Planning as a barrier for growth: Analysing storylines on the reform of the Danish Planning Act

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has been structured in the public debate in Denmark, and how this discourse has created a political pressure to reform the Planning Act. We identify three main storylines, which support the discourse that planning constitutes a barrier for growth in the most rural areas of Denmark, framed as ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public debate. We argue that the contemporary critique of planning in Denmark has a distinct spatial dimension, in which planning deregulation is rationalised as a means to boost development in the economic periphery and combat increasing socio-spatial inequalities. Whilst the ideology and rationality behind the storylines calling for deregulation of planning can be interpreted as rooted in social welfarism, we argue that the framing of Outer Denmark is merely being used in the public debate to legitimise the (neo)liberalisation of spatial planning in Denmark. Nevertheless, the case of planning deregulation in Denmark is illustrative of how spatialities are discursively (re)constructed and enacted in order to challenge and transform the role of planning in the context of neoliberalism.

Keywords

Denmark deregulation neoliberalism planning regulation spatial planning

Introduction

Planning is increasingly under attack around the world in the political arena, the popular press, and academic literature. (Klosterman, 1985: 5)

Planning has once again come under attack in the political arena and media in Denmark, mirroring similar trends across Europe. Since 2010, the Planning Act has been debated widely in the media and adjusted a number of times by changing governments. In the national election campaign in June 2015, both contenders to become Denmark’s next prime minister advocated for a need to reform the Planning Act, sharing the perspective, albeit to different degrees, that planning regulation is acting as a barrier for growth, in particular in the most rural areas of the country. In this paper, we explore how this discourse has become structured and institutionalised in Danish politics and public discourse.

The idea that planning hampers growth is not new, and has been part of political and public debates across the world for at least the last 30 years (Fainstein, 1991; Klosterman, 1985). In recent years, many European countries have reformed their planning systems, often inspired by a neoliberal political agenda, involving a desire to favour private actors and prioritise economic growth objectives (Allmendinger, 2011; Allmendinger and Haughton, 2013; Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2014; Roodbol-Mekkes and van den Brink, 2015; Waterhout et al., 2013). However, planning as a barrier for growth is a relatively new way of discussing planning regulation in Denmark, as opposed to a longer focus on growth and entrepreneurialism in urban governance (Andersen and Pløger, 2007; Carter et al., 2015; Lund Hansen et al., 2001). In particular, the 2010s have been marked by recurring debates and revisions of the Planning Act, most often framed in terms of the restrictions which planning seemingly places on desirable economic development. These reforms have taken the form of a ‘back and forth’ between changing governments, however, it has become clear that deregulation of planning has been and will continue to be implemented, despite political wrangling over the details. These recent discussions have been linked specifically to solving problems of uneven development. Here, deregulation of planning is seen as a means to generate growth in the less-developed areas of the country.

In this paper, we analyse the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ in Denmark, drawing attention to how planning has become the subject of public debate (Haughton and Allmendinger, 2016). We analyse the public discourse on the Danish Planning Act in the period 2010–2015, investigating how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has been structured and slowly institutionalised, building momentum around the idea of a need to deregulate planning. Furthermore, we illustrate how three main storylines have supported the discourse that planning constitutes a barrier for growth, in particular in what has been framed as ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public debate.

We conclude that the public debate on the need to reform planning in Denmark has a distinct spatial dimension, in which planning deregulation is seen as a means to boost development in the economic periphery and combat increasing socio-spatial inequalities. This is a marked change in discourse from the heyday of the social welfare state in the 1970s, when planning was considered the solution to uneven development, as a way to ensure the balanced development of the country (Carter et al., 2015). What is distinctive about the ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ discourse in Denmark is that it draws heavily on the value of socio-spatial equality rooted in social welfarism, in order to destabilise the existing planning system. In this way, the public debate on planning deregulation in Denmark is driven by a strong spatial agenda, and has a completely different logic than for example in the UK. The case of the public debate on the Danish Planning Act provides an illustrative example of how political momentum for deregulation of planning is built up in the public discourse in a particular context, and how broader extra-local forces of neoliberalisation and planning deregulation in this context unfold, interact, and in this case synergise, with inter-local policies and discourses sedimented as layers through time and space (Carter et al., 2015). This then creates particular logics which come to structure the public discourse. In this way, this paper draws attention to the historical-geographical specificities of discourses calling for deregulation and neoliberalisation of planning.

This paper is structured as follows. First, we discuss contemporary reorientations in which planning is increasingly being geared towards generating growth, and how, as a consequence, planning regulation is then increasingly being framed as a barrier for growth. Second, we outline the framework for our analysis of the public debate on the Danish Planning Act. Third, we present a brief account of the Planning Act and recent changes. This is followed by our analysis, which focuses on the three main storylines shaping the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’. In the subsequent section, we discuss the spatiality of the public debate on the Planning Act, in particular, in terms of how the framing of the most rural areas in Denmark as ‘Outer Denmark’ contributes to legitimising planning deregulation. We conclude that the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ is highly structured and already partially institutionalised in Denmark. We expect therefore further deregulation of the Planning Act to follow this logic, thus contributing to further institutionalisation of the discourse.

Planning for growth

In recent decades, many European countries have implemented planning reforms and experienced concerted reorientations of planning. The British planning system is a rather extreme case of this, having undergone five waves of planning reform in the last 15 years (Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2014). What many of these reforms have in common is the attempt to reorient planning towards facilitation of growth, and as a result, spatial planning today is largely conceived as a ‘vehicle to enable development’ (Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2014: 351).

The idea of planning as a means for creating growth is often conceptualised with a focus on larger urban areas and urban governance. This is most famously portrayed by Harvey (1989) as a shift from managerial to entrepreneurial urban governance, whereby city authorities and other actors attempt to attract economic growth to their city, rather than focusing on managing the effects of growth. More recently, this shift in planning has been interpreted by Peck and Tickell (2002) as the neoliberalisation of planning, that is, the process by which the political-economic ideology of neoliberalism becomes increasingly hegemonic in planning. This process involves among other things the promotion and normalisation of a ‘growth-first’ approach to urban development and planning (Peck and Tickell, 2002: 394). This reorientation of spatial planning has in particular influenced strategic planning in cities and urban regions (Olesen, 2014).

