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Municipal climate policies tie in closely with sustainable urban development. Land use has far-ranging impacts on carbon emissions from mobility, housing, and consumption; as well as climate resilience, carbon sinks, and biodiversity. While compact city is well-established as the dominant strategy for climate-wise planning, a parallel approach focused on greening and its climate advantages is gaining prominence. However, there is little empirical evidence on how municipal climate policies address the relationship between these often conflicting strategies. This study examines how compacting and greening are motivated and how greening is negotiated in relation to compacting in the six largest cities in Finland. Based on a qualitative content analysis of municipal climate action plans (CAP), we show that the primacy of compacting as a strategy is not questioned, however, the importance of greening is increasingly underlined. We demonstrate that the relationship between compacting and greening policies is framed by three main discourses: 1) compacting while protecting the green, 2) greening the built-up structure for adaptation purposes, and 3) greening as a multifunctional strategy parallel with compacting. The study contributes to the topical debate on the integration of compacting and greening and to the need for cross-sectoral and systemic climate-wise policies in general. • Compacting and greening policies are examined in municipal climate action plans. • Compacting is dominating climate actions, though greening is gaining ground. • The tension between compacting and greening is hidden and specifically reframed. • Three discourses are identified to negotiate greening in relation to compacting. • These are compacting while protecting, adaptive greening and multifunctional greening [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Densification is being promoted in urban areas globally because of its many economic, environmental, and social benefits. The concept itself remains ambiguous, however, which is hampering the pursuit of densification as a strategic land policy objective. In this paper we construct literature-based land policy conflict profiles for different types of densification in order to reach a more nuanced understanding of the complexities involved in promoting densification through land policy. To that end we use a hermeneutic approach to critically review the literature and develop a typology of different densification types with relevance to land policy and categorize land policy conflicts specific to each type. As a result, we distinguish four densification-type-specific land policy conflict profiles: 1) policy-driven large-scale brownfield development, 2) policy-driven large-scale densification of strategic areas, 3) owner-driven medium-scale densification of individual high-rise sites, and 4) owner-driven incremental-scale densification of low-rise sites. The land policy conflict profiles address factors hindering the efficiency and effectiveness of the policy, the allocative, distributive, and procedural justice of densification, and conflicting policy outcomes. These unique conflict profiles allow for a detailed recognition of gaps, weaknesses, contradictions, justice and/or political indecisiveness in land policies promoting densification. The paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by land policy aimed at promoting densification. In addition, the conflict profiles will be helpful for practitioners in drafting municipal densification strategies. • The paper constructs land policy conflict profiles specific to densification types. • Six general conflicts that need to be addressed by land policy are recognized. • Four densification-type-specific land policy conflict profiles are distinguished. • The profiles show the complexities involved in land policy promoting densification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and development has a pivotal role in building sustainable future societies. Municipalities contribute to this effort by applying a set of land policy instruments to advance their selected policy objectives. The way in which a municipality chooses to activate these instruments is called a land policy strategy. The literature recognizes the diversity of land policy strategies within a single-country context, but as yet there has been no systematic and comprehensive examination of land policy practices to find out to what extent and how the municipalities' approaches to land policy differ from each other. To address this gap, this study examines the diversity of land policy strategies in Finnish municipalities by constructing an empirically grounded typology of municipalities' current strategies. Drawing on an extensive set of data on land policy practices in the 30 most populated Finnish municipalities, we identify five strategy types: land banking based active land policy, growth-oriented active land policy, regional vitality driven land policy, housing policy-oriented land policy and private development focused land policy. The strategy types are characterized by differences along six dimensions, namely land policy objectives, public land acquisition, public-private cooperation, public land allocations, economic incentives, and information steering and facilitation. The typology contributes to a deeper understanding of the variation and commonality in land policy strategies of local government authorities. Our findings support the view that current definitions of land policy strategies are too vague and ambiguous to portray the differences in strategies when the analytical focus is on municipality-level strategies. • The paper examines municipal land policy strategies within a single-country context. • A method is presented to capture the variation and commonality in land policy practices at local government level. • A five-category typology is constructed to summarize current municipal land policy strategies in Finland. • The typology developed shows how municipalities apply divergent land policy strategies within the same country context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]