theory and practise of public governance. London: Routledge. Powell, W.  W., & Grodal, S. (2005). Networks of innovation. In J.  Fagerberg, D.  C. Mowery, & R.  R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation (pp. 56–85). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. Sørensen, E. (2006). Metagovernance: The changing role of politicians in processes of democratic governance. The American Review of Public Administration, 36(98), 98–114. Sørensen, E. (2016). The role of elected politicians in collaborative policy innovation. In J.  Torfing & P.  Triantafiliou (Eds.), Enhancing public innovation by transforming public governance (pp.  178–196). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sørensen, E., & Waldorff, S. B. (2014). Collaborative policy innovation: Problems and potential. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 19. (3 article 2). Retrieved from http://www.innovation.cc/scholarlystyle/19_3_2_sorensen-waldorff_collaborate-policy494f11nov.pdf Syssner, J., & Meijer, M., 2012. Innovative planning in Rural Depopulationg Areas: Conditions, Capacities and Goals. In Hagen, A. & Higdem, U. Innovation in Public Planning. Calculate, Communicate and Innovate. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Tewdwr-Jones, M. (1998). Collaborative planning: Shaping places in fragmented societies: P. Healey, 338 pp., 1997, Macmillan, Basingstoke. ISBN: 0-333-49573.

Index1

A Arenas, 7, 21–24, 37, 54, 61, 66, 74, 98, 113, 117, 127, 131, 134, 143, 172, 176, 177, 184, 185, 211, 213, 214 C Calculate, 4–6, 11–25, 206–208 Calculation, 24, 33, 45, 47 Civil society, 54, 66, 91, 117, 120, 143, 160 Climate leadership, 7, 131–145, 213 Co-creation, 22, 35, 36, 44, 45, 47, 48, 62, 66, 137, 196, 202, 210–213 Collaborative innovation, 12, 19, 22, 23, 34, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 58, 62–63, 124, 211 collaborative planning, 6, 14, 15, 19, 33, 34, 39–42, 44, 48, 58, 62–63, 212, 214

Communicate, 4–6, 11–25, 165, 206–209, 211 Comprehensive, 2, 22, 74, 75, 80, 85, 113, 114, 118–120, 123, 124, 144, 154, 181, 182, 210 Consensus, 14, 15 Contextual, 81, 82, 118–120, 127, 209, 214 Critical pragmatism, 40 D Deliberative, 74, 84, 212 Delphi panel, 7, 112–113, 115, 118, 120–122 Demographic adaptation, 163, 166 Depopulated areas, 7, 151–166, 209 Depopulation, 7, 152, 153, 161, 162, 165, 166, 208, 209 Dialogical, 205, 206 Dialogue, 12–14, 36, 39, 40, 46, 56, 63–65, 160, 163, 179, 206, 214

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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G Governance regimes, 6, 34, 36, 38, 48 I Incremental, 14, 74, 83, 85, 212 Innovate, 6, 11–25, 38, 58, 165, 196, 206, 207, 209–211 Innovation, v, 1–8, 11–14, 16–25, 33–49, 53, 54, 58, 59, 63–66, 73–87, 91, 105, 111–127, 132, 133, 136, 137, 140–143, 145, 152, 161, 164, 173–176, 189–202, 205–215 Innovative planning, v, vi, 2–5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 20, 22–25, 33, 53, 65–66, 111, 132, 135, 151–166, 172, 189–202, 206–210, 212–215 Institutional innovation, 6, 73–87, 125, 208 Institutional logic, 190–193, 200–202, 214 L Layering, 77, 79, 82, 84–86 Legitimacy, 6, 19, 24, 34–39, 41, 44–49, 116, 118, 162, 174, 195, 210, 213 M Meta-governance, 132, 136–138, 145, 214 N Networks, 6, 7, 19, 21, 22, 35–49, 62, 83, 95, 115, 132, 134, 136, 143, 155, 158, 160, 161, 177, 178, 209, 213, 214

P Participation, 7, 14, 22, 36, 63, 82, 84, 126, 136, 171–186, 209, 211 Path dependencies, 75, 161 Planning theory, v, 1–8, 12, 13, 15–17, 24, 25, 33, 39, 53–60, 64, 76, 122, 171, 174, 205–215 Politicians, v, 2, 4, 6, 14, 20, 21, 23, 24, 34, 41, 53–66, 91, 105, 115, 142, 144, 145, 162, 163, 172, 176, 177, 179–185, 183n1, 194, 194n2, 196, 210–214 Pragmatism, 39, 40, 208 Private sector, 16, 132, 142, 144, 159, 160 Public sector, v, 1–5, 11–13, 16–18, 20–22, 24, 35, 36, 38, 62, 63, 113, 132, 143, 159, 161, 189, 195, 205, 206, 210, 212, 215 Public sector innovation, 21, 40, 133, 136, 174 Public value, 5, 12, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, 53, 54, 63–64, 66, 210–213 R Radical, 6, 35, 43, 105, 106, 206, 210 Radical innovation, 91, 105, 208 Rational, 41, 192 Rationalities, 6, 12, 14, 24, 25, 33, 34, 42–45, 48, 59, 192, 206, 207, 210, 214 Rural, 7, 58, 151–166, 209, 210, 212, 214 S Social inequalities, 7, 111–127, 208 Societal development, 2, 19, 20, 62, 63, 208, 212 Societal innovation, 6, 14, 91, 105 Spatial planning, 58, 73–76, 79–86, 151, 208

 INDEX 

Statutory planning, 74–76, 78–81, 84–86, 208 Strategic, 2, 18, 19, 22–25, 58, 61, 64, 73–87, 114, 116, 117, 121, 124–126, 131–145, 208–211, 213–215 Strategic planning, 4, 6, 7, 12, 18, 19, 22, 24, 58, 61, 62, 75, 76, 81, 85, 86, 106, 132–140, 142–145, 160, 208, 210–215 Sustainability, 6, 37, 45, 92–106, 111–127, 210, 211 Sustainable, 6, 20, 47, 61, 91–106, 114, 131, 208, 209

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T Territorial, 2, 5, 17–20, 22, 25, 61–63, 208, 210, 212, 215 Transformative change, 75, 76, 193, 200, 202 Translation, 136, 173–176, 178–185, 190, 192, 193, 199, 201, 202, 214 U Urban planning, 7, 111–127, 132, 135, 162