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Strategic Planning in Transition: Contested Rationalities and
Spatial Logics in 21st Century Danish Planning
Experiments
Kristian Olesen & Tim Richardson, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University,
Denmark.
To cite this article: Kristian Olesen & Tim Richardson (2012): Strategic Planning in Transition:
Contested Rationalities and Spatial Logics in Twenty-First Century Danish Planning
Experiments, European Planning Studies, 20:10, 1689-1706
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2012.713333
Abstract
In this paper, we analyse how contested transitions in planning rationalities and spatial logics have
shaped the processes and outputs of recent episodes of Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’. The
practice of ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark has undergone a concerted reorientation in the
recent years as a consequence of an emerging neoliberal agenda promoting a growth-oriented
planning approach emphasising a new spatial logic of growth centres in the major cities and urban
regions. The analysis, of the three planning episodes, at different subnational scales, highlights how
this new style of ‘strategic spatial planning’ with its associated spatial logics is continuously
challenged by a persistent regulatory, top-down rationality of ‘strategic spatial planning’, rooted in
spatial Keynesianism, which has long characterised the Danish approach. The findings reveal the
emergence of a particularly Danish approach, retaining strong regulatory aspects. However this
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approach does not sit easily within the current neoliberal political climate, raising concerns of an
emerging crisis of ‘strategic spatial planning’.
Introduction
Since the early 1990s, planning practice has experienced a renewed interest in ‘strategic spatial
planning’, which has been the focus of a rich vein in the planning literature, grounded in analysis of
various case studies of strategic spatial planning at different scales (e.g. Albrechts, 1998, 2006;
Albrechts et al., 2001; 2003; Balducci, 2003; Balducci et al., 2011; Healey et al., 1997; Healey,
2004, 2006a, 2006b, 2007, 2008; Kunzmann, 1996, 2001). In line with this revival, strategic spatial
planning in Denmark has in recent years undergone a reorientation towards more collaborative and
experimental forms of planning. This shift has been shaped by twin struggles, which have centred
on both the substance and the procedure of planning. At stake have been both the translation of a
neoliberal conception of spatial organisation into particular spatial planning logics, and more
fundamentally the very meaning and nature of the enterprise of ‘strategic spatial planning’ in
Denmark.
The first, substantive, struggle is manifested in the reframing of ‘strategic spatial planning’ within
the Danish state spatial project, played out between Keynesian and neoliberal planning rationalities.
21st century Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ is influenced by a neoliberal growth-oriented
planning approach which emphasises a new spatial logic of growth centres in the major cities and
urban regions. This emergent planning rationality disrupts the longstanding spatial logic of spatial
Keynesianism (Brenner, 2004), focusing on equalisation, which has dominated Danish ‘strategic
spatial planning’ for decades. The second, procedural, struggle is manifested in recent Danish
planning experiments which can be said to be in the spirit of the turn towards a ‘revival of strategic
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spatial planning’ (Albrecths, 2004; Healey et al., 1997; Healey, 2007; Salet & Faludi, 2000) at the
transnational, national and subnational scales in Europe since the beginning of the 1990s. In
different ways, then, these experiments have unsettled Denmark’s strong tradition of rational
comprehensive planning.
By the mid-2000s across Europe, ‘strategic spatial planning’ was experiencing difficulties. A crisis
of ‘strategic spatial planning’ seemed to be emerging, furthered by a strengthening neoliberal
political climate. Questions were raised about the efficacy of ‘strategic spatial planning’ (Cerreta et
al., 2010) and planning theorists found it difficult to find truly successful cases (Albrechts et al.,
2003; Albrechts, 2006). This led planning theorists to question the normative assumptions of
‘strategic spatial planning’ (Newman, 2008) and its elusive characteristics (Haughton et al., 2010).
It was also increasingly realised that ‘strategic spatial planning’ experiments might be used to
promote neoliberal urban and regional development models (Cerreta et al., 2010; Haughton et al.,
2010).
How planning practice and the planning literature will respond to this emerging crisis remains
currently uncertain. Allmendinger & Haughton (2009) argue, from a UK context, that the future of
‘strategic spatial planning’ as a normative project is in doubt. The planning literature is beginning
to notice how the increasing neoliberal political climate has substantially changed the nature of
‘strategic spatial planning’. Van den Broeck (2008), for example, illustrates how ‘strategic spatial
planning’ in Flanders is turned into exercises of ‘neutral’ process management, seriously affecting
planning as a collective action. Murray & Neill (2011) question whether the German spatial logic
of balanced development simply has been turned into a neoliberal fig leaf acting as policy cover for
more pragmatic accommodations in harsh times. Such evidence suggests that, at the least, ‘strategic
spatial planning’ is entering a turbulent period – and perhaps moving from revival towards crisis.