Alongside the turn towards growth oriented strategic planning, traditional planning instruments, such as land use regulation and zoning, have come under considerable criticism when these are asserted to impede growth-oriented policy goals (Haughton et al., 2010). As a consequence, planning is increasingly perceived as ‘a chronic obstacle to growth’ (Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2014: 346). This development trend has been particularly evident in the aftermath of the 2008 global recession, where statutory planning increasingly has been framed as the scapegoat for policy failures to reinvigorate the economy (Gunder, 2016). In the UK, the critique of planning has been particularly outspoken. In the British political and public debate, planning has repeatedly been scapegoated and framed as a ‘failure’ and ‘the problem’ (Gunn and Hillier, 2014; Inch, 2012; Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2014). One of the consequences of the British debate seems to be that planners increasingly are losing faith in their own abilities and roles (Grange, 2013; Inch, 2010).

Along the same lines, however, perhaps to a lesser extent, planning has been subject to considerable critique in most European countries in the last decade, resulting in a wave of planning reforms, not least in the traditional strongholds of spatial planning such as the Netherlands and the Nordic countries (Falleth and Saglie, 2011; Olesen and Richardson, 2012; Waterhout et al., 2013). In the Nordic context, a growing focus on entrepreneurial urban governance has been noted (Dannestam, 2008; Lund Hansen et al., 2001), although planning can simultaneously be viewed as retaining some of its origins as a project of the welfare state (Carter et al., 2015). Planning has been reoriented as more strategic and goal-oriented, rather than focusing strictly on the regulation of land-use, and part of this has been a growing focus in all areas of planning on stimulating economic growth. This is partly seen in the focus on urban strategies and competitive cities, but also in the minutiae of planning. Similar to the development trends in the UK, a growing schism has been observed between strategic spatial planning in larger cities and urban regions and statutory planning (Mäntysalo et al., 2015; Olesen, 2012). This supports a more nuanced understanding of planning for growth, that is, whilst strategic planning and urban governance has become more growth-oriented, planning regulation has not necessarily been a part of this reconceptualization – consequently the two domains of planning have different discursive relationships to growth. Furthermore, the link between planning and growth has particular spaces and places connected to it, with a clear focus on cities and urban regions as the sites of growth and the focus of strategic spatial planning. The regulatory side of planning, which is argued to hinder growth, has initially a less clear spatial focus in these understandings, although it is often associated with preservation of the countryside. It is these discursive tensions in planning’s relationship to growth and the spatialities invoked in theses tensions that this paper seeks to explore in the public debate on the Danish Planning Act.

A discursive approach to planning and growth

In this paper, we take a discursive approach to the analysis of the public debate on the Danish Planning Act. Of particular interest in the analysis is an investigation of how planning is being framed as a barrier for growth, and how this framing creates a necessity to deregulate planning. Deregulation is in this context understood as the process of reducing or removing regulation as stipulated in the planning act – thus reducing the constraints that national planning puts on local development aspirations.

As Schön and Rein (1994) argue, narratives play important roles in constructing as well as naming and framing political problems. We regard discourse analysis as a helpful research methodology for analysing how particular framings of a debate contribute to fixing and legitimising certain elements, whilst other elements are portrayed as problematic (Hajer, 1995). In our analysis, we draw on an argumentative approach to discourse analysis inspired by Maarten Hajer (Hajer, 1995; Hajer and Versteeg, 2005). Central to this approach is the understanding of discourses as arguments and replies to ongoing debates. Following Hajer (1995: 44), we define a discourse as ‘a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorizations that are produced, reproduced, and transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to physical and social realities’. Discussions in the public domain can then be understood as (political) struggles for discursive hegemony, in which actors seek to promote their own definition of reality (Hajer, 1995).

Our discourse analysis builds on a range of public documents, press releases and statements from various public and private organisations, together with more than 60 unique articles from national and regional newspapers as well as professional journals and magazines, which have been identified in the national media database ‘Infomedia’ in the period 2010–2015. The texts have been analysed according to the framework presented below.

Our discourse analysis draws on an analytical framework consisting of three dimensions. First, we seek to identify the main storylines, which contribute to supporting the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’. In the public debate, narratives are communicated in story form. Complex narratives are often condensed into storylines, which actors use as ‘short hand’ in discussions. These storylines can give meaning and causality to events. Often policy stories rely on aspects such as plot and temporality to create meaning (Jensen, 2007). As storylines become accepted and are repeated ‘they become “tropes” or figures of speech that rationalize a specific approach to what seems to be a coherent problem’ (Hajer, 1995: 63), e.g. deregulation of planning as a means to combat socio-spatial inequalities.

Second, we seek to understand how a discourse over time becomes structured and institutionalised. According to Hajer (2005: 303) discourse structuration occurs ‘when a discourse starts to dominate the way a given social unit […] conceptualizes the world.’ This is for example the case if actors’ credibility in the public debate depends on their ability to draw on ‘the ideas, concepts, and categories of a given discourse’ (Hajer 1995: 60). A discourse becomes institutionalised when it is ‘translated into institutional arrangements’ (Hajer, 1995: 61) such as policies and the structure and organisation of an institution.

Third, we seek to explore the relationship between discourse and space, in particular, in terms of how spatialities are (re)constructed in policy and planning discourses and for which purposes (Richardson and Jensen, 2003). Richardson and Jensen (2003) have for example illustrated how discourse analysis sheds light on the ideologies, which structure and determine how spaces are framed in policy documents. In our analysis of the public debate on the Danish Planning Act, we explore how the framing of ‘Outer Denmark’ as an inherently problematic spatial entity is used to legitimise and rationalise the need for planning deregulation, through the discursive construction of a particular worldview in which the planning act is to blame for the economic decline of rural areas in Denmark. In short, the paper explores how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ is built up in the public debate, supported by storylines framing planning regulation as an inherent problem for reversing the economic fortunes of the problematic spatial entity of Outer Denmark.

Reorientations in Danish spatial planning

Danish spatial planning is rooted in a comprehensive integrated approach to spatial planning (European Commission, 1997). The Planning Act sets the overall legal framework for planning at the local level, whilst at the same time stipulating detailed regulations within key areas of high priority, such as coastal protection and retail development (Ministry of the Environment, 2007). Spatial policies have traditionally been strongly influenced by social welfarism and spatial Keynesianism, focusing on promoting equal development across the country (Carter et al., 2015). In 1992, the Danish Planning Act came into effect as various laws relating to planning, mainly originating in the 1970s, were written into a single act. At the same time, the key objective of spatial planning was revised from focusing on promoting equal development to the more ambiguous notion of promoting appropriate development (Jørgensen et al., 1997). This change in the Planning Act helped to legitimise substantial state investments in Copenhagen with the ambition of boosting Copenhagen’s international competitiveness, thus marking a turn towards urban entrepreneurialism in the Danish context (Andersen and Pløger, 2007; Lund Hansen et al., 2001). In the 2007 structural reform, the turn towards urban entrepreneurialism was reinforced, as spatial planning powers were increased at municipal level, ‘forcing’ even smaller cities to take part in the increasing inter-city competition (Carter, 2011). In these ways, spatial planning was increasingly ‘geared towards creating growth’ (Næss, 2009: 228) within urban localities across governance levels.

