Vesa Kanninen

Defensive routines in land use policy steering in Finnish urban regions

Land use planning practices in different municipalities and urban regions in Finland vary substantially, as do attitudes towards land ownership and land use policy. Consequently, inter-municipal cooperation in strategic land use planning is often weak, despite central government efforts such as the introduction of the PARAS Act in 2007, which exhorts municipalities in the urban regions to consolidate or cooperate. However, governmental steering has been vague on most sensitive and pragmatic land use policy issues such as planning and policy tools to control dispersed development patterns leading to urban sprawl. This article examines the challenges of consistent steering of land use practices by presenting observations from follow-up studies of five Finnish urban regions, all in the first stage of implementing the PARAS Act. The analysis reveals that mixed messages and defensive routines are preventing effective political debate on core issues. These defences are fostered by the vagueness of central government policy. Since these core issues have not been brought up in the legislation, they are now being tackled – or ignored – at the local level in an unpredictable manner.

The paradox of strategic spatial planning: A theoretical outline with a view on Finland

Recently, the emphasis on the strategic dimension of spatial and land use planning has brought along new instruments of “soft” and informal planning. While these instruments may enhance the strategic quality of planning, more attention needs to be paid to how they relate to the existing statutory land use planning instruments. In the regulatory planning systems of continental Europe, the statutory planning instruments manifest non-strategic features, yet they cannot be ignored in strategic spatial planning. Therein lies the paradox of strategic spatial planning. The theoretical argument of the article is developed by drawing on Wildens distinction theory that builds on the notion of logical paradox. With a view on the Finnish planning system, the article explores practical implications by utilizing Schwarzs and Healeys ideas of scenario planning and strategic framing, respectively. In so doing, the article reflects on a few cases of strategic spatial planning in Finnish city-regions, and the Finnish governments aim to develop the strategic character of statutory local master plans.

Trading Zone and the Complexity of Planning

In this chapter, we explore the applicability of the trading zone approach by addressing the complexities that frame and penetrate all contested planning issues. Planning issues are thoroughly political, and the ‘political’ is thoroughly complex. The complexities in planning include not only issues of ontological and epistemological differences about what should be done and what is a ‘good city’ but also questions such as what kind of processes of decision making, information gathering and valuation should be incorporated in planning. By addressing the political, communicative and technical ‘dimensions’ of planning through two illustrative planning cases, we discuss how trading zone as a concept resonates with these complexities and whether it can bring theoretical and practical insights into planning. We find the nature of planning to be often more complex than the illustrations of trading zone formation thus far have portrayed. Hence, complexities may restrain the applicability of the trading zone concept as a planning tool. Overcoming the seemingly irreconcilable differences between actors in any planning case calls for creative, dialogical, locally sensitive and flexible planning. These issues are at the heart of the trading zone approach. Therefore, the trading zone approach can be suitable in a range of descriptive and normative uses within planning, when applied with due attention to different aspects of complexity.

Trading Between Land Use and Transportation Planning: The Kuopio Model

During the last 20 years the city planner of Kuopio, Finland, architect Leo Kosonen, has been developing a new approach to urban planning, where land use and transportation planning considerations merge. A conceptual-figurative model has resulted, where the urban structure is understood as consisting of three different types of urban structure based on the mode of mobility each promotes: Walking City, Transit City and Car City. This tripartite city typecasting has become quite successful as an instrument in coordinating different planning, urban design and development approaches and political decision-making in Kuopio. It has also gained a lot of attention in other cities and at the national level, and the model has been applied and developed further in other locales with the aid of research. In this chapter, the case of Kuopio is analysed by applying the trading zone concept of Peter Galison. The general applicability of the concept in the realm of planning is further discussed with implications to power relations and context-specific mutual adjustment.

Bypassing Publicity for Getting Things Done: Between Informal and Formal Planning Practices in Finland

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the discussion concerning the ways in which network governance and classical-modernist government practices juxtapose and redefine the idea of publicity in planning practices. Through Finnish urban planning cases we ask what kind of publicity is being promoted. We argue that new modes of governing build and employ institutional ambiguity for ‘getting things done’. This provides possibilities to ‘skim the cream’ of the best possible ways of resolving present planning issues. The crucial question is whether the possible positive outcomes give a mandate to the process, even if the process operates in a democratic void.