Planning is becoming a target for political change in which the very meaning and nature of the
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enterprise of ‘strategic spatial planning’ is being questioned. In this paper, then, we stress the
importance of taking into account the political and institutional context when evaluating
contemporary ‘strategic spatial planning’ experiments. We are interested in how struggles between
contested planning rationalities, and substantive spatial logics, are being played out in practice, at
the moment of a potential watershed between a renewed interest in and a crisis of ‘strategic spatial
planning’. Our aim is to examine how particular planning rationalities and spatial logics, and the
dynamics between them, shape the practice of 21st century ‘strategic spatial planning’, through
analysis of recent practice in Denmark. This is done through case studies of three ‘strategic spatial
planning’ experiments at subnational scales in Denmark, initiated by the Danish Ministry of the
Environment in response to changing spatial and governmental conditions (Ministry of the
Environment, 2006). The cases were selected not only because they represent the most recent
approaches to ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark, but also because they appeared to be
underpinned by substantially different planning rationalities, and so provided good opportunities to
study the dynamics of shifting and contested rationalities. In the Greater Copenhagen Area, where
a strong tradition for ‘strategic spatial planning’ has existed at the subnational scale since the first
Finger Plan was prepared in 1947, the Ministry of the Environment has prepared a national planning
directive (Ministry of the Environment, 2007) through a top-down planning process. In the Eastern
Jutland Region and Region Zealand, both without any notable tradition for ‘strategic spatial
planning’ at subnational scales, the Ministry of the Environment has initiated informal and
voluntary dialogue-based spatial strategy-making processes with the municipalities in each urban
region. The case studies are informed by analysis of key planning documents, and by interviews
with current and former ministry and municipal planners, who have participated in the three
planning processes, as well as others who are involved in ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark.
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The paper proceeds as follows. First, we review the evolution of the concept of ‘strategic spatial
planning’ over the last 50 years, and place this discussion in a Danish context. Next an analytical
framework is presented, which places a focus on planning rationalities and spatial logics in
contemporary planning practice. Following this, the three case studies of ‘strategic spatial
planning’ are presented. Finally, a synthesis of the cases provides an overview of the current state
of Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’, which leads to reflections on possible future paths for
development of practice.
The evolution of ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark
In this section we review the evolution of ‘strategic spatial planning’ and the different planning
rationalities which have underpinned the different ‘stages’ of spatial planning the last 50 years. In
particular we place this discussion in a Danish context which has been characterised by a strong
social welfarist planning approach combined with a comprehensive planning system.
In this paper, ‘strategic spatial planning’ refers to the processes of spatial strategy-making at the
subnational and national scales in Denmark. The term is placed in inverted commas to highlight
that Danish planning practice does not necessarily correspond with wider European trends or
theorisations in the literature referring to the new ‘strategic spatial planning’. In fact one of the
arguments presented in this paper is that ‘strategic spatial planning’ in practice should be
understood as a field of contested planning rationalities and spatial logics. In this way, this paper
seeks to present a more nuanced picture of ‘strategic spatial planning’ by focusing on the presence
and nature of these embedded struggles.
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From spatial Keynesianism to competitive spatial logics
Understandings of the spatiality of the state have undergone a number of transformations since the
mid-20th century. State spatial strategies have typically developed from focusing on expanding the
welfare state by promoting equal development across the state territory, to neoliberal attempts to
create a competitive state by generating investments into major cities and urban regions. This
change has been characterised as a change from spatial Keynesianism to globalisation strategies
(Brenner, 2004). Although general trends in spatial restructuring can be identified, Brenner (2004)
stresses that the organisation of space best can be understood as a multilayered territorial mosaic
consisting of political geographies established through time. The remaking of territory is therefore
limited by the geographical configurations inherited from the past, which put constraints upon
future development (Brenner, 2004).
In Denmark the idea of spatial Keynesianism, and in particular the idea of equal development across
the entire country, has played an important part in Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’. The first
discussions on national ‘strategic spatial planning’ can be traced back to the 1960s where
discussions on the spatial organisation of urban development at the national scale emerged. Central
to this discussion was the location of the expected future growth. Several models were drawn
which either focused on decentralisation or centralisation of the expected future urban development.
The preferred model by the state (also known as the big H) proposed centralisation of urban
development around the existing major cities supported by investments in transport infrastructures
(Gaardmand, 1993). However, the objective of equal development across the entire Danish territory
remained central to the development of the modern Danish planning system throughout the 1970s
and 1980s. The objective of equal development was implemented through the principle of a
hierarchy of cities and towns inspired by the German central place theory (Christaller, 1966).
During the 1980s national spatial policies focused on upgrading peripheral cities to national centres
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and regional centres which would ensure the population across the entire country access to a
minimum of public and private services.
By the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Danish national spatial planning was linked
to growth policies. The capital city Copenhagen had suffered from years of spatial policies aiming
at equalisation. The aim was now to turn Copenhagen into a Nordic growth centre by, among
others things, building a bridge across Øresund, developing the new urban settlement of Ørestad on
the isle of Amager close to the international airport, and connecting Ørestad to the centre of
Copenhagen with Denmark’s first metro line. In other words, the aim was to develop the Øresund
Region. The key assumption behind these development projects was that a reinforced Copenhagen
would benefit the entire country (Ministry of the Environment, 1992; Jørgensen et al., 1997). This
new Copenhagen-centric focus was legitimised by changes in the Planning Act in 1992, where the
objective of national spatial planning was changed from focusing on equal development to
promoting appropriate development. Promoting Copenhagen as an international metropolis was
regarded as Denmark’s only chance to survive in a more and more globalised society (Ministry of
the Environment, 1992). The changes we now see in Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ towards
centralisation of socio-economic activity and differentiated spatial strategies have been under way
since the beginning of the 1990s, with globalisation as the main driving force.