Yet in parallel to this reorientation of spatial planning, the rural areas of Denmark were slowly getting increasing media attention. In 2010, the national broadcaster (DR) launched a debate entitled ‘Denmark is breaking’, focusing on the living and working conditions in the most peripheral areas. These parts of Denmark have since been popularly framed ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public discourse, and strong discourses of a need to do something about the increasing social-spatial inequalities have emerged in Danish politics. The social democratic-led coalition government contributed to institutionalising this discourse by establishing a Ministry of Housing, Urban and Rural Affairs in 2011, which until its disbandment in 2015 worked on policy for these marginalised areas.

In the public debate on Outer Denmark, the Planning Act has increasingly been singled out as part of the problem. In the period 2010–2015, changing governments have adjusted the Planning Act in order to promote economic growth in rural areas. Before outlining these adjustments, it is important to highlight that the period has been characterised by a growing political eagerness to support Outer Denmark, and revising the Planning Act has increasingly been seen as one way of doing this. The period has also been characterised by political disagreement on how best to support Outer Denmark and how widespread adjustments of the Planning Act are needed. Table 1 presents an overview of the main adjustments to the Planning Act in the period 2010–2015 within three key areas. The adjustments have all been passed by the Parliament and have legal statutory status, meaning that municipalities must comply with the (adjusted) regulations in the Planning Act.

Table 1.

The adjustments introduced to the Danish Planning Act in the period 2010–2015.

	Origin	Regulation in brief	Adjustments introduced in 2011 by liberal government	Adjustments introduced in 2013 by social democratic government	Adjustments introduced in 2015 by social democratic government
Development in the countryside	1970	A special planning permission (landzonetilladelse) is needed for development of housing and businesses in the countryside (landzone), e.g. when converting redundant farm buildings into housing or businesses. Planning permission is granted by the municipality.	Deregulation introduced for 29 municipalities. Municipalities must grant planning permission to development projects in the countryside unless the development will have significant effects on the landscape, nature, the environment or neighbours	The deregulation introduced for the countryside in 29 municipalities is extended to all municipalities.	Further deregulation of the development restrictions for the countryside. E.g. no special planning permission needed for expansion up to 500 m². Redundant farm buildings can be replaced with new buildings for businesses.
Coastal protection	1937	Protection zone: 300 m from the shoreline, no development allowed. Coastal zone: 300 m–3 km from the shoreline, special planning justifications needed for development.	Deregulation introduced for 29 municipalities. A special planning justification is no longer needed for development in the coastal zone (special is removed). New development must have a positive local economic effect.	The deregulation introduced in 2011 is rolled back.	Planning permission for 10 trial projects near the coast. New possibilities for development in coastal zone introduced in connection to and behind existing urban zones.
Retail regulation	1997	Size limit: 3500 m² for supermarkets, 2000 m² for speciality shops. Location policy: retail must be located in town centres or district centres in medium-sized towns. Larger towns (above 40,000 inhabitants) can locate speciality shops above 2000 m² in the town centre.	Development of large scale retail allowed in town centres in small and medium-sized towns (above 3000 inhabitants). The Minister can grant special planning permission for retail development outside town centres of small towns (less than 20,000 inhabitants).	The deregulation introduced in 2011 is rolled back.	Now medium-sized towns (less than 40,000 inhabitants) can also locate speciality shops above 2000 m² in town centres.

In 2010, the liberal-led coalition government published the policy document ‘Denmark in balance in a global world’, discussing how to restore the Danish economy after the recession, which in particular had affected the rural areas of Denmark (Danish Government, 2010). In this document, the Planning Act was discussed as ‘a barrier for local development’, especially in rural areas (Danish Government, 2010: 5). As a consequence, in 2011, the government introduced a number of relaxations in the Planning Act to facilitate development in the 29 most rural municipalities (Ministry of the Environment, 2010). The revised Planning Act was passed by a small majority in the Parliament, causing the opposition to announce that they would roll-back the deregulation, if they came to power. As promised, the social democratic-led coalition government reversed the majority of its predecessor’s adjustments of the Planning Act in 2013 (Ministry of the Environment, 2012).

The discourse of ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ was revived in 2014, this time with the national organisation of municipalities, Local Government Denmark, as the key actor lobbying for further planning deregulation through revision of the Planning Act. In its memorandum ‘Barriers for growth in spatial planning’, Local Government Denmark highlighted 13 examples in which planning acted as a barrier for concrete development proposals (Local Government Denmark, 2014a). The memorandum was followed up with a survey in Local Government Denmark’s members’ magazine in September 2014, in which 88% of the municipal mayors asked expressed a need to adjust the Planning Act (Local Government Denmark, 2014b). Furthermore, in 2015, the organisation published the report ‘Denmark in growth and balance’, arguing for a paradigm shift in spatial planning towards a more economically and spatially sensitive approach to planning, which restricts planning regulation to growth areas and supports economic development in areas in decline and stagnation (Local Government Denmark, 2015).

The increasing pressure on the Planning Act led the social democratic-led coalition government to establish a working group in autumn 2014 to scrutinise the Planning Act for necessary changes (Ministry of the Environment, 2014a). At the same time, the Ministry of the Environment announced that special planning permission would be given to 10 trial projects in coastal areas in order to support the declining tourism industry (Ministry of the Environment, 2014b), hereby on a trial basis (partly) reinstating the deregulation of planning for coastal areas implemented by the previous government. In spring 2015, the social democratic-led coalition further relaxed regulations for housing and commercial development in the countryside in the Planning Act (Ministry of the Environment, 2015). These relaxations were part of the government’s coordinated initiatives to secure better conditions for living, working and doing business in the rural parts of Denmark (Danish Government, 2015a, 2015b).

In June 2015, the government changed again, as the liberal party regained power. As part of the reconfiguration of ministries and responsibilities following the election, responsibility for the Planning Act was moved from the Ministry of the Environment to the Ministry of Business and Growth. At the same time, it was announced that a major revision of the Planning Act would be implemented in the coming year.

