Lokalområdet som strategi för en hållbar stadsutveckling: fallstudier av tre danska exempel

Doktorsavhandling, 1999

During the 1990s the role of the city in a sustainability perspective has received increasing attention. Within the framework of the research field, sustainable urban development, this dissertation discusses issues concerning how environmental initiatives at the urban district level may be planned, designed and organised. The aim of the study is to investigate the potential of the local area in a sustainability context. This is dealt with partly empirically by means of case studies, partly theoretically in a reflective dialogue between the empirical, the theoretical, and findings from other research projects. In this dialogue theoretical suppositions are developed. The empirical part consists of qualitative case studies of three Danish examples. The study indicates that the local area may constitute a productive point of departure for environmental initiatives. Considering the relationships between people, society and nature, it is pointed out that tendencies such as globalisation, individualisation, time-space distanciation and the invisibility of environmental threats, require a novel interpretation of the local level - any one-sided and isolated local approach is insufficient. At the same time central prerequisites for motivation and participation in transformation processes are trust and social capital, the visible and the sensuous, feelings and empathy, all of which is principally based on co-presence. Any strategy taking its point of departure in the local area should extend beyond the local, creating links between local and global processes, as well as enable connections both amongst people and between people and nature at the local level. Analysed in the study are the possibilites, at the local level, of creating pre-requisites for change - change in form of technical, social and life-style solutions. Such prerequisite generating measures are discussed in terms of links - initiatives that link and enable communication. Links between the local and the global, communicative links and designed links are discussed. The potential of design in supporting processes of change towards sustainability is highlighted. Emphasised is the importance that local environmental initiatives are able to induce those changes that are necessary in a long term sustainability perspective, and concurrently add to the qualities of the local environment and everyday life.