From physical planning to spatial policy-making
The rationality of ‘strategic spatial planning’ has likewise changed substantially since the mid-20th
century. Spatial planning was in the mid-20th century characterised by a strong state and a clear
separation between the public and private sector. Spatial planning was carried out by bureaucrats in
public institutions based on a positivistic planning rationality. This planning rationality came under
7
heavy pressure in the 1980s as a neoliberal political climate gained support. Planning was largely
reduced to ad hoc project planning without any overall coherent spatial policies. The state’s role
was reduced from provider to enabler of development (Healey et al., 1997), cf. demise of spatial
Keynesianism in the previous section. The 1990s were characterised by a ‘revival of strategic
spatial planning’, as experienced elsewhere in Europe (Albrechts, 2004; Healey et al., 1997; Healey,
2007; Salet & Faludi, 2000), which highlighted ‘strategic spatial planning’ as a social process
carried out by a range of different actors through collaborative and consensus-seeking planning
processes (Healey et al., 1997; Healey, 2007; Healey, 1997; Innes, 1996). Emphasis was put on
generating mobilising force for framing discourses rather than preparation of plans (Healey, 2007).
The Finger Plan for the Greater Copenhagen Area from 1947 (Egnsplankontoret, 1947) is a classic
example of the positivistic planning rationality which characterised spatial planning in the mid-20th
century. The success criterion of the plan lies in the degree to which society resembles the plan.
The spatial logic behind the plan is a hand with spread fingers where urban development is allowed
in the paw and along the fingers supported by public transportation infrastructures, whilst
preserving the web between the fingers as recreational green areas. The spatial logic of the fingers
has been such a strong metaphor for urban development in the Greater Copenhagen Area that it still
today constitutes the overall spatial framework for urban development.
The dominant positivistic planning rationality in Danish spatial planning can also be seen in the
development of the Danish planning system in the 1970s. Danish spatial planning has traditionally
been characterised by a rather comprehensive and rational planning approach conducted through a
three tier-system with a formal hierarchy of plans from the national to the local level with emphasis
on spatial co-ordination rather than economic development (CEC, 1997). This unitary planning
system has been characterised by a high degree of decentralisation towards the counties and
municipalities. This approach has been supplemented by a strong national spatial planning, which
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quite often has interfered in planning at lower levels through national planning directives during the
1990s. This highly regulatory planning approach has been supplemented by national planning
reports which set out national spatial policies for the current government’s election period. This
highly bureaucratic and regulatory planning system has been under pressure since the election of the
liberal and conservative government in 2001, and has as a result been changed substantially in the
structural reform in 2007.
In common with other European countries, ‘strategic spatial planning’ revived in Denmark by the
end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. The changes in the Planning Act in 1992 allowed
a more growth oriented and vision based planning approach focusing primarily on the economic and
environmental aspects on planning leaving the social aspects in the background. ‘Strategic spatial
planning’ was reinvented in a ‘light version’ (Jensen, 1999). At the national level, ‘strategic spatial
planning’ became increasingly a political exercise during the 1990s, as national planning reports
were linked to parliament elections. The 2006 national planning report represents so far the last
planning report in this tradition.
‘Strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark is currently in transition after the structural reform in 2007
abolished the counties and thereby the middle-tier in the Danish planning system. The counties’
planning responsibilities were mainly transferred to the municipalities, which at the same time were
merged into larger units in order to better be able to fulfil their new role as authority for spatial
planning in both urban and rural areas. At the same time planning responsibilities were also
transferred to the national level, which have led observers to characterise the reform as ‘centralised
decentralisation’ (Andersen, 2008). These changes in Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ were put
in the centre of the Ministry of the Environment’s national planning report from 2006 (Ministry of
the Environment, 2006). The national planning report articulated a ‘New Map of Denmark’,
characterised by two metropolitan areas, one in Eastern Jutland and the other in the Greater
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Copenhagen Area/Zealand. The planning report highlighted how strengthening the position of
these urban regions in the global economy was decisive for Denmark’s economic growth. At the
same time, the report made it clear that there was a need for strengthening spatial planning in these
urban regions in order to avoid negative side effects of increased growth such as urban sprawl and
congestion (Ministry of the Environment, 2006). These economic and spatial rationalities were the
point of departure for the experiments with ‘strategic spatial planning’ analysed in this paper.
Analytical framework
In the above review of the historic development of ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark, which
established the context for our analysis, we identified both procedural and substantive shifts, which
are interconnected and contested. We highlighted how a changing state spatial project led to both a
(contested) reframing of spatial logics, and to new planning rationalities. These intertwined
dynamics have characterised the evolution of ‘strategic spatial planning’ since the mid-20th century.
As noted in the introduction, these dynamics also seem to characterise the evolution of planning
beyond the revival of ‘strategic spatial planning’. In this paper we analyse how these complex
dynamics are manifested and handled in current episodes of ‘strategic spatial planning. We are
interested in the extent to which these general trends characterise the new experiments of ‘strategic
spatial planning’ at various subnational scales in Denmark, and to what extent transitions (and
continuities) in planning rationalities and spatial logics play a role in shaping contemporary
planning practices. We are interesting in to what extent contemporary planning experiments
represent a revival or a crisis of ‘strategic spatial planning’, and how these experiments might help
us to reflect on the future role of ‘strategic spatial planning’, in Denmark and beyond. This paper
sets out to explore the following questions:
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•How are contested transformations in the substance and procedure of planning being
manifested and handled in contemporary Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ experiments?
