Strategic spatial planning for sustainable development : Swedish planners’ institutional capacity

This article advocates the need for strategic spatial planning practices to cope with the crises of climate change that confront cities and regions today. Planners face sustainability challenges regarding their ability to plan for the cities of tomorrow. The aim of this article is to analyse how institutional conditions can enable the planners’ strategic spatial planning for sustainable development in Swedish municipalities. We will use institutional capacity as a theoretical framework to understand how the planners use planning instruments when planning for sustainable development. Our empirical research builds on four Swedish municipalities where we have set out to explore knowledge resources, relational resources and mobilisation capacity for analysing planners’ use of planning instruments for sustainable development. Our results indicate that the institutional capacity in the municipalities does not enable the planners to strive for sustainable development. Planners in Swedish municipalities have many ideas, visions and initiatives for sustainable development, but are often not informed of the political agenda or how to prioritise. For achieving strategic spatial planning, the planners will need a more clear political will and mandate to act and prioritise. Funding: Energimyndigheten [46278-1]