![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
Abstract
The Swedish Planning and Building Act (PBL) from 1987, revised in 2011, stipulates that an important task of comprehensive planning is to secure both substantive and procedural justice. However, because of the municipal planning monopoly, the individual municipalities are free to decide how these goals can best be achieved. This article focuses on the ways interpretations of justice have changed over a 10-year period in one selected municipality, Malmö in southern Sweden. Analyses of the comprehensive planning discourse in this municipality reveal that when it comes to substantive justice, discussions of structural inequality and segregation have gradually been replaced by discussions of social cohesion, while at the same time discussions of procedural justice and the need to create public spheres in which underprivileged groups are allowed a voice, have been replaced by discussions of open public spaces, allowing different groups to see each other. Though the issue of social justice seems to be downplayed in the urban planning discourse for the time being, counterforces within city administration are questioning the prevailing line of development.
Acknowledgements
The work reported in this article was financed by the Swedish research council FORMAS, and has benefited from insightful comments and criticism of anonymous referees, for which the author is grateful.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Katarina Nylund
Katarina Nylund is Professor in Urban Planning at the Department of Urban Studies, Malmö University, Sweden. Her research on relationship between urbanization, urbanism and urbanity includes publications on public spaces, public spheres and commercial spaces with a focus on growing socio-spatial inequalities in the new urban landscape.