The framing of urban values and qualities in inter-organisational settings: The case of ground floor planning in Gothenburg, Sweden
Journal article, 2023

This article's overall purpose is to contribute to the recent discussion between the literatures of valuation studies and urban studies. The paper aims to do this by generating knowledge on the framing of urban values and qualities in inter-organisational settings making up wider urban development projects. The paper makes use of a recent framework by Metzger and Wiberg published in 2017 in Urban Studies, although employing it in inter-organisational settings, rather than in the intra-organisational settings of those authors. It also adds a systematic focus on issues of value plurality. The paper pursues its aim by interrogating a recent case of inter-organisational ground floor planning in Gothenburg, Sweden. The article demonstrates how several organisational actors with different reasons for joining the scheme, repeatedly came to shift between different practices, scales, and devices of valuation. One implication of the paper is that the study of inter-organisational valuation allows the researcher to explore the plurality of ways in which actors with different goals evaluate development alternatives to keep the process going. Having said this, the paper also touches upon the fact that the value-agnostic sensibility of valuation studies risks making the researcher neglect power asymmetries.

value plurality

framing

valuation studies

active frontages

valuation

qualification

inter-organisational

Author

Stefan Molnar

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Science, Technology and Society

Urban Studies

0042-0980 (ISSN) 1360-063X (eISSN)

Vol. 60 2 292-307

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Building Futures (2010-2018)

Subject Categories

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Sociology

Human Geography

Roots

Basic sciences

DOI

10.1177/00420980221090883

More information

Latest update

2/22/2023