Organisational change and knowledge management in urban regeneration planning

Place­‐based
urban
policy
interventions
have
added
new
and
innovative
solutions
to
increasingly
complex
and
intertwined
economic,
social,
and
physical
planning
problems
in
urban
locations.
Whereas
these
approaches
in
the
first
place
were
initiated
top-­‐down,
they
eventually
result
in
the
cultivation
and
production
of
new
local
knowledge
of
planning
needs
and
on-­‐site
experiences
with
implementation
of
planning.
Thereby,
new
knowledge
is
brought
into
the
open,
and
it
confronts
existing
local
government
planning
as
well
as
the
traditional
bureaucracy’s
division
of
labour
between
specialised
sections.
Thus,
long-­‐term,
sustainable
implementation
of
innovative
models
of
municipal
public
service
provision
is
paradoxically
often
hindered
by
organisational
inertia,
inflexibility
and
lack
of
organisational
dynamics
in
the
local
government
organisation
itself.
Theories
of
organisational
learning
and
knowledge
management
are
normally
used
to
analyse
potentialities
for
agile
organising
in
commercial
organisations
but,
as
shown
in
this
paper,
they
can
also
shed
new
light
on
the
challenges
confronting
local
government.