Institutional Capacity-building in Urban Planning and Policy-making for Sustainable Development: Success or Failure?

Abstract

Local and regional governments are facing extreme challenges regarding their ability to plan for sustainable urban development. The ever-present pro-market policy agenda leaves little room regarding global considerations for long-term environmental conservation and social justice. The complexity of sustainable development also defies the traditional management and problem solving capabilities of most local municipalities. Different types of informal and formal partnerships, networks and arenas have been formed to offset such deficiencies. This paper presents an example of a cross-sector, multi-level civil servant arena and examines its ability to provide a more integrative approach to planning and policy-making in western Sweden. The results were assessed using a combination of theory on institutional capacity-building and sustainability learning. The arena increases institutional capacity by promoting relational links across organizational divisions and governance levels, and by increasing substantive knowledge. At the same time, the more radical and innovative results were either avoided or watered down, and opportunities developed through institutional capacity-building were vastly underused.

Notes

1. HUR2050 will be referred to as both a network, the term the members use, as well as an arena, a better analytical description of the activities and processes involved.

2. GR is the Gothenburg Region Association of Local Authorities, which is a voluntary association of the 13 municipalities surrounding Gothenburg. GR is one of four local associations which make up Västra Götalandsregion (VGR), which is a regional governmental organization consisting of 49 municipalities. Unfortunately, both organizations use the term ‘region’ in their English translations, but refer to two different collections of municipalities. This paper will use ‘metropolitan’ to refer to the GR level, and ‘regional’ to refer to both GR and VGR.

3. This acronym is taken from the Swedish name of this organization, Göteborgs Förorters Förbund (GFF).

4. Regional plans were carried out every 19 years, in 1944, 1963 and 1982.

5. More specifically, the environmental dimension was based on per-capita carbon dioxide emission levels for 2050 based on the IPCC recommendations for 450 ppm carbon dioxide concentrations from 2001 (HUR2050, 2003, 2006).

6. The economic dimension focused on regional expansion strategies as central for promoting local and regional economic growth, and the social dimension, written by a health expert, focused on increasing health and reducing alienation and stress in the region (HUR2050, 2004a, 2004b).

7. K2020 in Swedish stands for Kollektivtrafik (public transit) 2020.