Governing a just future – what and how to govern? Commentary to Jones

In dealing with the topic of “governing the future”, it is fundamental to understand how different practices define justice in content as well as in processual sense. Premises of justification can be seen as essential indicators of the future direction of societal decision-making in governance networks, as well as in determining whose realities play a part when defining future imaginaries. We are dealing with a complex entity and we need to ask whether a future as such can be distinguished from how it is produced in different governing practices? I would also like to emphasize that the concept of ‘governance’ needs to be taken under careful scrutiny. Governance has not replaced government, as most often both of these management logics are present simultaneously. This is creating tensions within the public sector. My comments to the issues presented in Rhys Jones’ article are grounded in planning theory and my ongoing research concerning justification of new spatial planning practices in the Nordic countries.Non peer reviewe

Accepting Depoliticisation? : Council Members' Attitudes Towards Public-Public Contracts in Spatial Planning

This paper focuses on how local council members consider public-public contractual spatial planning practices. Our approach addresses concerns over the depoliticisation of planning processes within a neoliberal governmentality. Our findings from three Nordic countries show that some of the council members accept being sidelined from contractual processes. Local council members may thus become complicit political subjects who foster depoliticisation through their own actions. We argue that council members' interpretations concerning contractual practices give direction, not only to future planning practice, but also to societal understanding of the idea of the political in spatial planning.Peer reviewe

Strategic planning harnessing urban policy mobilities : the gradual development of local sustainability fix

The aim of our article is to follow how global policy models affect local policy making. Each city has unique local challenges in promoting development, e.g. economic growth, but also needs to find a balance between these targets and demands for sustainable city solutions. In our empirical study, we follow how ideas of waterfront development - to attract new inhabitants and promote economic growth - and global demands of carbon control were used interactively in a strategic spatial planning process in the city of Tampere, Finland. During the six-year planning process, these two policy targets became interdependent, created a new policy-making domain, and led to a combinatorial development of sustainability elements arising from this domain. These findings demonstrate the serial use of global policy models in the creation of a local urban sustainability fix'. To conclude, the intertwinement of diverse global policy models in a city planning process creates easily a recursive cycle that redefines urban sustainability within cities and intercity networks. This perspective makes local policy narratives and strategic planning highly important in urban sustainability research as promoting urban sustainability becomes an inherently ambivalent practice.Peer reviewe

Joukkoliikenne : pikavuoropysäkkien kehittäminen

320062

How to deliver information on induced seismicity to the authorities and general public?

Non peer reviewe

Geoterminen energia ja politiikkaongelmien hallitsemisen tiedollinen haaste

Peer reviewe

Seudullista kansalaisosallistumista jäljittämässä tiedon yhteistuottamisen keinoin

This article analyses an ongoing process of knowledge co-production concerning the role of citizens and participation in strategic city-regional planning, and discusses the theoretical and practical knowledge that results from the process. In knowledge co-production involving urban planning experts and researchers, three things stand out as key to successful outcomes: an ongoing dialogue between scientific and practical understanding, knowledge production as an accumulative process, and constructive criticism as a dynamism that pushes the frontiers of practical understanding. Based on our initial empirical findings about citizenship and participation on the city-regional level, we suggest that the role of broad value- and issue-based deliberation concerning the long-term aims of urban environment could be a fruitful starting point for discussions between citizens, experts and politicians within emerging city-regions.Peer reviewe