Kristian Olesen

Soft Spaces as Vehicles for Neoliberal Transformations of Strategic Spatial Planning

With this paper I analyse how policy agendas are being shaped and reshaped in new soft spaces emerging in Danish spatial planning at subnational scales, and how policy making in these soft spaces seeks to influence formal planning arenas. The paper demonstrates how the new soft planning spaces in Danish spatial planning primarily are concerned with promoting policy agendas centred on economic development, whilst doing limited work in filling in the gaps between formal scales of planning, as envisaged in the planning literature. Instead, soft spaces seem to add to the increasing pressures on statutory spatial planning, being used as vehicles for neoliberal transformations of strategic spatial planning. I therefore argue for a need to maintain a critical stance towards the emergence of soft spaces in spatial planning.

Strategic Planning in Transition: Contested Rationalities and Spatial Logics in Twenty-First Century Danish Planning Experiments

In this article, we analyse how contested transitions in planning rationalities and spatial logics have shaped the processes and outputs of recent episodes of Danish “strategic spatial planning”. The practice of “strategic spatial planning” in Denmark has undergone a concerted reorientation in the recent years as a consequence of an emerging neoliberal agenda promoting a growth-oriented planning approach emphasizing a new spatial logic of growth centres in the major cities and urban regions. The analysis, of the three planning episodes, at different subnational scales, highlights how this new style of “strategic spatial planning” with its associated spatial logics is continuously challenged by a persistent regulatory, top-down rationality of “strategic spatial planning”, rooted in spatial Keynesianism, which has long characterized the Danish approach. The findings reveal the emergence of a particularly Danish approach, retaining strong regulatory aspects. However this approach does not sit easily within the current neoliberal political climate, raising concerns of an emerging crisis of “strategic spatial planning”.

The Spatial Politics of Spatial Representation: Relationality as a Medium for Depoliticization?

This paper explores the interplay between the spatial politics of new governance landscapes and innovations in the use of spatial representations in planning. The central premise is that planning experiments with new relational approaches become enmeshed in spatial politics. The case of strategic spatial planning in Denmark reveals how fuzzy spatial representations and relational spatial concepts are being used to depoliticize strategic spatial planning processes and to camouflage spatial politics. The paper concludes that, while relational geography might play an important role in building consensus, it plays an equal important role in supporting current neoliberal transformations of strategic spatial planning.

Teaching planning theory as planner roles in urban planning education

Abstract Planning theory is often portrayed as a subject that urban planning students find too abstract and fail to see the relevance of. This paper advocates the perspective that planning theory can be made more student-friendly. This requires, firstly, that academic discussions about the relevance of planning theory for urban planning practice are integrated into the course module. If students are to appreciate planning theory, it requires that they understand how planning theory can inspire planning practice. Secondly, it requires careful considerations to the pedagogy of planning theory. The paper suggests that teaching planning theory as a variety of planner roles offers a helpful pedagogical approach for helping students construct their identities as urban planners. The paper builds on the author’s own experiences of teaching planning theory in a master’s urban planning programme, and has been written as part of the author’s completion of a pedagogical course for university lecturers (The pedagogical course for university lecturers is a 10 ECTS course for assistant professors, which provides the participants with the pedagogical and didactic foundations for a university career).

Towards business improvement districts in Denmark: Translating a neoliberal urban intervention model into the Nordic context

This paper investigates how business improvement districts (BIDs) are translated into a Danish context. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines the concepts of travelling ideas, mobile urbanism and neoliberalisation, this paper explores how an actor-network is being constructed to mobilise support for a BID pilot scheme in Denmark. The introduction of BID-inspired concepts in Denmark represents an illustrative case of how mobile urban policies are translated into local contexts as part of continuous processes of neoliberalisation of urban governance and policy-making. In Denmark, the BID model is promoted as a market-based planning tool to support progressive planning goals of supporting town centres as vibrant commercial centres. Furthermore, the BID concept is, among Danish planners, perceived as a useful organisational framework for the construction of public–private partnerships as add-ons to area-based renewal initiatives in order to strengthen local community support. Such interpretations are not only in stark contrast to BIDs implemented elsewhere, but also require a significant reconfiguration of the model to fit local needs. However, despite the strong social focus, the potential negative consequences of implementing BIDs, such as privatisation and commodification of public space, are barely discussed in the current initial stage of translating the BID model into a Danish context. This raises serious concerns about to what extent planners in Denmark unreflectively are copying a policy concept from elsewhere, with little regard to how the concept should be adapted and what it has to offer in a Danish context.

Planning as a barrier for growth: Analysing storylines on the reform of the Danish Planning Act:

In this paper, we investigate how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has been structured in the public debate in Denmark, and how this discourse has created a political pressure to reform the Planning Act. We identify three main storylines, which support the discourse that planning constitutes a barrier for growth in the most rural areas of Denmark, framed as ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public debate. We argue that the contemporary critique of planning in Denmark has a distinct spatial dimension, in which planning deregulation is rationalised as a means to boost development in the economic periphery and combat increasing socio-spatial inequalities. Whilst the ideology and rationality behind the storylines calling for deregulation of planning can be interpreted as rooted in social welfarism, we argue that the framing of Outer Denmark is merely being used in the public debate to legitimise the (neo)liberalisation of spatial planning in Denmark. Nevertheless, the case of planning deregulation in Denmark is illustrative of how spatialities are discursively (re)constructed and enacted in order to challenge and transform the role of planning in the context of neoliberalism.

Talk to the hand: strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling of the Loop City*

ABSTRACT The paper analyses how the spatial vision of the Loop City for the Øresund Region has played an important persuasive role in legitimizing and mobilizing local and national political support for a light rail link along the outer ring road in the Greater Copenhagen Area. The paper discusses the persuasive power of spatial concepts and supportive storylines in bringing transport infrastructure projects onto the national policy agenda. In conclusion, the paper calls for critical attention to the rationalities underpinning practices of persuasive storytelling in contemporary strategic spatial planning.