Planning as a barrier for growth

In this section, we analyse the public debate on the reform of the Planning Act in the period 2010–2015. We outline three main storylines and argue that these storylines, as condensed simplified narratives, have played an important role in providing meaning and (causal) explanation for the perceived lack of economic development in the rural areas of Denmark – thus supporting the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’, and calling for a need to deregulate planning. Adopting the language of Hajer (1995), we end this section by discussing how the public debate on the Planning Act is characterised by a discourse structuration around the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’, and how this discourse increasingly has been institutionalised through continuous revisions of the Planning Act.

The Planning Act is preventing business development in rural areas

The first storyline identified in the public debate revolves around the general regulation of development in rural areas. The Planning Act distinguishes between urban zones and rural zones as a means of defining the boundary between town and countryside. Housing and business development is regulated more strongly in the countryside in order to keep urban sprawl in check, as well as securing land for agriculture and preserving natural environments. Special planning permission (landzonetilladelse) is needed for housing and business development in the rural zone.

In recent years, a storyline that ‘the Planning Act is preventing business development in rural areas’ has emerged, questioning the need for special planning permission to locate or expand businesses in the countryside. The storyline revolves around the idea that entrepreneurs and small businesses are being prevented in setting up or expanding by the Planning Act. This situation is perceived as particularly critical as entrepreneurs are often hailed as the potential saviours of Outer Denmark in the public discourse, as they bring economic investments into places where traditional jobs are now limited. The storyline seeks to establish a causal relationship between planning regulation and the lack of economic development (and jobs) in rural areas. This understanding has for example been promoted by the interest organisation Villages in Denmark, which has called the Planning Act ‘the biggest disaster that has hit rural areas and villages’ (Jyllandsposten, 2011). The interest organisation has argued that the regulations in the Planning Act are so rigid that ‘if a company in a rural zone becomes successful and needs to expand, the Planning Act says stop’ (Information, 2015). In this way, the Planning Act is being portrayed as preventing economic development in rural areas, which, had it not been for rigid planning regulations, would otherwise prosper.

Apart from press releases and official statements from prominent interest organisations, the storyline has in the public debate primarily relied on seemingly ridiculous examples to illustrate this narrative. These include cases where the Planning Act has prevented existing successful small businesses from expanding into disused agricultural buildings, or from upgrading buildings on an existing building’s footprint. One newspaper article included a ‘fact box’ titled ‘these had building permits rejected’ (Jyllandsposten, 2014). These types of examples serve to build legitimacy around the storyline, as well as illustrating the bureaucracy of the Planning Act, which increasingly is perceived among local politicians ‘not to make any sense’ (Grønt Miljø, 2015). At times, this debate also draws on pure neoliberal rhetoric, as encapsulated by one municipal mayor arguing that ‘a culture has emerged in this country with control and agencies and authorities. Get rid of them, close them down. We don’t need them’ (Byplan Nyt, 2014).

As a consequence, Local Government Denmark (2015) has called for greater flexibility and discretion in the planning framework, giving municipalities full power to decide when to give planning permission for development projects in the countryside. This element of the storyline also hints at an ongoing power struggle between municipalities and central authorities in terms of clarifying planning powers and responsibilities in the aftermath of the 2007 structural reform. Here, the discursive struggle has undertones of a tension between Outer Denmark and the central planning powers in Copenhagen. We will discuss this issue further in the section ‘The spatiality of the planning debate’.

The Planning Act is preventing tourism in coastal areas

The second storyline identified in the public debate relates to the regulation in the Planning Act aimed at protecting the coastline from development. The protection of coasts dates back to 1937, and aims to retain ‘unspoiled’ coastlines and to secure public access to beaches. The Planning Act includes a protection zone of 300 m from the shoreline, whilst special planning justifications are needed for any development within 3 km of the coast. The domestic tourism industry has declined in recent years, and this industry has become the focus point in the criticism of the coastal protection regulations in the Planning Act.

In recent years, a storyline that ‘the Planning Act is preventing tourism in coastal areas’ has gained support primarily among coastal municipalities in Outer Denmark, which increasingly have become reliant on tourism. Whilst the storyline does not reject the idea of planning regulation in coastal areas, it seeks to bring local economic considerations into the centre of this question. This involves conceptualising the coast as a resource for economic development, and the perspective that the unspoiled nature of the Danish coasts is no longer enough to attract tourists, as the coastal areas are losing domestic market shares to inland holiday parks. This has led to a framing of the coastal protection in the Planning Act as a barrier for the tourist industry in coastal areas. This framing has been supported by media coverage of cases, in which the Planning Act has prevented planning permission for development proposals from the tourism industry.

Momentum behind this storyline did not immediately arise. In 2011, only 4 out of 29 coastal municipalities were reportedly seeking to utilise the development possibilities introduced with the adjustments of the Planning Act (Politiken, 2011). The limited interest might reflect the technicalities related to the change in the act (see Table 1), and the uncertainty of having the deregulation rolled back by a new government. By 2014, this was completely turned around. The trial scheme for coastal development projects launched by the government in 2014 resulted in a competitive race among coastal municipalities to be awarded one of the prestigious 10 trial projects. The projects that successfully received planning permission include a holiday park on the west coast consisting of 500 holiday homes, spa facilities and the largest water park in Northern Europe; a beach park on the west coast consisting of 50 luxury apartments, spa facilities and restaurants; and a visitor centre at the UNESCO world heritage site Stevns Klint on the island of Møn (Ministry of Business and Growth, 2015). These projects reflect the government’s policy of granting dispensation to ‘visionary and impressive development projects’ that would boost tourism (Ministry of the Environment, 2014b), rather than taking a more cautious approach to coastal development in the trial scheme. This suggests that the trial scheme primarily is driven by the economic logic of the bigger the better.

The introduction of the trial scheme has been subject to considerable critique by opponents. Denmark’s Nature Protection Association has been especially vocal in their critique. In 2015, the association launched a protest campaign including an online petition, gathering more than 140,000 signatures (1 October 2016) (www.300meter.dk). Furthermore, the association staged a public protest inviting Danes to gather around bonfires along the coastline in January 2016.

The Planning Act is distorting retail development

The third storyline relates to the retail regulations in the Planning Act. Since 1997, the Planning Act has regulated the size, type and location of retail development in Denmark in order to support town centres as commercial centres, prevent large-scale retail outlets on the outskirts of towns, and reduce car dependency. In practice, the retail regulations prevent the development of hypermarkets and larger supermarkets outside the biggest cities.

