This master’s thesis investigates three key features of the informal urban planning landscape in the area of Fingerplanen in a theoretical and practical context.
The theoretical basis of the analysis is a study of academic literature which pinpoints the evolvement of the Neoliberal phenomena in the urban planning landscape together with the welfare-based discourse in urban planning.
The informal features that are the subjects of analysis is the process of the Loop City network between ten municipalities in Ring 3 that was made for a collaboration purpose of city development and growth. The analysis shows that the Loop City collaboration contained conflicts of different kinds and that there were several significant factors that influenced the process over time.
Furthermore, the informal plans made prior to the formal planning in the municipalities are investigated. This analysis shows that the informal types of plans are not sharply defined, but that three types og plans are used in municipal practices, which may be due to traditions or that the plans are used as administrative tools. These types of plans often contain welfare-based value sets. Early citizen involvement is often seen in connection with these plans.
The third feature of analysis is the infrastructure development agreements that takes place between the municipalities and developers. This analysis is on the field of tension between the unlawful and the formal development agreements. It shows that very few municipalities use unlawful development agreements and that the choice of it may be influenced by a desire for efficiency. It seems that the municipalities' need for urban development can affect the incentive for negotiations with the landowners. It is also seen that the municipalities occupy a normatively based basis for a possible publication of their development agreements.
Finally, a discourse analysis is made based on the prior work to identify the discourses in the different kind of planning and at the different hierarchical levels. It is found that the informal planning landscape has indeed two main discourses, of the Neoliberal and the welfare-based phenomena, but there is also a new kind of discourse evolving.