Green and Socially Sustainable City Discourse, White Spatial Epistemology: The Reproduction of Racial Landscape Injustice and Segregation in Swedish Planning

Abstract

This article investigates how urban planning mechanisms in Sweden perpetuate racialized green space inequity, despite the dominance of social and environmental sustainability discourses in planning. Using critical race theory and relational approaches to landscape and urban development, the study analyzes multi-scale planning documents and project reports prepared for the Uppsala 2050 Vision (2016-) to identify racial undertones in socio-spatial categorizations and justifications for planning decisions. This study has shown how racialized spatial production is diffused into different segments of planning practice (i.e., theory, conceptualization, methodology, data collection, analysis, problem representation, solutions), relationally materializes landscape inequity, and consequently risks perpetuating segregation.

Keywords

Socio-spatial epistemology of whiteness; Swedish planning practice; racialized landscape inequity; segregation; sustainable development discourse

Published in

Planning Theory and Practice
2025
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR AND FRANCIS LTD

SLU Authors

• Yigit Turan, Burcu

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ågren, Mia

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Human Geography
Landscape Architecture

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2024.2449265

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141100