In the public debate, a critique of the retail regulations has emerged around the storyline that ‘the Planning Act is distorting retail development’. This storyline has mainly been promoted by the Productivity Commission, established by the government in 2012 to identify ways in which to increase the productivity of the private and public sector. The Commission highlighted in its reports that the retail regulations are harmful to the Danish economy, adding an extra cost of 2 billion DKK yearly for consumers (Berlingske, 2013b; Politiken, 2013; Productivity Commission, 2013, 2014). In addition to this, it has been highlighted that Denmark is missing out on substantial foreign investment, as the retail regulations prevent foreign hypermarket chains from entering the Danish market (Productivity Commission, 2013).

As was the case in the two previous storylines, the storyline that ‘the Planning Act is distorting retail development’ has been supplemented by media coverage of cases in which the Planning Act has prevented planning permission from being granted to retail development projects. A particular prominent example was a plan in the city of Randers (the sixth biggest city in Denmark) to use the deregulation introduced in 2011 to grant planning permission for a hypermarket (Bilka) outside the city in spring 2013. However, the government rolled back the deregulation just in time to prevent the municipality from granting permission for the project (Jyllandsposten, 2013). The coverage of this and other cases in the media contribute to ridiculing the retail regulations, and portray them as preventing particular actors from entering or expanding on the domestic retail market.

The storyline that the Planning Act is distorting retail development has been contested primarily by the Federation of Grocers, who argue that the Planning Act plays an important role in protecting smaller, local supermarkets (Berlingske, 2013a). As the retail regulations affect all areas outside the major cities, this storyline has not been linked as explicitly with Outer Denmark as in the previous storylines. However, an important part of the storyline has involved possible negative impacts on local grocers and smaller supermarkets, which would indirectly affect the population’s access to private services in Outer Denmark. This storyline seems thus to be driven by a stronger (or at least more explicit) ideology of liberalisation and deregulation than the two other storylines.

Discourse structuration and institutionalisation

The three storylines outlined above have been built up in the Danish media in the period from 2010 to 2015. Together the storylines support the increasingly hegemonic discourse that the Planning Act, and more generally planning, constitutes a barrier for growth, particularly in the rural areas often referred to as Outer Denmark. Often in the public debate, critique of the Planning Act is conflated with a critique of planning, contributing to a narrowing of the public debate into the stereotypical discussion of ‘for and against planning’ (Klosterman, 1985). Furthermore, the meaning conveyed in the storylines promotes a simplified version of reality, in which planning regulation is to blame for the misfortunes of Outer Denmark. The storylines do not only provide meaning and causality to the phenomenon of Outer Denmark, they also illustrate processes of rigid and bureaucratic top-down planning through which Outer Denmark is seemingly constructed.

A few attempts have been made to nuance the public debate by professional organisations such as the Danish Town Planning Institute and the Danish Architects’ Association. In October 2015, the two organisations launched a joint media intervention, stressing that the Planning Act cannot be held responsible for uneven development (Berlingske, 2015). They warned against local short-term growth aspirations, which have structured much of the public debate, arguing for a need to consider the long-term consequences of development projects and considering these as part of a wider picture.

Along the same lines, a recent research report concluded that the municipalities are not fully utilising the potentials for promoting business development in the rural areas within the existing planning framework (Fisker et al., 2015). The report stresses that it is often

through the municipality’s own goals, strategies and plans that barriers for business development in the countryside are created, not as a consequence of the Planning Act as such. (Fisker et al., 2015: 9)

In fact, Fisker et al. (2015) find it difficult to pinpoint the regulations in the Planning Act that act as a barrier for growth.

Notwithstanding these attempts to nuance the debate, we see that a strong discourse structuration has emerged since 2010 around the discourse that planning is acting as a barrier for growth, and that this ‘fact’ presents a problem for the development potentials in Outer Denmark. To some extent, this discourse has already been institutionalised through the adjustments of the Planning Act and the trial scheme for coastal development. Table 2 summarises the structuration and institutionalisation of the ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ discourse. So far the revisions of the Planning Act have only constituted adjustments to the act. If anything, these adjustments have only contributed to increasing the pressure and creating a sense of urgency for a more widespread reform of the Planning Act. The new government, which came into power in June 2015, announced as one of its first political projects that further planning deregulation would be implemented in 2016 through revisions of the Planning Act.

Table 2.

Structuration and institutionalisation of the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’.

Storyline	Arguments	Key actors	Institutionalisation
‘The Planning Act is preventing business development in rural areas’	Regulations in the rural zone prevent economic development in Outer Denmark Regulations in the rural zone prevent successful entrepreneurs from expanding their business Regulation in the rural zone is too rigid and bureaucratic	Local Government Denmark Villages in Denmark The Rural Areas’ Joint Council Rural municipalities Small businesses seeking to expand	Revision of the Planning Act in 2011 Revision of the Planning Act in 2013 Revision of the Planning Act in 2015
‘The Planning Act is preventing tourism in coastal areas’	The unspoiled coastline is not enough to attract tourists Development in coastal areas is needed to increase tourism Coastal protection prevents economic development in Outer Denmark	Local Government Denmark Coastal municipalities Tourist organisations The Rural Areas’ Joint Council Developers with concrete project proposals	Revision of the Planning Act in 2011 Trial scheme for coastal development in 2014
‘The Planning Act is distorting retail development’	Retail regulation is unnecessary Retail regulation costs Danes billions a year Retail regulation prevents local economic development Hypermarkets are more efficient	The Productivity Commission Municipalities with development ambitions Danish Supermarket	Revision of the Planning Act in 2011 Revision of the Planning Act in 2015

The spatiality of the planning debate

In this section, we discuss the spatiality of the debate on the Planning Act, and we seek to uncover the key rationalities and ideologies behind the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’. Of particular interest here is how the spatiality of Outer Denmark is being reconstructed through the debate and deployed as a trope in the public discourse to legitimise deregulation of planning. Whilst Outer Denmark can in itself be submitted to a discourse analysis (Christensen and Pristed Nielsen, 2013), its role in this debate is as an accepted storyline, a trope or figure of speech, which serves to add persuasive power to the wider discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ (Hajer, 1995; Throgmorton, 1993).

