“Take It or Leave It”: From Collaborative to Regulative Developer Dialogues in Six Swedish Municipalities Aiming to Climate-Proof Urban Planning

Sofie Storbjörk, Mattias Hjerpe and Erik Glaas
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Sofie Storbjörk: Department of Thematic Studies—Environmental Change, Centre for Science and Policy Research, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Mattias Hjerpe: Department of Thematic Studies—Environmental Change, Centre for Science and Policy Research, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Erik Glaas: Department of Thematic Studies—Environmental Change, Centre for Science and Policy Research, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 23, 1-16

Abstract: Enhancing legitimacy and effectiveness of climate policy requires improved interactions between and within administrative levels, the latter including horizontal public–private coordination. In the heavily decentralized Swedish urban planning process, developer dialogues are used to enhance collaboration and thereby increase the climate-proofing of new housing districts. In practice, municipalities struggle with identifying what types of collaborative arrangements best support the realization of climate goals, in light of strong property developer interests and bargaining. Based on qualitative interviews with coordinating planners, this paper illustrates lessons from repeated collaborative practices in six Swedish municipalities. We analytically characterize a shift between first- and second-generation developer dialogues. In first-generation dialogues, coordinators attempted to ensure jointly agreed upon principles, priorities and commitments, which instead resulted in troublesome negotiations. In second-generation dialogues, coordinators used mixed approaches to ensure more competitive and climate-proof urban development by mechanisms of indirect command and control. Principles of collaborative interaction were abandoned to regain control over urban planning. This documented shift contrasts heavily with theoretical assumptions from the climate governance literature, where enhanced collaboration assumedly increase effectiveness of climate policy implementation. Acknowledging the practical implications of using developer dialogues to climate-proof urban planning in different settings is critical for improved policy implementation.

Keywords: climate change; policy implementation; urban planning; collaborative ideals; developer dialogues (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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