THE SUSTAINABILITY OF A CITY A case study over sustainable urban planning in Örebro municipality, Sweden

The trend of urbanization has been going on for more than a century and city planning has always been a big part of planning theory. In the debate of how urban planning should be conducted there is a long history of what makes up a sustainable city, which started as early as in the end of the nineteenth century. There are many theories and debates about what is the most sustainable urban form and there are also diverse opinions about the different conflicts surrounding sustainability and how to deal with these conflicts. The purpose of this thesis is to research what urban form is promoted in Örebro municipality and what sustainability conflicts are connected to the municipality’s urban form. The purpose is also to research how these conflicts are dealt with. The research questions for this thesis are 1) What urban form is primarily promoted in Örebro municipality? 2) What sustainability conflicts are connected to this urban form in Örebro municipality? and 3) How are these sustainability conflicts dealt with? The research design in this thesis is a case study and there are two methods used in this thesis. First, a qualitative text analysis to answer the first and second question. The text analysis is complemented by interviews on the first and the second question, and on the third question the method used was only interviews. The material consisted of policy documents in Örebro municipality and of interviews with politicians and planners with different functions. The conclusions of the thesis are that the most promoted urban form in Örebro municipality is the compact city, through densification. Within this urban form there are many sustainability conflicts, in different areas of sustainable urban planning. The conflicts of sustainability are dealt with mainly through incremental planning, but with a cooperation of rational planning. This can also be connected to a larger discourse about freedom of choice and the limits to growth