Urban Policy in the Nordic Countries—National Foci and Strategies for Implementation1

1. Most of the empirical data in this article derives from a project on national urban policies and their implementation in the five Nordic countries funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers and reported in Aeroe and Joergensen (2005).

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the emergence and practise of an urban policy in the Nordic countries. We find that although the focus and organization vary among the five countries, there are common trends. Firstly, the emergence of an urban policy has challenged the Nordic welfare model because it emphasizes specific and geographically varied qualities, rather than general equity. Secondly, the emergence of an urban policy has challenged the traditional thinking about “urban” as a necessary evil, and replaced it with the notion of the “urban” as a positive driving force in society's well-being. Thirdly, the way urban policies are conceived and implemented has supplemented planning and regulations with programmes and initiatives involving local actors in governance based ways, but the state still has a strong role to play. The paper discusses these three statements based on a case study of the implementation of urban policies in the five Nordic countries.

Notes

1. Most of the empirical data in this article derives from a project on national urban policies and their implementation in the five Nordic countries funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers and reported in Aeroe and Joergensen (2005).

2. In this paper, the term “urban policy” is used in the sense defined earlier: as a “new” understanding and attitude towards solving urban problems. Truly, many policies and efforts, which aim at influencing urban structures or strengthen certain cities, may well be included in the term urban policies: infrastructure investments are obvious examples as well as national or local policies concerning transportation, waste-handling, air pollution, and localization policies towards transport hubs, hospitals and educational facilities. In our basic case study such policies were defined as “not (recognized as) urban policy”. It covers, to some extent, what van den Berg et al. (1998) call “the implicit layer”. In the literature and for our respondents the term “urban policy” has come to cover the types of initiatives described in this paper.

3. Also included in the Nordic countries are three autonomous territories: Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Archipelago of Åland. They were not included in the study and are not presented here.

4. We want to thank: Jón Runar Sveinsson, Urban Research Insitute, Iceland; Ingemar Elander, University of Örebro, Sweden; Vibeke Nenseth, Norwegian Insitute of Urban and Regional Research, Norway; Harry Andersson, University of Turku, Finland; and Michaela Schulman, Ministry of Environment, Sweden for their contribution. Possible errors or misinterpretations are of course our own responsibility.

5. Closest to a departmental responsibility for urban affairs is the secretariat for the Commission on Metropolitan Areas in Sweden and the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing, which existed in Denmark from 1999 until 2001.

6. Cf. footnote 2.

7. Topping in the early 1990s with a total investment frame of almost 1 billion Euros a year, only some of which however were public expenses (Jørgensen & Klint, 2001)

8. According to Statistics Denmark the total amount for social benefits in Denmark in 2004 was equivalent to approximately 24 billion Euros. The total expenditure for the area-based “kvarterløft” projects was approximately 160 million Euros over a number of years.