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Find inspirationin the Nordic citiesThis booklet showcases the Nordic Sustainable Cities – giving you an insight into the shared practices that Nordic cities are using towards sustainable urban futures. The challenges that Nordic cities face – unsustainable resource consumption, pollution, homelessness, segregation, to name a few – are not unique to the region, but found all over the world.The Nordic region and its cities are on a journey towards sustainability, and we invite you to join us. This booklet is based on the White Paper on Nordic Sustainable Cities made by Nordregio. The booklet and the white paper has been made as part of the Nordic Sustainable Cities project. Nordic Sustainable Cities is one of six flagship projects under the Nordic prime ministers’ initiative Nordic Solutions to Global Challenges, which is coordinated by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordic Sustainable Cities

The objective of the COMPASS project was to provide an authoritative comparative report on changes in territorial governance and spatial planning systems in Europe from 2000 to 2016. This Final Report presents the main findings, conclusions and policy recommendations. The COMPASS project compares territorial governance and spatial planning in 32 European countries (the 28 EU member states plus four ESPON partner countries). COMPASS differs from previous studies in that the accent is not on a snapshot comparison of national systems, but on identifying trends in reforms from 2000 to 2016. It also seeks to give reasons for these changes with particular reference to EU directives and policies, and to identify good practices for the cross-fertilisation of spatial development policies with EU Cohesion Policy. The research is based on expert knowledge with reference wherever possible to authoritative sources. Experts with in-depth experience of each national system were appointed to contribute to the study. The research design involved primarily collection of data from the 32 countries through questionnaires and five in-depth case studies of the interaction of EU Cohesion Policy and other sectoral policies with spatial planning and territorial governance. ESPON COMPASS Comparative Analysis of Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning Systems in Europe

This working paper is based on two separately commissioned projects that Nordregio carried out during 2015–2016. The first project was commissioned by the Nordic Working Group for Green Growth: Sustainable Urban Regions set up under the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Committee of Senior Officials for Regional Policy (EK-R). This project relates to Chapters 2 to 5 of the present working paper, which describe the policy details and inner workings of urban contractualism in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The second project was commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation. The objective was to review the experiences in France and England with different forms of contractualism. This relates to Chapters 6 to 8, which incorporate additional comparisons and critique of urban policies in France and, especially, the UK. The projects were a collaborative undertaking, with a number of national experts at Nordregio involved. Lukas Smas was the overall co-ordinator and editor. Liisa Perjo was responsible for Finland, Christian Fredricsson contributed the Norwegian part and Christian Dymén (now at Trivector) was responsible for Sweden. Julien Grunfelder was responsible for France while Timothy Andersson (currently a PhD Student at Tallinn University) wrote the UK section alongside contributions to the introduction and conclusion.

During the period 2013–2016, the Nordic Working Group for Green Growth: Sustainable Urban Regions (NWG4) and Nordregio have developed and shared knowledge about sustainable urban development, planning and green growth. Working in close collaboration with representatives from ministries and national authorities, policymakers and municipal and regional planners within larger Nordic city-regions, we have identified a number of common challenges and opportunities for sustainable urban development. City-regions are important arenas for addressing the many challenges associated with urban sustainability, inclusiveness and attractiveness. This synthesis highlights some of these key challenges, indicates where there is potential to develop more sustainable and co-ordinated planning and policy-making. It also provides insight into implementation, monitoring and evaluation of various plans and policies through different tools, models and concepts. In addition to outlining common challenges and opportunities for Nordic urban areas and governing city-regions, this report highlights some of the specific national concerns for cityregional planning in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. It also provides an overview of municipal reforms and regional reforms in the Nordic region as well as an introduction to all the Nordic spatial planning systems. First comes a brief overview of the challenges addressed in this report. The different sections describe these in more depth and contextualising them with relation to the main findings from connected projects carried out by Nordregio. This is followed by national overviews of the spatial planning systems and regional reforms in all Nordic countries, as well as national concerns for city-regional planning. The report is concluded with a section about the NWG4 and a list of the related Nordregio publications.

How urban planning contributes to economic growth and local development is a question high on the political agenda in the Nordic countries. This highlights, in turn, other key policy issues: how public planning can more efficiently contribute to private urban development, in particular the production of new housing, to accommodate rapid urbanisation and solve the housing crises. The various interactions between different public and private actors and their different rationales are at the heart of these problems, including the potential tensions between efficiency and legitimacy

