Forskningsprojekt Focusing on the case of Skellefteå and Northvolt, we will analyze how large-scale investments and rapid local change affect local planning strategies and sustainable local development.
Several large investments in northern Sweden are associated with a green transformation expected to contribute to both climate change adaptation and sustainable growth. The purpose of this project is to analyze municipalities’ complex mission to both attract and cater for large external investments and minimize the risk of jeopardizing goals for a just sustainable future.
The project builds on theories beyond discourses of sustainability transition, planning, and regional development which highlight the local policy level's and grassroot movement’s opportunities to make visible and balance local and regional goals with national and global interests. While cities and regions tend to develop incrementally in a path dependent manner that is suited for a more governing type of planning, planning during the last decades is characterized by balancing the interests of citizens with the interests of potential investors in the strive to stimulate population growth (Harvey 1989; Sandercock 2004). Both Lauermann (2018) and Campbell et al (2014), for example, identify a problem in that this more entrepreneurial planning practice focuses on improving the city's attractiveness for investment and (high-skilled) migrants, instead of focusing on sustainability as a tool for attractiveness. Something that mainly benefitted expanding large urban centers (Rodriguez-Pose 2018). In this regard, planning is increasingly done through "storytelling" or "narratives" in a variety of ways, for example to become attractive for investments and people, initiate and legitimize a change in policy, or to motivate a certain development (e.g. Sandercock 2004; Ameel 2020). The project also relies on theories questioning the generally accepted communicative planning ideal (Fainstein 2014; Sandercock 2004), stating that too much focus on consensus can prevent citizens from challenging the taken-for-granted developments and how the place may change. Based on these theories of planning and urban/regional development stressing the contextual and path dependent development of places, the empirical analyses will highlight planning practices in relation to catering for sustainable development.
