Urban policies are currently shaped by contemporary processes of globalisation including a market-oriented approach to urban development. In Rio de Janeiro there is currently a high rate of urban population growth causing issues such as inequality, informal settlements and lack of access to basic services. Improved urban management is urgently needed which has become an obstacle to overcome by the GoRJ and the World Bank. Participatory methods has become widely integrated into development promoting programs with the incentive to include various key stakeholders in urban policy making. This case study explores issues of how strategies are produced and implemented into the context of Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, it aims to explore events caused by such strategies. Based on a taken-for-granted premise that participatory methods and market-oriented planning leads to accelerated development, this study calls for a critical examination of how such approaches are carried out in practice.  In communicative planning theory, there is a critical stance towards rational models used in planning systems. The findings of this paper present how neoliberal ideology has formed urban development in Rio de Janeiro and how it contains a rational rethoric. It furher presents ways of how participatory methods can reinforce oppressions and injustices, serving a top-down approach rather than the opposite.

It might seem obvious that public opinions should be included in the planning process. However, it is not clear to what extent. Statutory forms of public participation attract little interest since many people feel that it is hard to make a difference. The purpose of this study was to engage those that normally do not get to speak their mind in the planning process. In this study, two methods for conducting “on-street surveys” were investigated. The place for the “on-street surveys” was Centralplan in Gävle. The two methods had different approaches. The “Stationary” method was a structured interview of pedestrians who had just crossed Centralplan. The “Follower” method was a structured interview that took place as the administrator and the participant crossed Centralplan in tandem. A total of 40 “Stationary” and 22 “Follower” interviews were conducted. The majority of the participants responded positively on making themselves heard within the planning process, indicating that they have important views to share. The methods used in this study can serve as an icebreaker for communication between planners and the public. / Det kan kännas självklart att allmänhetens åsikter ska vägas in i planeringsprocessen men i vilken utsträckning det ska ske är oklart. Lagstadgade former av medborgardeltagande väcker svalt intresse eftersom många upplever det som svårt att påverka. Syftet med den här studien var att engagera de människor som normalt inte kommer till tals i planeringsprocessen. I studien undersöktes två olika metoder för att genomföra gatuundersökningar, så kallade ”on-street surveys”. Platsen för genomförandet av gatuundersökningarna var Centralplan i Gävle. De två metoderna hade olika tillvägagångssätt. Metod ”Stationär” var en form av stillastående strukturerad intervju som utövades på platsen. Administratören frågade ut personer som alldeles precis hade förflyttat sig genom gaturummet. Metod ”Följeslagare” var en form av rörlig strukturerad intervju som utövades på platsen men där administratören slog följe med personen och ställde frågorna under tiden de passerade genom gaturummet. Totalt 62 personer medverkade i studien, varav 40 för metod ”Stationär” och 22 för metod ”Följeslagare”. Resultaten visade att allmänheten hade viktiga synpunkter att dela med sig av, till exempel om attityder och åsikter. Majoriteten av de medverkande ställde sig positiva till att få sin röst hörd inom planeringsprocessen. Metoderna som användes i studien skulle kunna fungera som dörröppnare för dialog mellan planerare och allmänheten.

This thesis aspires to advance understanding of how actor choices relate to embedded structures of rules in communicative planning practice, using insights from the institutional literature developed in organizational science, economics, sociology and planning. Specifically, the thesis argues that a spatial institutional perspective can help planners understand the complex patterns of interaction among actors, and between actors and rules. Actors interact in the spaces created by the interplay between actor choices and rule structures: the institutional environment. The thesis comprises five papers: two case studies, a literature review and a theoretical paper. A review of the institutional literature reveals insights from other disciplines not yet fully explored in planning, including transaction cost analysis to explain individual decisions and collective action approaches to understanding micro behaviour and macro outcomes. These insights, together with the results of the case studies, suggest that planning theory needs to better understand how individual actors make choices within rule structures and based on the expected behaviour of others. To address this, the thesis offers the concept of relational rewards, which incorporates theories of social capital and communication externalities into a rational actor approach. This may provide an explanation for why self-interested actors make choices about whether or not to participate in interactive forums designed to meet communicative goals. This approach can also explain how boundedly rational actors without communicative norms may over time develop a propensity to collaborate. In a practical sense, this thesis challenges planners to think about what selective incentives they offer actors to participate in communicative planning. It encourages planners to identify and characterize the many institutional environments for planning and decisionmaking in transaction cost terms. Planning theorists and practitioners are experienced and adept in understanding and applying a spatial perspective, and can develop a spatial-institutional approach to coordinating actors both across physical space and within institutional environments. / <p>QC 20100927</p>