•How is Danish state spatial project of ‘strategic spatial planning’ being transformed under
neoliberal influence?
Three planning episodes
In this section we analyse three cases of recent episodes of ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark.
In each case we examine how contested transitions in planning rationalities and spatial logics have
shaped the planning processes and outputs. All three cases take their point of departure in the 2006
national planning report and the structural reform in 2007, described earlier.
The Greater Copenhagen Area: a return to top-down state planning
There is a strong tradition for ‘strategic spatial planning’ at the scale of the Greater Copenhagen
Area. The famous Finger Plan, prepared in 1947, has had a great impact on the spatial structure of
the urban region although the plan was never formally adopted by the government. Instead, the
plan (or more precisely the ideas behind the plan) has lived its life at the regional level through
various metropolitan institutions and their variants of the Finger Plan. The last metropolitan
institution, the Greater Copenhagen Authority, known in Denmark as HUR (Hovedstadens
Udviklingsråd) was abolished as part of the structural reform after having prepared the last regional
plan for the Greater Copenhagen Area in 2005 (HUR, 2005). As part of the structural reform, the
planning authority for the Greater Copenhagen Area was transferred to the Ministry of the
Environment, who prepared a national planning directive titled ‘Finger Plan 2007’ (Ministry of the
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Environment, 2007) to regulate the spatial development in the metropolitan region, as stipulation by
the Planning Act from 2007. The ‘Finger Plan 2007’ should thus be understood as a product of the
structural reform.
The overall spatial framework for the Greater Copenhagen Area was subject to vigorous political
debate in the preparation of the structural reform. The initial objective of writing the spatial
framework into the Planning Act, preferred by leading liberal politicians, was abandoned. This was
to the result of pressure from Local Government Denmark, who together with planners from the
Ministry of the Environment, proposed a national planning directive as a more planning-oriented
and less rigid spatial framework. This model meant that municipalities in the Greater Copenhagen
Area would be regulated by a much stricter spatial framework than in the rest of the country,
thereby contradicting the main rationality behind the structural reform of ‘equal conditions for all
municipalities’.
The process of preparing the national planning directive remained rather technical and top-down.
Consultation was reduced to information meetings, where the Ministry of the Environment’s take
on the preparation was presented to the municipalities in the urban region. The preparation of the
planning directive was seen as a matter of rewriting the appropriate guidelines from HUR’s regional
plan into a government document, carried out by a single ministry planner.
The main rationality behind ‘Finger Plan 2007’ is that the spatial organisation of the Greater
Copenhagen Area has significant impact on the city region’s competitiveness. The strong spatial
framework contributes not only to build a more sustainable urban region, but it also helps to limit
congestion, urban sprawl and maintain attractive recreational green areas (Ministry of the
Environment, 2007). On one hand, ‘Finger Plan 2007’ was intended to introduce a more ‘strategic’
spatial framework for urban development in the Greater Copenhagen Area by only regulating
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designation of urban development of regional character, allowing the municipalities to designate
areas for local urban development projects themselves. On the other hand, the plan represents a
conscious ministry attempt to strengthen the spatial framework, which according to the ministry had
been watered down by the previous weak metropolitan body.
One of the key spatial logics in ‘Finger Plan 2007’ is the revised principle of station promixity,
which requires greater traffic generating services to be located within close proximity of a train
station. The principle encourages concentrated urban development focusing on regeneration of
brownfield sites and harbour areas in the inner Copenhagen Area, whilst leaving municipalities in
the periphery of the Greater Copenhagen Area and municipalities not blessed by high station
proximity with limited development opportunities.
There is a general municipal acceptance of a need for an overall spatial framework in the Greater
Copenhagen. The municipalities view ‘Finger Plan 2007’ as a ‘necessary evil’ - a necessary
government response to the fragmented local government structure in the urban region, which is
characterised by limited municipal cooperation. However, the top-down regulation has also been
contested by a municipal request for a more flexible approach in the national environment centre’s
administration of the planning directive, which by municipal (and key ministry) planners have been
criticised for being too single case oriented. The municipalities stress that the national planning
directive needs to be supplemented by smaller scale dialogue-based planning processes, which
resemble the next two case studies, and the spatial strategy-making process around a future light
railway along the outer ring road of the Copenhagen Area (Project City Circle, 2009). The latter
process reveals also how the spatial logic of station proximity has put increasing pressures on the
state to enter discussions about future investments in transport infrastructures to secure municipal
development opportunities and fulfill the government’s spatial policy of international
competitiveness.
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The Eastern Jutland Region: contested planning rationalities in spatial strategy-making
Eastern Jutland was for the first time articulated as an urban region in the 2006 national planning
report, which highlighted how Eastern Jutland was developing into a functional conurbation along
the urban corridor from Kolding to Randers with more than 1 million inhabitants (Ministry of the
Environment, 2006). On one hand, the national planning report articulated Eastern Jutland as one
of Denmark’s growth centres where further growth should be encouraged, and on the other hand, it
also emphasised a need to initiate long-term spatial planning in order to establish an overall spatial
structure for the urban region (Ministry of the Environment, 2006).
