Spatial Planning Reorientations: The Evolution of Danish Planning Policies and Practices at Different Administrative Levels

Danish spatial planning has been celebrated throughout Europe in view of its perceived values, qualities and undertakings. Yet, in essence, the Danish planning domain has been increasingly subjected to profound reorientations within the course of the past two decades. The intrinsic comprehensiveness and integration that once characterised planning policies and institutional practices occurring within and across the different administrative levels that constitute the Danish planning system have long since been at stake. Accordingly, the social and welfarist rationales behind spatial planning have been increasingly overridden by growth-oriented and competitiveness logics. More recently, the effects of a structural reform that changed the geographies of inter-governmental arrangements within the country have significantly transformed the orientation, scope, structure and performance of the Danish planning system.
Aware of the above transformations, this dissertation contends that Danish spatial planning can no longer be seized from the angle of a self-contained system per se. The dissertation sets out to generate an understanding that contributes to elucidate how Danish spatial planning has been reoriented at national, regional and urban/local levels over time. The fundamental objective of the project is hence to explore and examine the history and evolution of Danish spatial planning through three embedded case studies from inception until most recent transformations. Respectively, these studies embrace the reorientations of Danish national spatial planning; regional spatial planning in North Jutland; and urban planning and waterfront redevelopment in the city of Aalborg. In attaining its aim, the dissertation is guided by the general premise that the reorientations of spatial planning could be clarified in accordance with three different yet also interrelated categorisations: (a) the evolving conception of spatial planning; (b) the shifting roles of spatial planning in handling spatial development and economic growth; and (c) the changing governance structures embedded in spatial planning practices at different administrative levels.
As a whole, the outcome of this dissertation confirms that there is an increasing policy and institutional mismatch between national, regional and urban/local planning practices. It further suggests that the lack of spatial reflexion embedded in the Danish planning system does not allow for a comprehensive integrated long-term strategy for the future development of Denmark and its regions. Accordingly, the dissertation hints at the fact that both the viability and legitimacy of the Danish planning system could be worn out. It thereby calls for the possibility to rethink the values, concepts, principles and configuration of Danish spatial planning.
The individual outcomes of this work are embraced in the contents of three papers that have been submitted, revised and resubmitted to international peer-reviewed planning journals.