The shaping of spatial structures at the urban, regional and national levels involves numerous kinds of actors and planning activities. In recent years, calls for crosssectoral coordination and integrated planning approaches echo extensively across different fields of planning. However, experiences from planning situations around Sweden and elsewhere reveal great challenges to such ambitions. This thesis explores key conditions for an integrated approach to urban and transport planning, focusing on the relationships between public professional actors and agencies involved in the interface between urban and transport planning and strategy making, at the local and national level in Sweden. The theoretical framework is based on communicative planning theory and theories on sensemaking. The empirical material emanates from the project The Livable City, a collaboration project between three Swedish municipalities and national authorities responsible for transport and urban planning in Sweden. The aim of The Livable City was to develop knowledge about integrated planning of the built environment and transport systems and to develop integrated processes for coordination of different interests, demands and needs. Case studies were conducted, based on document studies, interviews and observations. The results from this study illustrate various aspects of how plans and strategies in a multiperspective environment need to make sense to actors with different perspectives on what planning is all about. A sensemaking perspective on planning suggests that plans and strategies to promote an integrated approach to planning will always be partial and selective despite ambitions for these to be comprehensive or holistic. Commitment, reification and participation have in the cases proven to be useful concepts to understand the sensemaking aspect of planning practice. Interactive processes may inform the shaping of perspectives and can therefore be an element in efforts to promote integrated approaches to urban and transport planning, although the extent to which this may be achieved is highly dependent on contextual conditions and will vary from case to case. / QC 20111125

Abstract Making individuals feel safe in public space is an increasingly relevant issue in planning the city's public space. However, fear is not easy to explain or counteract as this is something that is highly subjective. Many urban planning projects are being carried out today focusing on creating safe and equal environments. Such a project is Frizon in Umeå municipality, which is a meeting place based on young girls' experience of security and gender equality.This study tries to create an understanding of how planners can work with girls' safety in the public space, as well as create an understanding of how places that are planned based on security and gender equality can be perceived.The study has been conducted through interviews, surveys and observations, in which young girls experience the city of Umeå and the meeting place Frizon has been the focus.The result shows that the city is primarily a place to hang out with friends and the places most used by the girls in the city are the central parts for shopping and food, but also some of the city's parks.Many of the girls who participated in the study feel insecure sometimes when in the city, but this is something that occurs mainly when they are alone. Hanging out with their friends is not just something they do for socializing, but this is also something that gives them a sense of security. The result also shows that Frizon is an appreciated place by many girls, but that the site partially feels somewhat unavailable during certain times of the day and year.