Danish spatial planning is characterised by a tension between two different rationalities of planning, focusing on regulation and growth (Olesen and Richardson, 2012). The tensions between these contested rationalities have become more apparent and developed a peculiar scalar dimension after the 2007 structural reform, which rescaled planning powers to the local level, whilst maintaining (and in some areas increasing) regulative powers at the national level. In this sense, the tensions between contested planning rationalities are increasingly experienced as scalar tensions between local growth ambitions and national planning regulation, in this case the Planning Act. This helps to explain why Local Government Denmark has been one of the most ardent actors promoting the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ and calling for decentralisation, planning reforms, and a paradigm shift in Danish spatial planning (Local Government Denmark, 2015). Much of the public debate on the Planning Act can thus be understood as power plays between scales of government, which are manifested in conflicting planning rationalities.

Contrary to recent planning reforms and planning discourses in the UK, the Danish ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ discourse seems at first hand to be subtler and less influenced by pure neoliberal political ideology. What is interesting about the Danish discourse is that it has a very strong (if often implicit) spatial dimension. The discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ is linked to the understanding that the Planning Act constitutes a barrier for growth in particular parts of the country, often framed as Outer Denmark. In this understanding, the Planning Act is supporting and reinforcing uneven development and socio-spatial inequality. This presents a problem, as even development has been an important political goal since the construction of the modern welfare state in the mid-20th-century (Carter et al., 2015). As highlighted previously, this goal was somewhat modified in the 1992 planning reform, as a means to strengthen Copenhagen’s international competitiveness. This policy change has become grist to the mill for critics of the Planning Act, and planning in general. In the present public discourse, deregulation is framed as the (only) way to generate growth in the most peripheral areas of Denmark and thereby combat uneven development at a national level. This is a marked change in discourse from the 1970s when (national) planning was considered the solution to uneven development, as a way to ensure the balanced development of the country (Carter et al., 2015). In this way, the spatiality of Outer Denmark is (re)constructed in the public debate to support the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ and promote the idea that less (not more or better) planning is needed to overcome increasing socio-spatial inequalities. In this regard, the coupling of the ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ discourse to Outer Denmark represents a powerful discursive cocktail for promoting planning reforms.

Another dimension of the debate, which follows from the reconstruction of Outer Denmark, is the opposition between centre and periphery. This dimension of the debate mirrors the scalar tensions outlined above, as the political decision-making powers are located in Copenhagen. Whilst the debate on Outer Denmark existed (and still exists) independently from the debate of the Planning Act, the coupling of the two debates also contributes to a continuous peripheralization of Outer Denmark (Carter, 2015), with the media continuously reporting on the ‘lack’ of development in the rural parts of the country. The debate has led Local Government Denmark to call for a paradigm shift in Danish planning, and the need to develop a more spatially sensitive planning framework, which ‘regulates where there is growth and supports where there is stagnation and decline’ (Local Government Denmark, 2015: 6). The idea certainly has merits in terms of suggesting that different planning strategies are needed in Copenhagen and Outer Denmark. However, the idea also challenges one of the key foundations for spatial planning, namely that urban development should take place in towns and not in the countryside. Furthermore, the idea that spatial planning should be adjusted to local (economic) conditions comes with the implicit neoliberal assumption that planning’s primary goal is to promote economic development everywhere and turn around the fortunes of places in economic decline.

In these ways, the spatiality of the public debate on the Planning Act has played an important role in rationalising the need for planning deregulation and liberalisation, and thus contributing to the (neo)liberalisation of spatial planning. The debate on Outer Denmark draws on a language and reference frame strongly associated with social welfarism and socio-spatial equality. Other parts of the debate calling for planning regulation seem more to reflect a pure neoliberal ideology, mirroring debates in the UK. This points to, as suggested elsewhere (Brenner et al., 2010; Theodore et al., 2011), neoliberalisation coming in variegated forms and strongly context dependent processes. The analysis of the public debate on the Planning Act suggests that processes of neoliberalisation are not necessarily mitigated by previous political-institutional regimes (Carter et al., 2015), but that policies and discourses rooted in social welfarism can act as vehicles, or at least provide an effective smokescreen, for planning deregulation and neoliberalisation of spatial planning.

Conclusions

Planning has once again come under attack in many European countries. In Denmark, the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has since 2010 become structured and institutionalised in political and public discourse. In the public debate, the Planning Act has been subjected to considerable criticism from a broad spectrum of actors across the governance landscape. The discourse of planning as a barrier for growth has been supported by three storylines, each focusing on different areas of planning regulation, and a meaning and logic has been built up around the restrictions which planning regulation puts on growth. These storylines are slowly being institutionalised as taken for granted ‘facts’, as policies and institutional arrangements reflect the causal logics the storylines contain.

In many ways, the Danish case of planning reform differs significantly from contemporary planning reforms in other European countries, which to a greater extent have experienced a more widespread destabilisation of institutionalised planning practices. The Danish case is unique in the sense that superficially the main driver behind planning deregulation is increasing political concern about socio-spatial inequalities, represented through the discourse of Outer Denmark. In this way, there is a strong social welfarist legacy in the contemporary neoliberalisation of Danish spatial planning (Carter et al., 2015). This has also given the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ a strong spatial dimension, where the three storylines often refer to places in the economic periphery of the country as those which would benefit most from the deregulation of planning.

A new government came into power in June 2015, and began its term by proclaiming further deregulation of planning. As part of the government’s wider agenda to stimulate economic growth, the administration of the Planning Act was moved from the Ministry of the Environment to the Ministry of Business and Growth. We interpret this restructuring as a further institutionalisation of the ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ discourse, and a further reorientation of spatial planning towards facilitating economic growth. In these ways, the recent reorientations of spatial planning in Denmark seem to follow similar development trends as experienced elsewhere across Europe, despite drawing on a language and reference frame that one might associate with social welfarism.

However, despite the language being used in the public debate on the need to revise the Planning Act and the strong discursive link to Outer Denmark, the public debate shows surprisingly little reflection on the extent to which strict planning regulation is to blame for the economic decline in Outer Denmark, and therefore to what extent deregulation will benefit this area in the longer term. Neither is the nearly 30-year strategic focus on promoting economic development in major cities and urban regions discussed. As such the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ and its supportive storylines seem to be characterised more by neoliberal ideology than genuine concern for socio-spatial inequalities rooted in social welfarism, highlighting that perhaps the differences from other cases of planning deregulation are not so great after all. Danish planning regulation is framed as the scapegoat and blamed for a lack of economic growth in many of the same ways as experienced for example in the UK (Gunder, 2016; Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2014). In this way, the public discourse on the Danish Planning Act is suffering from the same neoliberal scapegoating fantasy as Gunder (2016) discusses in a New Zealand context.

