APRILab: Investment Dilemma in South Harbour & Aalborg East, Denmark

This report focuses on investment dilemmas of urban planning in the urban fringe - tensions and benefits between supply-and demand-led logics related to issues of risk and income/expenditure management. The APRILab project frames these issues as a dilemma, indicating that each of these logics is complex, have their own strengths and weaknesses, and can be combined differently over time. With these reservations, however, the problem-definition is that current planning-practice is constrained by being too supply-led ((Savini, Salet, & Majoor, 2014), p.14).Hence, the hypothesis tested out in this report is that as a consequence of both the 2008-recession and the permanent volatility of the property-development market, new types of more demand-led investment-models (or other combinations of supply- and demand-led logics) for spatial planning have to be developed; demand-led investment-models are in this report defined as projects that are realized through a novel diversion of risks, have qualities that are distinctive and tailored to end-users, and have a higher, or different, quality, than standardized, supply-led solutions. As planning authorities often play a crucial role in manipulating the variables that influence risk and investments, the investigation of the dilemma looks at what investment risks that spatial planning takes in order to enable urban development (Savini, Salet, & Majoor, 2014), p. 14).The regulative set-up in Sydhavn triggers conflicts, disagreements and norm-negotiations related to land-use planning, public space and countering segregation. The financial aspects of these issues are further explored in this report and entail the following three planning dilemmas:- Post-recession planning policy: enabling continued fringe-area development in Copenhagen in the wake of financial crisis and economic recession- public space and public-resource allocation to Sydhavn by means of landowner-associations and a publicly owned (municipal/state) urban-development company (By & Havn)- Fringe-area growth as a means to counter segregationAalborg Øst: Investment dilemmasThe financial dilemmas related to the above-mentioned intervention- and regulation issues are further explored in this report:- Post-recession planning policy: Sector- and funds-confined investments as building blocks for strategy development- Demand-led planning: collaborative, interdependent place-making- Fringe-area growth as a means to counter segregation