Municipalities' ambitions and practices: At risk of hypocritical sustainability transitions?

Abstract

In contemporary planning discourse and practice, different planning ideas co-exists. How this affects the transition towards a sustainable development is an important question for both research and practice. The aim of this study is to explore potential conflicts between planning goals caught between growth-led planning and sustainability commitments in a case study of Fredericia, Denmark. The paper discusses the underlying, framing and controlling conditions for transition dynamics. The analysis builds largely on the formulated policies, strategies or national goal achievements towards sustainable futures. These are put in the context of planning and political practices, which are interpreted from a sustainability rationale. Here this study introduces hypocrisy as a theoretical-analytical perspective to dispute actual sustainability practices to respond to continuous ambivalent planning measures. The author concludes that disregarding the inherently different internal logics of growths and sustainability leads to planning paradoxes and impedes sustainable transitions pursued.

Keywords

Urban sustainability transitions; sustainable mobility; ambivalence in planning; ecological modernization; green growth; token sustainability efforts; hypocrisy

Published in

Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning
2016, volume: 18, number: 3, pages: 361-378
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

SLU Authors

• Vogel, Nina

  • Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities

UKÄ Subject classification

Sociology (excluding Social work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Other Civil Engineering
Transport Systems and Logistics

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2015.1099425

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/77231