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Notes
1. The concept of the ‘environment’ in physical planning includes traffic planning and housing, as well as planning for ‘social milieus’ by spatial means such as parks, courtyards, citizen's houses and informal meeting places in neighbourhoods.
2. The other themes were ‘changing technological, demographical and commercial processes’, ‘changing social and cultural processes’, ‘physical processes’, and ‘the development of alternative action’ (Aspen, Citation2005). The research programme covered more than 50 studies including studies on housing politics, transport and life forms, gentrification, governance and entrepreneurs’ new roles in urban development.
3. Even when urban theorists talk about urbanity or the social life of cities, it is from a spatial perspective, and contemporary policies on ‘urban renaissance’ are basically calling for the need to empower civil society by giving people a sense of roots and a feeling of duration, permanence and stability through preservation, the architectural heritage, museums. This is similar beliefs to what Osborne and Rose (Citation1999) call the eudaemonic belief in urban planning, the belief in a possible ‘spatial projection of social happiness’ through planning and built environments (p. 747). This projection is recognizable both in the 1920 – 1950 garden city and city beautiful movements, planning for ‘the life between buildings’ (Gehl, Citation1987), and in the contemporary movement of ‘new urbanism’ (Kallus & Law-Yone, Citation2000). The idea is that physical space should be able to provide people with an aesthetically pleasant experience, a feeling of safety and predictability, or a pleasurable feeling of being in contact with nature, so that people feel comfortable and happy with life.
4. First and last, planning is dependent on the planning laws and regulations and politically approved development and building plans. Planning is first and foremost a politically steered business.
5. Informal public spaces such as cafés and restaurants are concentrated in the inner city, and the few informal spaces and facilities outside the inner city in Oslo have to close earlier (no later than 1 am).
6. Except regarding different kinds of welfare provision (kindergarten, housing subsidies etc.).
8. Oslo was one of the European Union's three ‘European Sustainable Cities' in 2003.
9. The project did not succeed in establishing a dialogue with minority ethnic groups (about one-third of the population in this area). They then decided to plan on the principle that ‘what is good for Norwegians must in any case be good for immigrants too’ (interview with the project's chief planner).
10. For those who know the geography of Oslo, this inner-city area runs from the west-side waterfront of Aker Brygge to the south-east side of Lohavn, stretching along some 10 to 11 kilometres of waterfront. To give some impression of the size of the project, it contains 960,000 m2 for use, of which 405,000 m2 are reserved for housing and 450,000 m2 for trade and retail, projected to provide 20,000 workplaces.
11. Here, we enter an architectural vocabulary where the main ‘codes' in Norway are: (1) cohesion in architectural style, (2) emphasizing traditional building styles, (3) low-density building and (4) design that respects landscape and history.
12. In Norway and the rest of Scandinavia, post-war urban planning succeeded in intertwining urban planning and welfare provision closely. Suburban housing schemes have in fact provided decent homes for people, no matter what their economic situation. Rental housing and cooperative building associations came to dominate much suburban planning and development, which the state supported through different kinds of subsidies (rent, building loans etc.).
13. In Sartre's sense of the word, that is. In our everyday habitual practices one can always be replaced by another human without the form of behaviour being changed. The classic example is the bus queue, where the practice follows independently of who participates.
14. In fact, the ‘people's choice’ won against the architectural committee's suggestion. The architect winning ‘by people's choice’ later admitted that his company and his many friends had voted intensively—and several times for each person—on the internet.
15. Oslo Technopole uses Michael Porter's ‘cluster theory’ in their strategic work.
16. There is a cross-political agreement about the desirability of giving equal access to housing for the Bj⊘rvika project too, meaning that in principle all social classes should be able to live there (via subsidized housing or cooperative housing). The planner's ideological ethos is to defend weak interests and fight against capital interests that try to destroy the existing urban landscape or only build for speculative purposes and profit maximization (Pl⊘ger, Citation2004b).
