The Strategic Incrementalism of Lahti Master Planning: Three Lessons

ABSTRACT

The city of Lahti, Finland, has developed a unique policy of combining city strategy work with strategic master planning in an iterative process. It thereby offers insights to research on strategic spatial planning, exemplifying how institutional frameworks of statutory planning can be utilized as resources in strategic planning. Three lessons from the Lahti case are drawn: (1) utilize the moments of opportunity in the institutional environment of statutory planning, (2) shift the focus from the level of ‘strategic plans’ to the policy level of strategy work, (3) develop strategic planning as a platform for diverse ‘languages’.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic spatial planning
• land use planning
• policy
• institutional rules
• Finland

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Johanna Palomäki and the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Cf. the term ’visionary incrementalism’ used by Albrechts, Healey, and Kunzmann (2003) in their description of strategic spatial planning in the city region of Hanover, Germany.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland [grant number 303538 and 288848].

Notes on contributors

Raine Mäntysalo

Raine Mäntysalo, D.Sc. (tech.) is full professor of strategic urban planning at Aalto University, Department of Built Environment. His research focuses on strategic spatial planning and pragmatist planning theory.

Johanna Tuomisaari

Johanna Tuomisaari, M.Sc (Admin), works as doctoral researcher at University of Helsinki. Her research interests concern strategic spatial planning, urban planning, urban nature and planning conflicts. Her PhD thesis focuses on the linkages between strategic statutory planning and planning of urban nature.

Kaisa Granqvist

Kaisa Granqvist, M.Sc (geog.), works as doctoral researcher at Aalto University, Department of Built Environment. Her research focuses on strategic spatial planning, especially from the institutionalist perspective in the Finnish context.

Vesa Kanninen

Vesa Kanninen, D.Sc. (tech.), works currently as university lecturer at Aalto University, Department of Built Environment. His research interests concern city-regional planning, expanding agonistic insights within planning theory and visual analysis of strategic spatial planning.