The contemporary Danish debate on planning reform is different in the very explicit spatialisation of the debate, and the persuasive power this spatialisation creates. The (re)construction of Outer Denmark, as a place which needs ‘special’ planning attention because of its apparent failure to grow, plays a key role in the persuasive power of the ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ discourse. In this way, the public discourse on the Danish Planning Act is an illustrative case of how spatialities are (re)constructed in policy and planning discourses to promote particular ideologies, problem framings and solutions (Richardson and Jensen, 2003).

Haughton and Allmendinger (2016) have recently drawn attention to how think tanks and policy advocacy groups exercise pressure on spatial planning in the UK, by calling for planning reforms in the media. This paper has provided new insights into how pressures to reform planning in Denmark are built up in the public debate, and how the media contributes to constructing storylines, which support broader discourses of a need to liberalise planning regulation. In the Danish case, the pressure to reform the Planning Act has primarily come from Local Government Denmark as part of a wider decentralisation agenda. We conclude, in line with Haughton and Allmendinger (2016: 1688), that planning research needs to pay more attention to ‘how national planning systems become the subject of political debate’, and how planning discourses are shaped by external interests. Such research will provide important insights into the driving forces behind the continuous scapegoating of planning legislation.

Post-script: The new Danish Planning Act

In June 2016, the outline for the new Planning Act was announced. For the first time in years, the Act is the result of a political agreement between the liberal government and the leading opposition party, the social democrats. The most remarkable change in the proposed Planning Act is perhaps that the aim of spatial planning has been expanded to include the aim of ‘creating good conditions for business development and growth’ (Danish Planning Act, 2016: §1). We interpret this change as a further institutionalisation of the ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ discourse and as a further reorientation of spatial planning as an activity for creation of growth.

The new Planning Act proposes among other things further adjustments of the planning legislation for the rural zone, the coastal zone and retail development. However, the proposed deregulations are not as significant as originally proclaimed by the government in November 2015 (Danish Government, 2015c). In general, there seems to be a sense of relief in the planning community, as many had expected a much more widespread deregulation, if not dismantling of the Planning Act. Indeed, the rhetoric of the public debate did indicate that a more widespread revision of the Planning Act was in the offing. This suggests that the true nature of contemporary processes of planning deregulation and neoliberalisation of spatial planning cannot be grasped solely by studying the discourses in the public debate, although these provide a helpful understanding of how planning becomes subject of political debate.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Kristian Olesen is associate professor at the Department of Planning, Aalborg University, Denmark. His research interest is in the tension field between spatial planning and politics. He has written several publications about the changes in Danish spatial planning.

Helen Carter is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Urban Structure and Transport Planning, Technical University of Munich, where she is coordinator of the mobil.LAB doctoral research group (funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation). Formerly, she worked as an assistant professor at the Department of Planning, Aalborg University, Denmark. Her research interests are the discursive processes of periperalization, small cities, and mobilities studies.

References

Allmendinger

(2011) New Labour and Planning. From New Right to New Left, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Allmendinger

Haughton

(2013) The evolution and trajectories of English spatial governance: ‘Neoliberal’ episodes in planning. Planning Practice & Research 28: 6–26.

Andersen

Pløger

(2007) The dualism of urban governance in Denmark. European Planning Studies 15: 1349–1367.

Berlingske (2013a) Store omkostninger for lavere priser. Berlingske, 30 May.

Berlingske (2013b) Planloven koster danskerne milliarder om året. Berlingske, 10 June.

Berlingske (2015) Det er ikke planloven, der skævvrider. Berlingske, 4 October.

Brenner

Peck

Theodore

(2010) Variegated neoliberalization: Geographies, modalities, pathways. Global Networks 10: 182–222.

Byplan Nyt (2014) Vejledningerne rager mig en høstblomst!. Byplan Nyt 5: 7–9.

Carter H (2011) Compelled to compete? Competitiveness and the small city. PhD Thesis, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University, Aalborg.

10.

Carter

(2015) Peripheralization through planning: The case of a golf resort proposal in Northern Ireland. In: Lang

Henn

Sgibnev

et al. (eds) Understanding Geographies of Polarization and Peripheralization, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 98–111.

11.

Carter

Larsen

Olesen

(2015) A planning palimpsest: Neoliberal planning in a welfare state tradition. European Journal of Spatial Development 58: 1–20.

12.

Christensen

Pristed Nielsen

(2013) Udkantsdanmark: Avisernes (med)production af Nordjyllands territorielle stigma. Praktiske Grunde 7: 5–20.

13.

Danish Government (2010) Danmark i Balance i en Global Verden, Copenhagen: Danish Government.

14.

Danish Government (2015a) Bedre Vilkår for at Drive Virksomhed i Yder- og Landkommunerne, Copenhagen: Danish Government.

15.

Danish Government (2015b) Bedre Vilkår for at Bo og Arbejde i Yder- og Landkommunerne, Copenhagen: Danish Government.

16.

Danish Government (2015c) Vækst of Udvikling i hele Denmark, Copenhagen: Danish Government.

17.

Danish Planning Act (2016) Forslag til Lov om ændring af lov om planlægning. Copenhagen: Danish Government.

18.

Dannestam

(2008) Rethinking local politics: Towards a cultural political economy of entrepreneurial cities. Space and Polity 12: 353–372.

19.

European Commission (1997) The EU Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems and Policies, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

20.

Fainstein

(1991) Promoting economic development: Urban planning in the United States and Great Britain. Journal of the American Planning Association 57: 22–33.

21.

Falleth

Saglie

(2011) Democracy or efficiency: Contradictory national guidelines in urban planning in Norway. Urban Research & Practice 4: 58–71.

22.

Fisker

Finke

Hjalager

(2015) Erhvervsmæssige Potentialer i Landistrikterne med Planloven som Medspiller. Anayse af eksempler fra tre kommuner, Esbjerg: Danish Centre for Rural Research, University of Southern Denmark.

23.

Grange

(2013) Shaping acting space: In search of a new political awareness among local authority planners. Planning Theory 12: 225–243.

24.

Grønt Miljø (2015) Loven skal give bedre mening. Grønt Miljø 1: 16–17.

25.

Gunder

(2016) Planning’s “failure” to ensure efficient market delivery: A Lacanian deconstruction of this neoliberal scapegoating fantasy. European Planning Studies 24: 21–38.

26.

