Nilsson (2007) has studied the ways in which the idea of sustainable development is integrated into current spatial planning practice by Swedish local authorities. She argues that today’s planning processes deal with large volumes of basic data where epistemological and technical knowledge must be co-ordinated with the actors’ values and views of society, which makes spatial planning a very complex process for local planning authorities. Her case studies indicate that local authorities seek to limit this complexity by dividing the main topics, i.e. ecological, social and economic, into separate planning processes and planning documents, in order to manage the ideals of sustainability.
Nilsson points out that this does not comply very well with the original aim of sustainable development, which is to integrate all dimensions of sustainability, but it makes it possible to avoid the difficult choices and decisions that integration would require.
Naess (2001) discusses in-depth the role of urban planning in striving towards sustainable development. He remarks that sustainable urban development will not emerge as a result of free market forces, because market processes are not able to counteract so-called externalities, such as the costs arising due to pollution. Market processes are also unable to ensure a socially acceptable distribution of burdens and benefits. This implies that both of the key elements of a sustainable development depend on planning and management by public authorities.
Another barrier to sustainable development, identified by Naess, is the incremental planning and decision-making model. According to the incremental model, alternatives for action are chosen in a way that they deviate only slightly from current practice. Alternatives that clearly differ from the status quo in this context quickly lose the opportunity to become visualised and discussed.
Naess also criticises the planning literature for the detachment of planning theories from the actual subject areas such as the substantive content of a
sustainable spatial planning. He agrees with the normative planning theories that planning has to be goal-oriented and the means included in the plan must be efficient. However, he considers the rational-comprehensive planning model to be too heavily based on technological optimism and the utilitarian tradition. Naess supposes that this model of planning has an inherent tendency towards ‘majority tyranny’ which can result in the sacrifice of a minority’s vital interests in order to bring about marginal improvements for the majority. In addition, he reminds us that proponents of the goal-oriented rational planning model have high faith in technical-economic methods of analysis which, in practice, often neglect factors that cannot be quantified or expressed in monetary terms.
To sustainability through technical regulation or collaboration
Healey (1997, 30-31) describes European spatial planning as a battlefield the flow of which moves in two opposing directions, namely, technical regulation and collaboration. According to Healey, technical regulation here responds to an economic demand for less regulation and for more precision in the remaining regulatory requirements, as well as to environmentalist demands for more regulation. This approach implies greater certainty for developers and businesses about what regulatory requirements, regarding e.g. zoning or environmental pollution control would have to be met, and how.
Healey (1997, 31-32) points out that several inadequacies can be found in the technical regulation model. She mentions, among others, that this approach pays no attention to the overall qualities of places, in terms of quality of life, of the business environment and the local biosphere. In addition, it is not clear that the knowledge and technique of experts is sufficient to define the criteria required by this regulation. She calls attention to the practical knowledge of people in households and firms, being increasingly recognised as relevant to articulating and probing policy principles. Her conclusion is that all these difficulties are pushing the supporters of technical regulation in the direction of collaborative approach. According to Healey, it is the collaborative approach that offers a way of interlinking economic, socio-cultural and environmental issues of collective concern.
Healey's doubts in respect of technical regulation should be seen, at least partly, in the light of the British tradition of the planner profession. In many other European countries, including Finland, planners are mainly architects by
education, which provides them with good capabilities to, even as a part of the technical administration, "pay attention to the overall qualities of places".
The relationship between collaboration and interaction, and substantial issues, such as producing better places to live in, remains quite controversial because we still lack in-depth research on this topic. Nevertheless, the literature on communicative planning is characterised by a strong belief in interaction and dialogue which enhance consensus-building and reduce conflict (e.g. Healey 1997). The various strands of the collaborative approach are also united through recognition of the legitimate interest of a wide range of stakeholders to be involved in the plan-making and by a deliberate attempt to involve all key actors in the process.
Communicative planning can be analysed from various perspectives in relation to the challenges of sustainable urban development. Forester (1989, 5) argues that planners have to be effective communicators and negotiators, in order to 'get things done'. He also stresses that planners should be active in protecting the interests of all groups, including less powerful groups (Forester 1989, 28).
Considered in this way, communicative planning could certainly be a suitable model to promote sustainable urban development.
Naess (2001) reminds us however that participatory planning processes run the risk of bringing more power to the powerful if planners do not make a serious effort to empower the weak. This may imply that planners should try e.g. to unveil the vested interests in unsustainable ways of developing land use and mobility which can often prove to be an inconvenient task.
In conclusion, Naess argues that planning for a sustainable urban development should be oriented towards long-term goals and should utilise knowledge about the consequences of different solutions, seen in the light of criteria for sustainable development. But rather than aiming at consensus including all stakeholder groups, as advocated by proponents of the collaborative planning model (Innes 1996; Healey 1997), Naess suggests that planning for sustainability should be based on alliance-building among those population groups who can support the basic values of a sustainable development. Open and well-informed planning processes might, according to Naess, contribute to the emergence of common strategies for ecological sustainability and social justice. If this process is supported by a sufficient number of people to make a
difference, Naess assumes that it would be able to withstand the pressure from those actors who harvest profit from the present non-sustainable development.
