Escalating Consumption and Spatial Planning: Notes on the Evolution of Swedish Retail Spaces

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe and investigate how the Swedish escalation in consumption and restructuring of retail spaces are dealt with in Swedish spatial planning. In the first part of this article, we present a history and an overview of the Swedish retail evolution. The major changes are presented, followed by a short discussion of some main actors in this evolution. In the second part of this article, we focus on policies and the planning process, discussing how the municipalities are expected to fulfil their tasks as the agents responsible for physical planning of commercial centres in the light of the ongoing rapid escalation of retail planning projects. Recent guidelines from the national and regional authorities for improvement of the current situation are analysed. Finally, we discuss recent research maintaining that a new form for project planning is emerging within commercial planning. This new form sometimes bypasses traditional planning practices and thus requires new instruments and organizations for a more effective planning of urban retail.

Acknowledgements

This article has benefited from encouragement, criticism and comments from the research group “Replacis” consisting of (apart from the authors) Teresa Barata Salgueiro, Jean Soumagne, Feyzan Erkip, Herculano Cachinho, René-Paul Desse, José Alberto Fernandes, Arnaud Gasnier, Armelle Grellier, Lionel Guillemot and Omur Kizilgun. The supportive suggestions of the anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. The work reported in this article was financed by the Swedish research council FORMAS.

Notes

These statistics are from HUI, Handelns utredningsinstiut, www.hui.se/web/Samhallsekonomi.aspx, 2009-08-17, and Projekt Mercurius, Centrum för Näringslivshistoria, at www.mercurius.nu/skarp/index.php?main=3&id=117&type=article, 2009-08-17 (see also Edvinsson, 2005).