ABSTRACT Planning for Sustainable Development - Dilemmas for local authority planners This thesis for the degree of licentiate in regional planning at the Royal Institute for Technol-ogy is a study of certain aspects of the profession of comprehensive planners in Sweden. The empirical background of the thesis is an interview study of 15 Swedish local authority plan-ners noted for their professional commitment in working for a more sustainable society. The aim of the thesis is to identify, describe, analyse and evaluate planners’ experiences in using comprehensive planning as an arena for a more sustainable development in society, with new democratic forums. The thesis focuses on how the planners consider and manage the prob-lems they encounter. The empirical findings are based on in semi-structured interviews and have been analysed qualitatively. The findings are construed from theories and conceptions of global justice, ecological modernism, communicative planning, power and the reflective practitioner. An analysis of the planner’s experience as a problematisation in an actor-structure per-spective is the main result. The problems are formulated in four dilemmas frequently con-fronted by the planners in their daily work, as follows. Ecological, economic or social sustainability? The interviewed planners seem to feel deeply for the ecological aspects of their work, which they connect more with urban and regional planning than with economic and social issues. Despite this lesser involvement in social issues, they have experience from methods of citizen participation. Long- or short-term planning, comprehensiveness or components? The planners find it difficult to combine the long-term perspective in comprehensive planning and sustainable development with the short-term decisions of economic planning. The con-version to a more sustainable society is not compatible with the long-lasting physical struc-tures. Top-down or bottom-up perspective? The planners strive to use top-down methods, but at the local authority level there are strong traditions of rational methods for planning and decision-making. The interviewed subjects were disappointed in the weak citizen interest in comprehensive planning. The planner as an expert, co-ordinator or facilitator? Local authority planners are often engaged as experts, co-ordinators and facilitators all at the same time, in the same process of planning. Problems occur in how other actors trust the planners when they change from role to role. / Licentiatavhandlingen vid Institutionen för Infrastruktur och samhällsplanering vid Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan är en professionsstudie av svenska översiktsplanerare. Avhandlingen grundar sig empiriskt på en intervjustudie av femton planerare för kommunala översiktsplaner, som utmärkt sig som föregångare i planering med inriktning på hållbar utveckling. Syftet med avhandlingen är att identifiera, beskriva, analysera och tolka planerares erfarenheter med att utnyttja översiktsplanering, med nya demokratiska former, som ”verktyg” för en mer hållbar utveckling i samhället. Avhandlingen fokuserar på hur planerarna uppfattar och hanterar de problem de upplever i sitt vardagliga professionella arbete. Det empiriska resultatet baseras på kvalitativa halv-strukturerade intervjuer, som har analyserats abduktivt. Resultatet är tolkat utifrån teorier och begrepp om global rättvisa, ekologisk modernism, kommunikativ planering samt teorier om makt och erfarenhetskunskap. Planerarnas erfarenheter har analyserats och problematiserats ur ett aktörs-struktur perspektiv. Huvudresultatet är formulerat i form av fyra dilemman som planerarna ofta upplever i sitt vardagliga arbete. Dilemman uppstår i en situation där det finns flera möjliga handlingsvägar, men där det uppstår nya problem oavsett vilken väg som väljs. Ekologisk, ekonomisk eller social hållbarhet? De intervjuade planerarna tycks betona de ekologiska aspekterna i sitt arbete, som de uppfattar har närmare anknytning till fysisk planering and de ekonomiska och sociala frågorna. Trots detta är de mycket engagerade i sociala frågor och har erfarenheter av metoder med medborgarinflytande. Lång- eller kortsiktig planering, helhet eller delar? Planerarna ser svårigheter i att kombinera ett långsiktigt perspektiv i översiktlig planering och hållbar utveckling, med genomförandeinriktade ofta kortsiktiga beslut. Omställningen till ett samhälle med hållbar inriktning är dessutom komplicerad då de fysiska strukturernas har en sådan lång livslängd. Perspektiv uppifrån eller underifrån? Planerarna strävar efter att utveckla planeringsmetoder med underifrånperspektiv, men på förvaltningsnivån finns starka traditioner med rationella metoder för planering och beslutsfattande. Intervjupersonerna är besvikna över medborgarnas svaga intresse för långsiktig översiktlig planering. Planeraren som expert, koordinator eller processtödjare? Kommunala planerare är ofta engagerade som experter, koordinatörer och processtödjare på samma gång och i samma process. Problem kan då uppstå med övriga aktörers förtroende för planerarna när de byter mellan skilda roller under processens gång. Planerare, Översiktlig planering, Hållbar utveckling, Miljöplanering, Kommunikativ planering, Erfarenhetskunskap, Reflekterande praktiker / <p>Rapporten är tryct i KTH's TRITA-serie, kan beställas från KTH jose@infra.kth.se</p>

This study examines the transition to a sustainable energy system in Swedish society, by analysing research, policy and strategies related to the energy sector. The study applies an institutional approach informed by evolutionary governance theory as well as energy smart and communicative planning theory to analyse how the transition is portrayed on a Nordic, National and regional level. As the purpose is to understand the decision-making process behind the transition, the research design is qualitative and uses official and private documents as the main source of data. To analyse the material, the study applies a method developed by Healey (1993) and Khakee (2000) as a model to read texts as the product of a broad discourse. The results show that the transition towards a sustainable energy system is driven by institutional governance informed by increased European intervention. The Nordic countries, especially Sweden, have during the past decade established structures to become 100 per cent decarbonised and reliant on energy generated from renewable energy sources. Although the core ideology behind the transition is positive from a sustainable perspective, there are many technical challenges on a domestic and regional level that have not yet been solved.

We are constantly building new roads and are trying to make them safer and more efficient. This thesis has looked into how the benefits and disadvantages has been described with building new roads and specifically bypass roads. The thesis has also explored on how the handling of the citizens have been made from the municipal part and from the side of the Swedish Transport Administration. The analysis in this study has been made with a directed content analysis, this means that the previous scientific research and theories have been used to form the framework used in the coding scheme. Documents from the municipalities and planning documents from the Swedish Transport Administration have been used in the coding scheme. In total 10 documents combined have been analyzed from Skellefteå, Söderköping and Linghem connected to the building of bypass roads in the localities.  The study has shown that in all the localities there are negative effects on the environment, landscape and land that is being used, but in all the cases the Swedish Transport Administration and the municipalities argue that the roads have more positive benefits than negative, the bypass roads lead to a higher traffic safety, less emissions and a better accessibility in the central parts of the localities. Regarding the communications it’s clear that the municipalities prioritize the inhabitants and are constantly working to improve it. The Swedish Transport Administration works with communication in all the stages in the planning process. Both the municipalities and the Swedish Transport Administration describe that they value the public interest higher than the private. But with how the Swedish Transport Administration works with communicative planning it could be concluded that they only follow the necessary steps that they are legally required to.