How to make planning processes more efficient and plan for new housing continues to be crucial topic in throughout Europe, especially in metropolitan regions with high growth. During recent years evaluations and reforms of planning systems have been carried out throughout Europe. While the complete abolishment of the U.K.'s regional tier of government is likely the most significant change, reforms in the Scandinavian states have taken place as well, for example a new Norwegian Planning Act from 2009. In this context, Norway's Ministry of Environment (Miljøverndepartement) has commissioned Nordregio to review its planning process for housing development, including a comparison to the systems in place in neighbouring states. Consequently, the aim of this report has been to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of urban planning systems with regards to both the formal system (i.e. legal and institutional frameworks) and actual planning practices and how they are implemented 'on the ground'. The study has focused on how detailed/local/regulatory plans for housing developments are produced in selected Scandinavian and European states. The Norwegian planning system has been the focal point for the project, which has been compared and contrasted through case studies conducted in Sweden (Malmö), Denmark (Aalborg), Germany (Munich) and United Kingdom (Cambridge). Key findings The review has shown that there are three clear aspects that distinguish the Norwegian detailed development planning practise: relations between the municipality and developer relations between the municipality and the state and the detailed (time) regulation of detailed development planning. The first distinctive characteristic of the Norwegian planning system is the right for private actors to develop proposals for detailed plans. This has a long tradition in Norway, and means that the municipality's role in the planning process is slightly different than in other cases it has a more of a guiding and controlling function compared to other Scandinavian states. The second characteristic is the state (and regional) influence in the planning process and importance of spatial planning. The national level in Norway provides municipalities with detailed guidance material and the 22 sectorial authorities have the possibility to make objections on detailed plans. The Norwegian system is also characterised by a detailed (time-) regulation of its detailed development planning process. This is particularity evident by several formal time limits in the planning process, including municipal consideration of private proposals and as well for political handling and public consultation. These unique features of the Norwegian planning system have direct consequences both for the time spent for making a plan, as well as for the efficiency, and potential bottlenecks that can be encountered. Learning's Firstly, the initiation and start-up phase is a very significant, and often underestimated, period of the overall planning process, partially because it is relatively unregulated and informal. The case studies showed that this phase is time-consuming and that there are different incentives to facilitate this phase. In Norway for instance, the process is initiated with a start-up meeting, but there are often discussions between the municipality and the developer even before that. Secondly, the design of the plan and the level of detail are important issues that need to be addressed. A detailed plan is a prerequisite for planning new buildings but what such a plan should contain is partly an open question, as is its relation to overarching municipal plans and strategies. It seems that there are some benefits to develop robust municipal plans with clear guidelines to avoid uncertainty and create better conditions for an efficient detailed planning process. The third issue regards the importance of coordination and synchronization, including internal coordination between departments within municipalities, among other public authorities, with relevant private actors and among other stakeholders. In this sense, improving the process of feedback between the different levels of government can improve the efficiency of the planning process. This is especially evident in the possibility for state authorities in Norway to make objection on a detailed plan, which is not always coordinated among state authorities.

Demographic changes, such as urbanisation, ageing populations, and international migration, have significant effects on local development. This study examines the relationship between demographic changes and housing, focusing on different local demographic situations and related housing and planning strategies in the Nordic states. Nordic metropoles (Stavanger and Aalborg), regional centres with universities (Växjö and Sønderborg), medium-sized towns (Ålesund and Örnsköldsvik), and rural areas (Pargas) have different local demographic challenges and potentials. In all types of studied municipalities, an ageing population is typically seen as the most important challenge for the future, especially if younger people are moving out and fertility rates are low—but there are exceptions. How this challenge is met differs somewhat across the different municipalities examined here, but there seems to be a preference for attracting younger people rather than accommodating elderly populations, and a focus on development strategies rather than adaptive tactics. Depending on size and resources, most of the municipalities have ambitious statistical prognoses and strategic policies to integrate demographic changes and housing, but it is not entirely clear if such prognoses depend upon future housing developments or vice versa. How housing strategies are implemented differs between the municipalities, with some being very active through land politics and other forms of interventions, while others perceive their role as limited. However, it is evident that urban densification is a general spatial development strategy in Nordic municipalities, but balanced geographical development is often emphasized as well.

Harmonizing and integrating regional growth policies and physical urban planning, between and across different administrative levels and political fields is an important challenge for current and future spatial planning in Sweden. In this working paper we analyze how different Nordic and European regions and countries have worked with these issues, and discuss policy potentials for improving the Swedish spatial urban and regional planning system. The Swedish government has recurrently expressed that the regional development strategies should contribute to harmonizing and integrating plans and strategies at different governmental levels and between different administrative sectors. On behalf of Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning Nordregio has carried out a comparative study of how different strategically selected regions in Nordic and European countries has engaged with integrative planning and policy issues. The regions and countries include: Central Denmark Region Southwest Finland Telemark County in Norway Region Hannover in Germany Randstad in the Netherlands Greater Birmingham in England In the study both the formal planning framework and conditions in the various countries, as well as the practical work within the regions has been analyzed. Focus of the analysis has been three dimensions of integration sectorial collaboration, territorial coordination and synchronization of processes. The different international experiences form the basis for formulating policy potentials for enhancement of Swedish planning routines and practices. The identified policy potentials are also based on a workshop with Swedish regional and national representatives during which problems of integrating regional growth strategies and urban physical planning were discussed. There are policy potentials for harmonizing and integrating growth policies and physical planning at all governmental levels from the national to the local within the current planning and policy framework. National spatial visions which integrate regional policies and municipal plans as well as other sectors is one possibility, another is more national statements which emphasis the national governments priorities. Synchronizing the regional and municipal planning processes and setting up regional forums for collaboration are two interesting possibilities for harmonization and integration at the regional and local level. This could be done within the current framework but could also be developed into new formal regulations that require structural changes. It is important to recognize that changing practices takes time but also the spatial planning (samhällsplanering) is an integrative activity in itself.

