Many smaller Danish station cities are gone from having an important place in the regional urban structure to a situation of function deflation, stagnation, disappearance of shops and a dissolved center. It is a change which calls for some planning initiatives.
The prevailing planning paradigm is about to start with the localized resources. This means that planning is done by involving local citizens and stakeholders.
How citizen involvement and cooperation with the authorities takes place when it comes to urban development in a smaller city, is the subject of this report. This has been studied for an ongoing area renewal process in Græsted, Municipality of Gribskov, as a case. The area renewal project has the basis of different concrete citizen initiatives in Græsted.
What is this type of planning that grows out of this situation and how does this corresponds to the city's challenges? It is being investigated primarily through interviews and conversations with a number of key players in the area renewal process, and by the inclusion of documents.
The different stakeholder’s interests are identified and the consequences of its strategy to involve external consultants in an attempt to gather citizen initiatives in a master plan for Græsted being discussed.
This leads to, how to understand and plan involving the localized resources in a way where the site-specific qualities come into play and can be included in the overall planning of the small community.
Experience from the case is brought into the context of the relevant scientific literature.