Gunn

Hillier

(2014) When uncertainty is interpreted as risk: An analysis of tensions relating to spatial planning reform in England. Planning Practice & Research 29: 56–74.

27.

Hajer

(1995) The Politics of Environmental Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28.

Hajer

(2005) Coalitions, practices, and meaning in environmental politics: From acid rain to BSE. In: Howarth

Torfing

(eds) Discourse Theory in European Politics: Identity, Policy and Governance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 297–315.

29.

Hajer

Versteeg

(2005) A decade of discourse analysis of environmental politics: Achievements, challenges, perspectives. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 7: 175–184.

30.

Harvey

(1989) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler B 71: 3–17.

31.

Allmendinger

Haughton

(2016) Think tanks and the pressures for planning reform in England. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 34: 1676–1692.

32.

Haughton

Allmendinger

Counsell

et al. (2010) The New Spatial Planning: Territorial Management with Soft Spaces and Fuzzy Boundaries, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

33.

Inch

(2010) Culture change as identity regulation: The micro-politics of producing spatial planners in England. Planning Theory & Practice 11: 359–374.

34.

Inch

(2012) Deconstructing spatial planning: Re-interpreting the articulation of a new ethos for English local planning. European Planning Studies 20: 1039–1057.

35.

Information (2015) Vi skal investerer i landområder. Information, 3–4 January.

36.

Jensen

(2007) Culture stories: Understanding cultural urban branding. Planning Theory 6: 211–236.

37.

Jørgensen

Kjærsdam

Nielsen

(1997) A plan of hope and glory: An example of development planning in Denmark after Maastricht. In: Healey

Khakee

Motte

et al. (eds) Making Strategic Spatial Plans: Innovation in Europe, London: UCL Press, pp. 39–58.

38.

Jyllandsposten (2011) Livslang kamp for mere liv på landet. Jyllandsposten, 14 May.

39.

Jyllandsposten (2013) Flertal smækker døren i for en Bilka i Randers. Jyllandsposten, 20 March.

40.

Jyllandsposten (2014) Både by og land kæmper mod planloven. Jyllandsposten, 10 September.

41.

Klosterman

(1985) Arguments for and against planning. Town Planning Review 1: 5–20.

42.

Local Government Denmark (2014a) Barrierer for Vækst i den Fysiske Planlægning, memorandum 12 May 2014. Copenhagen: Local Government Denmark.

43.

Local Government Denmark (2014b) Borgmestre i oprør mod planlov. Momentum 16.

44.

Local Government Denmark (2015) Danmark i Vækst og Balance – 32 Konkrete Løsningsforslag for den Fysiske Planlægning, Copenhagen: Local Government Denmark.

45.

Lord

Tewdwr-Jones

(2014) Is planning “under attack”? Chronicling the deregulation of urban and environmental planning in England. European Planning Studies 22: 345–361.

46.

Lund Hansen

Andersen

Clark

(2001) Creative Copenhagen: Globalization, urban governance and social change. European Planning Studies 9: 851–869.

47.

Mäntysalo

Jarenko

Nilsson

et al. (2015) Legitimacy of informal strategic urban planning – Observations from Finland, Sweden and Norway. European Planning Studies 23: 349–366.

48.

Ministry of Business and Growth (2015) Et Løft af Kyst- og Naturturisme i Danmark, press release 30 October 2015. Copenhagen: Ministry of Business and Growth.

49.

Ministry of the Environment (2007) Spatial Planning in Denmark, Copenhagen: Ministry of the Environment.

50.

Ministry of the Environment (2010) Danmark i Balance i en Global Verden – Eksempelsamling, Copenhagen: Ministry of the Environment.

51.

Ministry of the Environment (2012) Notat om Lovforslag til Ændring af Planloven – Nye Muligheder i Landdistrikterne, memorandum 15 November 2012. Copenhagen: Ministry of the Environment.

52.

Ministry of the Environment (2014a) Kommissorium for Analyse af Planloven, mandate 16 September 2014. Copenhagen: Ministry of the Environment.

53.

Ministry of the Environment (2014b) Brosbøl: Kystkommuner Skal Tænke Stort, press release 18 September 2014. Copenhagen: Ministry of the Environment.

54.

Ministry of the Environment (2015) Fakta om Lempelser i Planloven, memorandum 07 May 2015. Copenhagen: Ministry of the Environment.

55.

Næss

(2009) Nyliberalisme i byplanlægningen. In: Lundkvist

(ed.) Dansk Nyliberalisme, Copenhagen: Frydenlund, pp. 213–242.

56.

Olesen

(2012) Soft spaces as vehicles for neoliberal transformations of strategic spatial planning? Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 30: 910–923.

57.

Olesen

(2014) The neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning. Planning Theory 13: 288–303.

58.

Olesen

Richardson

(2012) Strategic planning in transition: Contested rationalities and logics in twenty-first century Danish planning experiments. European Planning Studies 20: 1689–1706.

59.

Peck

Tickell

(2002) Neoliberalizing space. In: Brenner

Theodore

(eds) Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 33–57.

60.

Politiken (2011) Kun få kommuner vil bygge ved kysterne. Politiken, 11 July.

61.

Politiken (2013) Ryd op i unødig regulering. Politiken, 31 May.

62.

Productivity Commission (2013) Konkurrence, Internationalisering og Regulering. Analyserapport 2, Copenhagen: Productivity Commission.

63.

Productivity Commission (2014) Det Handler om Velstand og Velfærd. Slutrapport, Copenhagen: Productivity Commission.

64.

Richardson

Jensen

(2003) Linking discourse and space: Towards a cultural sociology of space in analysing spatial policy discourse. Urban Studies 40: 7–22.

65.

Roodbol-Mekkes

van den Brink

(2015) Rescaling spatial planning: Spatial planning reforms in Denmark, England, and the Netherlands. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 33: 184–198.

66.

Schön

Rein

(1994) Frame Reflection: Towards the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies, New York: Basic Books.

67.

Theodore

Peck

Brenner

(2011) Neoliberal urbanism: Cities and the rule of markets. In: Bridge

Watson

(eds) The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 15–25.

68.

Throgmorton

(1993) Planning as a rhetorical activity: Survey research as a trope in arguments about electric power planning in Chicago. Journal of the American Planning Association 9: 334–346.

69.

Waterhout

Othengrafen

Sykes

(2013) Neo-liberalization processes and spatial planning in France, Germany, and the Netherlands: An exploration. Planning Practice & Research 28: 141–159.