The spatial framework was to be prepared through a dialogue-based strategy-making process
involving the Ministry of the Environment and the municipalities in the urban region. The original
intention of preparing a national planning directive as a ‘binding consensus paper’ (Ministry of the
Environment, 2006) was soon abandoned, as this approach met resistance from the municipalities.
Instead, the narrow physical point of departure for the strategy-making process was expanded in
order to build common ground for the process. As a result, the spatial vision published in
September 2008 (Ministry of the Environment, 2008) failed to deal with the original problems
formulated in the national planning report, such as urban development along the motorway and the
emerging urban ribbon. Instead, the vision raised topics such as the region’s business structure and
culture and leisure facilities, all issues located outside the Ministry of the Environment’s planning
jurisdiction.
In an attempt to turn the spatial vision into something more tangible, and return to the spatial issues
identified in the national planning report, the strategy-making process was relaunched shortly after
the publication of the vision. The second phase of the strategy-making process was characterised
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by interest-based conflicts over the regulatory shape of ‘strategic spatial planning’. The Ministry of
the Environment wanted to introduce additional regulatory mechanisms to manage urban
development in the urban region, whilst the municipalities found it very hard to see how such
mechanisms would contribute to the urban region’s competitiveness. The municipalities were eager
to build a lobbying platform to attract state investments in transport infrastructures, but found
during the process that the gap between the interests of a north and south coalition in the urban
region was too great to be resolved.
In a final attempt to ‘save’ the strategy-making process and inform the Ministry of Transport about
the need for future transport infrastructure investments in the urban region, a small group of
municipal planners collaborated in the preparation of a spatial strategy in the beginning of 2010.
The strategy failed to gain legitimacy among the other municipalities, resulting in a continuous
watering down of the content of the spatial strategy. In negotiations the strategy was reduced to
recommendations for future urban development in the urban region, published in June 2010
(Ministry of the Environment, 2010c). These recommendations were characterised by the
municipalities as ‘lowest common denominator recommendations’, which bring nothing new to
municipal planning.
The spatial strategy-making process has been disrupted by various delays, municipal elections and
ministerial changes. However, it seems that the eventual failure of the process can be understood as
a consequence of unresolved conflicts over planning rationalities and spatial logics. It is clear that
no common ground was found on what it meant to be involved in ‘strategic spatial planning’
processes in the urban region. The participating actors failed to reach a shared understanding of
what the important spatial issues were, and which kind of output was needed to address these issues.
It also seems likely that certain municipalities joined the process with the aim of disrupting the
process and thereby preventing the state from introducing stronger spatial regulation.
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The Ministry of the Environment has been oddly ‘passive’ in the process, leaving much of the
discussion to the municipalities. This raises questions about whether the legitimacy for an overall
spatial framework in Eastern Jutland was maintained throughout the process, or whether legitimacy
was lost as a new set of planning rationalities gained ground within the ministry.
Region Zealand: towards self-regulatory spatial strategy-making?
The 2006 national planning report highlighted how the entire Zealand should be understood as one
coherent commuter area and urban region, and identified the need to ensure a well-functioning
urban structure in relation to the transport infrastructure through spatial planning (Ministry of the
Environment, 2006). With a point of departure in this policy, the Ministry of the Environment
initiated a dialogue-based spatial strategy-making process in August 2008, involving 17
municipalities and the administrative region of Zealand. The process included also the Public
Transport Authority (Trafikstyrelsen) located within the Ministry of Transport, when discussions on
public transportation became an important strategic issue.
The key motivation behind the process was to initiate a debate about how the rest of Zealand,
beyond the Greater Copenhagen Area, might survive the current trend of centralisation of
population and private investments towards the capital region. Important for this ‘survival strategy’
became the aim of creating a stronger foundation for public transport infrastructures (mainly
railway) by concentrating future urban development near existing railway stations. The
municipalities hoped that they by committing themselves to designate areas for urban development
according to this spatial logic, they would strengthen their position in the national competition for
future investments in transport infrastructures. The municipal lobbying for transport infrastructure
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investments took a point of departure in a policy document (Region Zealand et al., 2008) prepared
together with Region Zealand only a few months before the launch of the strategy-making process.
The Ministry of the Environment, having learned from the early municipal resistance in the twin
processes in Eastern Jutland, took a more ‘careful approach’ and adopted the role of project
secretary, focusing on the delivery of the process. In contrast with the process in Eastern Jutland,
the Public Transport Authority played an increasingly important role in the Zealand process in
terms of providing technical knowledge and ‘educating’ the municipalities in the main spatial logics
underpinning the Ministry of Transport’s planning approach, such as to which extent an increase in
population would trigger a new railway station or increased services. The Ministry of Transport
was not able to guarantee additional investments in transport infrastructure, as a new bill had just
been passed by the government in January 2009 programming future transport infrastructure
investments until 2020 for a provisional amount of 94 billion Danish kroner (Danish Government,
2009). The Ministry of Transport’s point of departure for entering the process was thus to discuss
how future urban development would support these planned investments.
This conflict over spatial logics was partly resolved by reducing the dialogue to ‘objective’ and
‘factual’ discussions among planning professionals. The participants were thereby able to
downplay the political aspects of the discussions, which disrupted the process in Eastern Jutland.