Having introduced the benefits of the collaborative approach to planning, Healey (1997, 32-33) admits that many of these advantages could also be achieved through narrower alliances of key players, typically in the public and business sectors. But she stresses that in situations where environmental interests are well articulated and where local citizens expect an active participation the broadly based involvement of stakeholders should be encouraged in order to achieve stability and a robust policy consensus.
Nevertheless, trust in the communicative and collaborative planning model, particularly in its ability to deal with environmental issues, has been questioned.
Naess (2001), for example, doubts whether an ecologically defensible and globally responsible land use or resource consumption will emerge spontaneously from the grassroots among the population in countries belonging to the world’s most privileged nations. He argues that sustainable development is to a large extent a matter of distributing consumption levels from present-day inhabitants in the most affluent countries to people in future generations and in poorer countries. Naess reasons that a higher level coordination is necessary at the regional, national and international scales in order to resolve the environmental problems faced in local communities. This is certainly true but at the same time, brought into practice, it is an arduous task. The difficulties encountered in the attempts to coordinate the handling of environmental challenges at the highest level have been clearly illustrated in the course of the international negotiations on climate change.7
The technical regulation approach, on the other hand, implies a shift from the resolution of conflicts through political processes or negotiation to legal
7 The most recent proof is offered by the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. Even if the Kyoto Protocol, an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, entered into force already in 2005, the outcome of the Copenhagen Conference could only be referred to as an "essential beginning" by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. When approved, the Copenhagen Accord would oblige richer nations to contribute to a multi-billion dollar fund to help poorer countries cope with global warming. (unfccc.int, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 21.12.2009)
Under the accord, developed countries will finance a 10 billion-dollars-a-year, three-year programme starting in 2010 to fund developing nations' projects to deal with drought, floods and other impacts of climate change, and to develop clean energy. It also sets a goal of mobilising 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 for the same purposes. (en.cop15.dk, United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, 22.12.2009)
resolution in the courts. This should result in lower transaction costs spent in the regulatory process (Healey 1997, 31). Healey claims, however, that the transaction costs in a collaborative and interactive plan-making process may be saved by fewer conflicts over specific plans and projects. It is just the continuous rise in legal costs that is "pushing even reluctant neoliberals to the collaborative approach" (Healey 1997, 32). This question of transaction costs is still today continuously and widely raised in discussions concerning the choice of the best planning approach but we are still waiting for reliable results to solve this problem.
Sustainability in planning argumentation
The ever increasing use of concepts like sustainable communities and ecological planning has also drawn a critique from the argumentative point of view. Lapintie (1996) illustrates, based on the analysis of an architectural competition for an ecological housing area, that environmentalism has produced new discursive means of justification but not necessarily new types of urban planning.
In his argumentative critique, Lapintie reveals several inconsistencies in the programme of the competition: the competitors were not encouraged to consider the central problems of urban ecology that are relevant on the site, such as urban structure in general, and its relation to natural areas, car-dependence and the resulting problems of everyday life etc. Instead, the competitors were encouraged to use several 'cosmetic' ecological solutions though the respective heavy technological solutions were already available on the site (e.g. local sewage treatment versus a new highly equipped sewage treatment plant in the vicinity, and alternative energy sources versus the fact that the whole area will be connected to central district heating.)
One explanation for these inconsistencies may be, according to Lapintie, that there is simply a conflict between the intentions of the planners and their ability to implement ecological solutions in plans. Another possibility is that ecology is only used as a fashionable green 'theme' to increase the marketing value of the future area. A third interpretation given by Lapintie is that the planning professionals attempt to define the concept of ecology in a way favourable for themselves, namely, as a defensive strategy to counter the ecological critique.
Lapintie (1996) also evaluates the arguments used by the jury of the competition in the descriptions of the winning entries. His analysis demonstrates that the urban structures suggested by the three winners were not innovative nor did they arise from ecological considerations, in spite of the contrary opinions reported by the jury. In fact, the winning solutions were in all relevant respects the most traditional. As the goal of the whole project was to develop alternative planning strategies that could better answer the ecological challenge Lapintie saw the result as somewhat disconcerting. The jury, instead, declared the competition to be a success. This gives reason for Lapintie to assume that the argumentation points to the existence of a strong legitimating function in the competition.
Even though Lapintie drew his conclusions more than ten years ago they still seem highly relevant. He presented serious doubts about the ability of mainstream planning to answer the ecological challenge unless a profound reorientation in both planning theory and practice was to take place. This kind of reorientation is, at last, starting to gain momentum with increasing awareness of the environmental threats faced. But even today, the profession seems to be just as unprepared to define and concretise environmental objectives and transform them into planning innovations as it was at the time of Lapintie's original article.