Understanding the Reorientations and Roles of Spatial Planning: The Case of National Planning Policy in Denmark

Abstract

Spatial planning commonly adopts a diversity of functions and logics in contributing to the handling of growth and development. Being influenced by an array of contextual driving forces that result in specific institutional practices and policy agendas, spatial planning seems to be constantly reoriented in terms of its purposes and reasoning. This article sets out to explore the diverse orientations and roles that spatial planning has assumed in Denmark over a 50-year period. In doing so, the article examines the evolution of national planning policy by means of a multi-disciplinary framework comprising analytical concepts drawn from planning theory, state spatial theory and discourse analysis. Based on an in-depth study, the article then attempts to qualify, illustrate and synthesize the diverse roles that spatial planning has assumed in Denmark throughout that timeframe. The article concludes that spatial planning initially assumed a steering role, which has been either supplemented or substituted by balancing and/or strategic roles over the course of the past two decades. As a whole, this case is thought to contribute to current discussions regarding how spatial planning is shaped in different parts of Europe.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Niels Østergård, Bue Elkjær Nielsen and Peder Baltzer Nielsen for providing in-depth insights concerned with the evolution of national spatial planning policy in Denmark. Two anonymous journal referees have provided very insightful comments and suggestions in an earlier version of the paper.

Notes

Based on his own analysis, Brenner (2004, pp. 479–480) views these configurations as forms of urban governance, which he classifies in accordance with historical formation periods: Spatial Keynesianism (early 1960s to early 1970s); Fordism in Crisis (early 1970s to early 1980s); Glocalization Strategies Round I (1980s); and Glocalization Strategies Round II (1990s and onwards). While a description of these periods is beyond the scope of this paper, the parameters of spatial selectivity underlying them are useful to explain how spatial planning policy evolved in Denmark since the 1960s.

To follow a hierarchical order, CPT takes on the concepts of threshold and range. Threshold is the smallest market area (in terms of the minimum required population) that is necessary for goods and services to be provided, while range is the maximum distance that consumers will travel to purchase goods and services (Christaller, 1966).

Urban centres established in 1981 included the following: main national centre (i.e. Copenhagen); national centres (i.e. Odense and Århus); national centres under development (i.e. Ålborg and Esbjerg); regional centres (e.g. Frederikshavn and Sønderborg); regional centres under development (e.g. Hirtshals and Nibe); towns with regional business areas; towns with regional centre areas; and a number of smaller centre areas (Ministry of the Environment, 1981).

Fredericia, Vejle and Kolding comprised the first potential cluster in the so-called Triangle Area. A second one comprised Herning, Ikast, Hostelbro and Struer in Midwest Jutland; and finally, an array of smaller towns constituted a third potential cluster, namely, the “Zealand Gate” (Ministry of Environment and Energy, 1997, p. 56).

The Danish government explicitly specified a minimum requirement of 20,000 inhabitants per every created municipality. This threshold forced rural municipalities, rather than urban ones, to merge. The new political map of Denmark following the reform was the result of a bottom-up process where municipalities were free to merge under the condition that the 20,000 threshold was surpassed. In many cases, rural municipalities amalgamated amongst themselves. This basically meant that the three largest Danish cities (Copenhagen, Århus and Odense) and most municipalities comprising Greater Copenhagen remained the same.

It is argued that both national and municipal planning became “strengthened”, with 1/3 of the tasks run by the former counties being passed on to the former and 2/3 to the latter. This calculation is made in accordance with the total number of civil servants who were actually transferred to such entities (Østergård, 2010).

The regions were basically created for health care administration. Their only planning responsibility consists of preparing regional development plans, which portray “visions” or suggestions for spatial development. Such plans must comply with business development strategies prepared by Regional Growth Fora. For a detailed account regarding regional planning shifts in Denmark, see Galland, forthcoming.

The recently abolished Greater Copenhagen Authority (Hovedstadens Udviklingsråd) prepared the last regional plan for the area in 2005. The new 2007 directive largely builds on this plan.