Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Growing cities, increased urbanisation and sustainability challenges cause strain on existing transportation systems, which in turn emphasises the importance of adequate urban planning. Calls for swift and efficient planning to combat sustainability challenges and to adhere to economic and political constraints coexist with calls for incorporating deliberative forms of planning and citizen participation in planning, also referred to as slow planning. In this case study, an ongoing infrastructure project, namely the Uppsala tramway project is explored with the purpose of investigating how planners experience and manage double pressure for swift and slow planning when planning for an infrastructure project. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted, and a thematic analysis of the interviews was performed. The results show that there is a double pressure for planning swiftly or efficiently, and for planning slowly and involving citizens in planning processes. Furthermore, the results show that political and economic factors are experienced by the interviewees as the main causes for pressure to plan swiftly, and that the balancing act for swift and slow planning largely focuses on enhancing slow planning to become more efficient by improving dialogue designs and by keeping citizens informed before, and throughout a project's duration. To conclude, the balancing act between swift and slow planning is present in the tramway project, and by openly acknowledging and accepting that diverging needs in planning exist, discussion and creative planning that can allow for slow and swift planning to coexist, can emerge.