The discussions took inspiration from the spatial logic of a hierarchy of cities and towns, which had
dominated Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ for decades. The towns in the urban region were
categorised from A to D according to their ‘transport efficiency’ (Ministry of the Environment,
2010a, p.8), the Zealand equivalent of the Finger Plan’s logic of station proximity. This spatial
logic formed the backbone in the non-binding spatial strategy titled ‘Structure Picture 2030’
(Ministry of the Environment, 2010a) published in March 2010. The spatial strategy was
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accompanied by an ideas catalogue of best practice examples of sustainable urban development
(Ministry of the Environment, 2010b), intended as inspiration for future municipal planning.
What is interesting about ‘Structure Picture 2030’ and the dialogue in Region Zealand is the
deliberate reduction of ‘strategic spatial planning’ to more traditional spatial planning, striving for
objectivity and hierarchical frames for urban development. In many ways this planning approach
represents a ‘back to basics’ thinking, in order to rethink the urban development in the urban region.
‘Structure Picture 2030’ is also interesting in the sense that the spatial framework, aiming at
decentralisation at the regional scale as a counter-strategy to increased centralisation towards the
Greater Copenhagen Area, is interpreted as a stronger centralisation of urban development towards
the major towns connected by the railway at the local level. This brings up the question of what
role the rural areas in the region might play in the development of the region as a whole. This
question remains unanswered in the spatial strategy.
Planning rationalities and spatial logics
In this section we analyse how different planning rationalities and spatial logics have shaped the
new experiments with ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark.
From top-down regulation to collaborative policy-making?
The planning literature highlights a transition in planning rationalities, from a top-down regulatory
planning approach to a collaborative policy-making activity, at least as far as ‘strategic spatial
planning’ is concerned. This development trend seems to fit at least two of the three cases analysed
in this paper. However, the cases also show that even though one planning rationality might
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dominate the planning process, competing planning rationalities coexist and contribute to shape
planning practice. The analysis suggests that there seems to be a particular Danish approach to
‘strategic spatial planning’, which not only rests in a more rational comprehensive planning
tradition but also in certain spatial logics, which again and again seem to influence how
practitioners think about ‘strategic spatial planning’.
The spatial principles of station proximity, a division between urban and rural and hierarchy of
cities and towns all seem to influence the way Danish planning practitioners think about ‘strategic
spatial planning’. At the same time, these spatial logics represent also a desire to turn the rather
abstract nature of spatial policy-making into something more tangible. As a result, spatial policy-
making is quickly redefined into the more well-known spatial vocabulary of regulatory land use
planning. These Danish cases of ‘strategic spatial planning’ at subnational scales seem to suggest
that without such a ‘translation’, planners involved in ‘strategic spatial planning’ are unable to
sufficiently deal with the complex spatial issues in question. The case of the spatial strategy-
making process in Region Zealand shows how planners were able to overcome some of the
struggles that had disrupted the process in Eastern Jutland by reducing the dialogue to a strictly
‘objective’ and ‘factual’ level.
Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ at the national scale is characterised by a strong state which often
has intervened in spatial matters of national interest. The Ministry of the Environment has often
played the role of a ‘teacher on playground duty’ closely looking the municipalities over the
shoulders to make sure they would do proper planning. A former head of planning in the ministry
highlighted how the dominant planning rationality in the ministry has been rather conservative in
terms of treating the municipalities as amateurs:
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“...there has been a conservatism in the national planning [...] now I put it a bit squared, but
they [the municipalities] are by definition amateurish, they must be helped all the way
through and we know better. I have never really liked that.” (Interview, former head of
planning in the Ministry of the Environment, authors’ translation)
Traditionally, the counties have had the role of supervising municipal planning and more
importantly designating areas for urban development. It was therefore not without concern among
ministry and county planners, many of which today are placed in the national environment centres,
when this planning authority was transferred to the municipalities as part of the 2007 structural
reform. This planning rationality has in particular dominated ‘strategic spatial planning’ in the
Greater Copenhagen Area, but it is also clearly visible in the Eastern Jutland planning process. A
ministry planner from the Eastern Jutland process explained that:
"... the municipalities do not yet have so many experiences as authority for the rural areas.
They have just taken over the competence for the landscape. They still wear blinkers and
think purely in the auspices of urban development and commercial development, and they
have not yet taken ownership of protection interests.” (Interview, ministry planner, 2009,
authors’ translation).
This planning rationality dominated the initial setup of the spatial strategy-making processes in
Eastern Jutland and Region Zealand. These processes were initially intended as means to prepare
an overall spatial structure for Eastern Jutland and Region Zealand similar to the Greater
Copenhagen Area. The intention was to involve the municipalities more actively in the
implementation processes of the ministry’s spatial policies, as they had gained a strengthened
position in terms of spatial planning as a consequence of the structural reform. A former head of
planning in the ministry explained:
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“We worked with that we had to move from a - that was my intention anyway - to move from
a top-down thinking about the national planning report to a national planning report
developed in dialogue, but at the same time it must not be toothless seen from the state’s
perspective. There must be some strategies, there must be some policy statements, but the
implementation of the policy statements and concrete formulations are done in dialogue.”
