Ole Hjorth Caspersen

Green space planning and land use: An assessment of urban regional and green structure planning in Greater Copenhagen

Abstract Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 106(2):7–20, 2006 In its Regional Plan of 2005, The Greater Copenhagen Authority (abbreviated as “HUR” in Danish) places special emphasis on the future recreational values associated with the regional green structure. In this paper, the development of the urban green structure in Greater Copenhagen is elaborated upon, focusing on land use changes and the effectiveness of regionally coordinated planning measures. EU MOLAND data are used to analyse the development of the regions green structure during the period 1954 to 1998. Analysis of two “green wedges” within the green structure illustrates that the development of the green recreational areas is the result of both formal and more informal planning initiatives. Development has shown equal phases that correspond to the applied regional planning measures and the general economic conditions. However, local preferences in the involved municipalities likewise have played an important role and have resulted in different urbanisation pressure within the two wedges. Land use has transformed from an agricultural to a primarily recreational landscape. In some areas, however, urbanisation pressure has resulted in residential and green industrial areas instead of the planned recreational land use. Based on its historical development it is concluded that future preservation and development of the green structure in Greater Copenhagen requires regional planning measures to be incorporated into municipal plans. In this way the increasingly independent municipalities will comply to objectives of the Regional Plan 2005.

Public participation in strengthening cultural heritage: The role of landscape character assessment in Denmark

Abstract Geografisk Tidsskrift—Danish Journal of Geography 109(1):33–45, 2009 This paper describes how stakeholders are being consulted and how they participate in a joint decision-making process based on a Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) conducted in a planned national park in North Zealand Denmark. The process has been developed as a result of an increased focus on environmental and landscape issues in Denmark. It focuses on experienced barriers to successful implementation of the cultural-historical heritage sector within municipal land use and landscape planning. The analysis identified a need for public participation in order to create awareness of the LCA, to ensure an effective implementation and to incorporate local cultural/historical heritage. In addition, it illustrates how new and valuable information regarding the local heritage and visions for future local development are collected through the participatory process. Finally, this paper investigates how stakeholder participation can contribute additional information to the LCA. It is concluded that the implementation of the LCA method in Denmark should include a strategy for a participatory process which addresses the citizens concerned.

Emerging digital plan data – new research perspectives on planning practice and evaluation

ABSTRACT Profound digitalization of public administration is gaining momentum and spatial planning is no exception. To increase the transparency of planning and its usefulness for public and private actors, planning authorities have integrated production and online distribution of digital plan data within existing planning practices and workflows. Many European countries have established public spatial planning databases. Denmark is one of the forerunners in that digitalization. Since 2006, all legal plans are registered in an open geodatabase including over 34,000 currently effective local development plans. Despite the obvious potential of such data to inform about planning practice and associated outcomes, research using these new data is rare, mainly focusing on technical or judicial aspects. Questions related to planning practice, efficiency, evaluation and design have hardly been looked into. In this paper, we provide a short overview of digital plan data in the Danish database as well as similar data in Nordic countries. We then discuss research perspectives regarding plan evaluation and planning practice and we argue that digital plans represent a new transdisciplinary type of intentionally explicit data source for analysis of land change processes.