'Sometimes Climate Adaptation is Politically Correct' : A Case Study of Planners and Politicians Negotiating Climate Adaptation in Waterfront Spatial Planning

摘要

Today, spatial planning isexpected to deliver climate adaptation and to manage, merge and balance varioussocietal interests and priorities. To what extent proactive shaping of changeis enabled by spatial planning practice is less explored. This paperillustrates how the ideals and ambitions of climate adaptation are manifestedin waterfront spatial planning via a case study of Norrköping, Sweden. Based oninterviews with spatial planners and politicians responsible for strategicurban development planning, our study identifies a divergence in ambitions,approaches and positions. In local development plans, the position taken hasless to do with climate risk severity than with an area’s perceived politicaland economic attractiveness. When perceived attractiveness is low, precautionaryclimate adaptation serves as a pretext not to develop, whereas high perceivedattractiveness leads to negotiated pragmatism allowing continued waterfrontexploitation. We also identify a fragmentation in spatial planning, with weakinterplay between municipal comprehensive planning and local development plans,resulting in ad hoc, case-by-case planning. Furthermore, different planningactors are organizationally compartmentalized, creating unfortunate intra-sectoralsilos. We conclude that the integrative, proactive and reflexive potentials of spatialplanning to deliver climate adaptation have yet to be realized.