(Interview, former head of planning in the Ministry of the Environment, 2009, authors’
translation)
Both strategy-making processes therefore started out with a tension and municipal suspicion of
whether the ministry would use the dialogue to slip a national planning directive through the
backdoor. This was particular a concern as the 2006 national planning report highlighted a new and
more flexible use of national planning directives as binding consensus papers in dialogue processes
(Ministry of the Environment, 2006). This suspicion contrasts with the municipal support for top-
down regulatory planning found in the Greater Copenhagen Area, although the spatial framework in
‘Finger Plan 2007’ was experienced as a stronger regulation. The municipalities saw the spatial
strategy-making processes partly as means to lobby for future transport infrastructure investments,
and partly as ministry recognition of the municipalities’ increased importance in terms of spatial
planning. The lobbying for future transport infrastructure investments were encouraged by
increased political attention towards this issue, resulting in the Infrastructure Commission’s report
(2008) published early in 2008, and the government bill passed a year later (Danish Government,
2009). The municipalities hoped that they by uniting within their region on a limited number of
investments would stand stronger in the national competition. The municipal lobbying was
supplemented by a growth-oriented planning rationality, which in particular was evident in the
Greater Copenhagen Area and Eastern Jutland, a planning rationality which clearly was at odds
with the Ministry of the Environment’s approach to ‘strategic spatial planning’. The municipal
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planning rationality can be illustrated by the quotation below from a municipal technical manager
involved in the Eastern Jutland strategy-making process.
”The point of view is clearly how can the state then contribute to maintain an increased
growth in the Eastern Jutland urban ribbon, now that they themselves have written that they
by the way think it is important and have taken initiative to a work about what to do. So there
is no doubt about that this has been the municipal and also the political point of view in the
Eastern Jutland Area. What can you do to increase the growth in the area?” (Interview,
municipal technical manager, 2010, authors’ translation)
The municipalities argued that introducing new spatial logics, concentrating urban development
around key public transportation nodes, would require additional investments in transport
infrastructures to support this spatial policy. In this way the municipalities were able to direct the
dialogue with the state away from the Ministry of the Environment - focusing on spatial regulation -
to the Ministry of Transport. But the Ministry of Transport’s limited involvement in the strategy-
making processes resulted in a municipal dissatisfaction with what the state had to offer in the
dialogue. As the Ministry of Transport awaited strategic analyses of the need for new transport
infrastructure investments to be carried out in the period 2010-13, the outputs from the strategy-
making processes would at best from their perspective be able to support these analyses. However,
this required a level of detail in the spatial strategy-making processes that was highly unrealistic and
unlikely to be achieved.
This analysis illustrates that articulating the recent changes in Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ as
a turn from regulatory top-down state planning to dialogue-based policy-making does not do justice
to the complexity of planning practice. Instead it is evident that dialogue-based processes still are
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underpinned by strong regulatory rationalities. The analysis identifies three contested planning
rationalities, which all have contributed to shape the spatial strategy-making processes. Firstly, the
Ministry of the Environment holds still a strong regulatory rationality despite the recent turn
towards policy-making. This planning rationality has been challenged by the municipalities who,
although appreciating the overall spatial framework in the Greater Copenhagen Area, request a
more flexible dialogue-oriented approach. Secondly, the Ministry of Transport holds a strong focus
on the costs and benefits of investments in transport infrastructures. This planning rationality has
been contested by the municipalities on the basis that it leaves little space for dialogue and risks
reducing ‘strategic spatial planning’ processes into impossible quantification exercises. Thirdly, the
municipalities hold a strong development-oriented planning rationality which translates into a
spatial logic of attracting as many investments as possible to their region or specific municipality.
This approach has been contested by the Ministry of the Environment, who fears that such a
perspective would be prioritised at the expense of environmental protection.
From welfare state to the competitive state?
Danish ‘strategic spatial planning’ has always been tightly connected to the development of the
welfare state focusing on equalisation of growth across the entire territory. Central to this ideal is
the hierarchy of cities and towns, which has remained a key concept in Danish ‘strategic spatial
planning’ after the abolition of the ideal of spatial Keynesianism in the beginning of the 1990s. The
idea of a hierarchy of cities and towns was finally replaced in the 2006 national planning report by
the notion of metropolitan regions and rural areas. Has Denmark finally moved from being a
welfare state to a competitive state?
The three case studies illustrate how the tension between equalisation and concentration still remain
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central to ‘strategic spatial planning’ processes in the 21st century. It is also important to note that
equalisation on one scale might easily mean concentration on another, as illustrated in the case of
Region Zealand. From an overall perspective it seems evident that the recent experiments with
‘strategic spatial planning’ focus on concentration of urban development and growth, both from an
environmental and competitiveness steered rationality. Urban development is to be located in close
proximity to major nodes in the public transportation system. This planning rationality is steered by
the spatial principle of station proximity.
On the other hand, another set of rationalities seems to pull the planning processes in another
direction. The municipalities behave to a large extent still as small kingdoms despite the recent
initiatives towards dialogue and cooperation. Voluntary concentration of urban development is
therefore only likely to take place within the municipal boundaries and not across the entire region.
This seems to suggest that in a decentralised planning system with strong tradition for spatial co-
ordination and local competition, ‘strategic spatial planning’ at the subnational scales is more likely
to focus on equalisation, at least if more collaborative and dialogue-based approaches are taken. If
increased concentration of urban development is politically desirable, it has to be regulated from the
top, as in the case of the Greater Copenhagen Area. The more likely scenario seems to be that the
general trend in society towards increased concentration of urban development and growth in the
major cities slowly will contribute to a more sustainable urban development (at least from an
environmental and economic perspective). This seems especially to be the case the current
neoliberal political climate in Denmark, which we will turn to now.