Established notions and perceptions of the national, Nordic and even European and Global urban systems need to be challenged in order to formulate relevant future urban policies. This is one of the main conclusions of this study on the Nordic capital regions' national and international intercity connectivity.. Inspired by the work of the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) and the POLYNET-study (cf. Hall/Pain 2006) on exploring connectivity values for cities through intra-firm office networks, a 'modified Nordic-based bottom-up study' was designed and carried. The working paper illustrates and discusses the results of this quantitative study, which was conducted between January 2010 and December 2011. The Working Group for the exchange of experience and knowledge development (Urban Policies) has functioned as a kind of 'sounding board' throughout this process and has commented on the preliminary findings.

This report discusses aspects of the transformation of the economy in the wake of thedevelopment of information and communication technology (ICT) using a case study ofStockholm. This study is conducted as a part of a Nordic research project titled ‘RegionalTrajectories to the Knowledge Economy—Nordic-European Comparisons’ (REKENE).REKENE involves seven regional teams from Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, witheach team made up of both researchers and practitioners.The objective of REKENE and the Stockholm case study is to identify activities and processesthat generate knowledge development and innovations. REKENE involves a conceptualframework, which particularly stresses the concepts of knowledge dynamics, of different typesof knowledge, gender aspects, multilocal networks and the processes of anchoring resources tothe region.The different regional teams in REKENE study different industrial sectors. For Stockholm, ourpoint of departure is knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) with a particular focus oncomputer services/ICT expertise and medical technicians and technologists (medtech).The report describes the development of knowledge from the point of departure from a smallfirm engaged in medtech. This description illustrates how interactions between sectors andknowledge domains are distinctive for KIBS, wherein firms work closely with their clients andusually adopt the roles of co-creators and co-producers. Important developments are thengenerated through composite knowledge whereby policies may facilitate the integration of arange of competencies, skills and experiences in networks. Indeed, it is difficult to discern anyouter boundary delimiting the skills that are most relevant for the development of ICTapplications. Although the establishment of strong relationships among local actors in theStockholm region is an important resource for knowledge dynamics to be effective, widerinternational connections are needed for sustainable development. Regional Trajectories to the Knowledge Economy: Nordic - European Comparisons

This electronic working paper is a result of the project "Regional universities and university colleges, their regional impact on innovation, attractiveness and economic performance" commissioned by the Nordic Senior Officials' Committee for Regional Policy, the Nordic Council of Ministers. The overarching question for the case studies presented was to discuss how universities and university colleges can work as an active instrument in regional development policy in the Nordic countries and illustrate how some Nordic higher education institutions collaborate with the surrounding business environments. The case studies cover the Aalborg University in Denmark, the Oulu Southern Institute, Oulu University, in Finland, the School for Renewable Energy Science (RES) in Akureyri, Iceland, the University of Agder in Norway, Jönköping University in Sweden, Dalarna University in Sweden.

Consumption forms and is formed by the city. How, when and where commodities are transacted is essential in this urban drama of mutual relationships. This thesis explores how consumption and everyday life in cities are interrelated. The specific objective is to analyse how commodity transaction situations are configured and constrained in time and space, and, how consumer service spaces are formed in and are part of city formation. Transactions are conceptualised as economically and socially situated material projects constituted by consumers, commodities and producers. Commodities and values are transferred and created through transaction spaces. The theoretical perspective is framed around consumption and production of spaces, and particularly informed by Hägerstrand’s time-geographical thinking and Lefebvre’s work on urban space. Methodologically different examples of consumption projects and spaces are used to discuss configurations and formations for commodity transactions. The thesis stresses material and time-spatial constraints for commodity transaction and it discusses the blurring of boundaries between what conventionally has been separate social and economic activities and places. Changing transaction configurations and the formation of consumer service spaces in the city are explored through analysis of different consumption places and commodities such as books, coffee and clothes and property development projects in Stockholm city centre. Transaction configurations display geographical and historical continuities and changes as well as time-spatial flexibility and spatial fixity. Transactions spaces are continuously formed and reformed through processes embedded in the global cultural economy, urban development and politics, as well as through people’s everyday life. Producers’ strategic production and consumers’ tactical appropriation of transactions spaces are accentuated as crucial in the spatial practice of transactions, places and city formation.