Understanding people-centered planning practice in Europe: an institutionalist comparison between urban development projects in Vienna and Helsingborg

ABSTRACT

Pursuing people-centered planning practices (PCPs) such as participatory approaches demands a better understanding of how their operationalization relates to contextual structures and conditions in urban governance. By comparing two cases of social sustainability operationalization in Austrian and Swedish urban development projects based on Ostrom’s IAD-framework, this article identifies institutions relating to performed people-centered activities. The findings reveal that PCPs do not necessarily benefit from highly formalized rules prescribing specific localized activities. Instead, they are shaped by institutions that (1) position the actors responsible for performing people-centered activities, (2) define strong socially-oriented and innovation-oriented outcomes, and (3) enable funding that upholds long-term public interests within the markets that co-shape the projects.

KEYWORDS:

• IAD framework
• urban development project
• localism
• people-centered
• social sustainability
• participatory planning

Acknowledgments

This article was made possible through the support offered by Research Platform The Challenge of Urban Futures at University of Vienna and through the support from the Foundation for Area Development Knowledge at Delft University of Technology. I particularly thank Alois Humer, Yvonne Franz, Tom Daamen, Co Verdaas and Simon van Zoest for their constructive comments on how to improve this article. Moreover, I am grateful to all the interviewees in Aspern Seestadt and DrottningH who participated in the interviews for sharing their experiences and dedicating their time to this study. Finally, I thank the University of Vienna for hosting me during the fieldwork in Vienna and the Municipality of Helsingborg for hosting me during the fieldwork in Helsingborg.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2024.2312341

Notes

1. See Sorensen (2017) for an overview of rational-choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism and sociological institutionalism, or Lowndes and Roberts (2013) for an overview of ‘first, second, and third phase’ institutionalists.

2. Since the cases will be selected based on their outcomes (i.e. performed people-centered activities, see section 3), outcomes is left out as a governance element in Figure 1.

3. Although Austria is geographically located in central Europe, its history as the Western part of the Iron Curtain and its orientation to Germanic culture give reason to categorize Austria as Northwestern Europe (following Knieling & Othengrafen, 2009)

4. Although they also note that Austria’s strong influence of ‘clientelism’ remains a barrier in developing real participatory innovations.

5. In Ostrom’s (2009) ADICO framework, rules distinguish from other institutions because they include a consequence if the prescription is not followed (‘Or else’). Norms distinguish from shared strategies based on their deontic character – i.e. they typically include a notion of ‘must or ‘must not’.

6. The land of the former airfield was publicly owned by the Vienna Business Agency and BIG (a national real estate company). They founded the public-private development agency Wien3420 AG, where they formed a consortium together with the private organization GELUP (i.e. a subsidiary organization of three companies, of which some of them are publicly owned). Subsequently, the Neighborhood Management was also both publicly and privately (through the public-private development agency) funded.

7. An audit in 2013 reports that GELUP already earned back 74% of its purchase price with selling 56% of the land.

8. Remaining parts were owned by the City of Helsingborg.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Platform The Challenge of Urban Futures; Foundation for Area Development Knowledge (Stichting Kennis Gebiedsontwikkeling).