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The new winds in the ministry
Neoliberal winds of change have recently blown through the Ministry of the Environment, making
it difficult to predict the future path of ‘strategic spatial planning’ in Denmark. As part of the
structural reform a lot of organisational changes took place within the ministry which included
decentralisation of the Agency for Spatial and Environmental Planning, now entitled the Nature
Agency, substitution in the management of the agency including the head of national planning,
together with the appointment of a new more liberal Minister of the Environment (which again in
the beginning of 2010 was replaced by another liberal minister). The changes in the ministry meant
that the Nature Agency increasingly has taken a more physical and sector oriented approach to
planning focusing on issues such as nature preservation, water quality planning etc. and that
‘strategic spatial planning’ is given a lower priority, which is also reflected in the agency’s new
name. This is especially significant in the most recent national planning report from 2010 (Ministry
of the Environment, 2010d), which has been criticised within the Danish planning community for
being a ‘weak cup of tea’. These organisational changes should be seen as part of a wider
continuous process which since the change of government in 2001 slowly has dismantled large part
of the planning administration at the national and regional level.
The organisational changes and new political agendas have caused some concern and confusion
among the planners in the ministry, as they have not always been aware of either the management’s
or the minister’s attitude towards the strategy-making processes they were part of. This has
particularly been the case for the processes in Eastern Jutland and Region Zealand which were
conceived by the former conservative minister, but implemented by subsequent liberal ministers.
To survive, these processes had to find a new foundation in the more liberal political climate, which
did not have the same regulatory ambitions as articulated in the 2006 national planning report.
These ministerial changes have also meant that the promised process of revising ‘Finger Plan
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2007’ has yet to be initiated. Furthermore, the ministry has withdrawn from the spatial strategy-
making processes in Eastern Jutland and Region Zealand without any immediate plans to follow up
on these experiments, or to pursue the spatial policies presented in the previous national planning
report. There seems to be clear signs of a new emerging planning rationality in the ministry
characterised by a reduced level of interest in ‘strategic spatial planning’, and a reduction of state
involvement in spatial planning activities to those formally required by the Planning Act.
Conclusions
The Danish case of ‘strategic spatial planning’ illustrates how contemporary planning practice is
being shaped by ongoing struggles between various contested planning rationalities and spatial
logics, and by transitions and continuities in spatial planning. The practice of ‘strategic spatial
planning’ in Denmark has undergone a concerted reorientation in recent years as a consequence of
an emerging neoliberal agenda, which has promoted a growth-oriented planning approach
emphasising a new spatial logic of growth centres in the major cities and urban regions.
Furthermore, new collaborative, multilevel strategy-making processes have emerged, in line with
recent European experience. This suggests that a certain knowledge transfer is taking place in
planning practice, within which certain planning rationalities and spatial logics have become
fashionable (Healey, 2007).
The analysis of the three planning episodes highlights how the new style of ‘strategic spatial
planning’ with its associated spatial logics is being continuously challenged by a persistent
regulatory, top-down rationality of ‘strategic spatial planning’, rooted in spatial Keynesianism. In
order to turn the abstract task of spatial policy-making into something more tangible, spatial
planning is quickly redefined into a familiar spatial vocabulary of regulatory land use planning.
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The ‘Finger Plan’ for the Greater Copenhagen Area and its associated spatial logics are so
embedded in Danish planning culture that they continue to set a precedent for contemporary
‘strategic spatial planning’ experiments. This suggests that a particular Danish approach to
‘strategic spatial planning’ exists which remains rooted in a strong regulatory practice.
However this planning approach has increasingly come under pressure in the current neoliberal
political climate. After more than a decade of strong support for ‘strategic spatial planning’,
culminating in the ‘New Map of Denmark’, ‘Finger Plan 2007’ and ‘strategic spatial planning’
experiments in Eastern Jutland and Region Zealand, the state spatial project of ‘strategic spatial
planning’ now does indeed seem to be in crisis. As in many other European counties, the normative
idea of ‘strategic spatial planning’ does not sit easily within an increasingly neoliberal political
climate. Convergence, when it occurs, is expressed in spatial strategies that “favour the most
aggressive neoliberal models of urban and regional development” (Cerreta et al., 2010, p.x). As
Albrechts (2010) reminds us, the capacity of ‘strategic spatial planning’ to deliver its desired
outcomes depends on the political will of the institutions involved – not only in setting the process
in motion, but also in keeping it going. The need for maintaining momentum seems to be where the
recent Danish experiments with ‘strategic spatial planning’ fall short. This suggests that paying
close attention to even minor changes in the political climate and institutional context is crucial for
understanding contemporary transformations of ‘strategic spatial planning’.
In the context of the emerging crisis in ‘strategic spatial planning’, we see two apparent trajectories.
Either ‘strategic spatial planning’ is being reconceptualised and reframed to fit the current
neoliberal political climate, or it is being reduced to a repeat of the 1980s ‘hibernation’. The Danish
case, at present, seems to follow the latter path. We encourage academics and practitioners from
around Europe to learn from the Danish case, and to take notice of how quickly the long and proud
Danish planning tradition has changed under neoliberal influence.
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