Metropolitan Spatial Planning in the Nordic Countries

DANIEL GALLAND; PABLO ELINBAUM

San Francisco

Encuentro; Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting - 2016; 2016

Association of American Geographers (AGG)

This paper puts forward a qualitative analytical framework aimed at comparing metropolitan spatial plans in the Nordic countries, a geographical area historically characterized by convergent planning systems yet also where planning policies and practices have recently begun to diverge. In particular, the paper examines the metropolitan spatial plans of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki on the basis of three analytical 'clusters' (institutional context, instrumental content and planning process), each comprised of a series of interrelated variables and parameters. Through the results of a multiple-case study and a subsequent comparative analysis, the paper stresses that metropolitan spatial plans in the Nordic countries tend to merge characteristics associated with strategic spatial plans. At the same time, both the focus as well as the orientation of these metropolitan plans often tend to diverge away from the character and content of municipal and regional plans, which respectively concentrate on issues of land use planning and regional growth and development.