Citizen dialogue has recently become a central development area for municipalities and county councils. Despite changes in the Planning and Building Act and a clear assumption in policy processes to achieve ecological, economic and social sustainability, the citizen dialogue has not been able to fulfill its purpose. The formal process for dialogue has been criticized for being late in the planning process, which reduces the possibility of planning changes. A natural sanction is not least about reduced trust to the planners and the political system. In order to reverse the downward spiral, internal efforts are required in addition to the requirements of current legislation, which is a challenge for not least smaller municipalities. Based on planning theories, relevant previous research and interviews with municipal officials, obstacles and opportunities with citizen dialogue in physical planning in a smaller municipality are investigated. A purpose is also to account for important aspects of the work with citizen dialogue. In addition to an account of how the municipality's work looks, how citizen dialogue can promote municipal physical planning and how a good citizen dialogue can be achieved, the conclusions show that: municipal officials, despite their own ideas about the development of citizen dialogue, are hindered in their work through limited scope for maneuver and limited resources. / Medborgardialogen har på senare tid blivit ett centralt utvecklingsområde för kommun och landsting. Trots ändringar i plan- och bygglagen och ett klart antagande i policy processer för att uppnå ekologisk, ekonomisk och social hållbarhet har medborgardialogen inte lyckats uppfylla sitt syfte. Den formella processen för dialog har kritiserats för att för sent komma i planeringsprocessen vilket minskar möjligheten till planändringar. En naturlig påföljd handlar inte minst om minskad tillit till planerarna och det politiska systemet. För att vända den nedåtgående spiralen krävs interna insatser utöver kraven i gällande lagstiftning, vilket är en utmaning för inte minst mindre kommuner. Utifrån planeringsteorier, relevant tidigare forskning och intervjuer med bland annat kommunala tjänstemän undersöks hinder och möjligheter med medborgardialog i fysisk planering i en mindre kommun. Ett underliggande syfte är också att redogöra för viktiga aspekter i arbetet med medborgardialog.Utöver en redogörelse över hur kommunens arbete ser ut, hur medborgardialog kan främja kommunal fysisk planering och hur en god medborgardialog kan uppnås så visar slutsatserna att: kommunala tjänstemän, trots egna idéer om utvecklingen av medborgardialog, hindras i arbetet genom ett begränsat handlingsutrymme och begränsade resurser.

Återhämtningsprocessen efter naturkatastrofer är en ny process i Sverige som få studier studerat. Teorin om den kommunikativa planeringen innebär att kommunikationen och samverkan är väsentlig för att lyckas med en planering utan dispyter och argument. Syftet är att analysera hur den kommunikativa planeringen är en del av återhämtningsprocessen efter översvämningen i Gävle 2021. Två frågeställningar har använts; på vilket sätt har kommunkoncernen och medborgarna i Gävle implementerat återhämtningsstrategier samt hur upplevs samverkan vid återhämtningsprocessen fungera mellan aktörerna.   Studien tar en explorativ ansats och kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med aktörer i Gävle. Det framgår att kommunkoncernen samverkar, man att medborgarna inte är inblandade vid återhämtningsprocessen utöver återhämtningen av sina hem. Avsaknaden av att vara inblandade har lett till missnöjen, vilket kan lösas genom förtydliganden och information om medborgarnas roller och vad som förväntas av dem. Därmed är slutsatsen att den kommunikativa planeringen delvis är en del av återhämtningsprocessen. / Few have studied the recovery after natural disasters in Sweden. The theory of communicative planning is about how communication and cooperation can minimize disputes and arguments during a process. The aim is to analyze how communicative planning is part of the recovery after the flooding in Gävle 2021. Two questions have been used; how has the municipal group and the citizens of Gävle implemented recovery strategies and how has the collaboration between the actors in the recovery process worked.   The study takes an exploratory approach and qualitative interviews have been made with actors in Gävle. The results show the municipality collaborates; however, the citizens are not part of the recovery more than to rebuild their homes. The lack of participation has led to dissatisfaction, which can be solved through clarifications and information about citizens' roles and expectations. Therefore, the conclusion is that the recovery process does not fully follow the theory.