Urban Planning and Governance Styles. A Comparative Study of Oslo, Hamburg and Hannover.

Short description

In recent years, we could observe a variety of policy experiments in many European cities to respond to urgent societal, economic, environmental and spatial challenges such as the re-scaling of institutional layers, the introduction of network-based ‘soft’ governance arrangements and the generation of distinct strategies and policies for sustainable urban regional development.

The objective of the project was thus to understand the character of these policy experiments and the diverse policy styles in urban and metropolitan policymaking from theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches. The project focused on understanding, explaining and illustrating the key similarities and differences in planning policy approaches in different cities to learn from each other, to improve urban policy styles and to contribute to a sustainable urban and city-regional development.

Therefore, the project aimed to develop a theoretical understanding about whether different stages of the policy process (e.g. agenda-setting, formulation, decision-making, implementation, evaluation) were subject to particular 'ways of operating' or rely on particular operating routines, and how this influenced the way in which policy approaches evolve. It also contributed to develop a comparative methodology based on different theories and methods aimed at examining and comparing urban and regional policies, policy cultures and practices. Both the theoretical and methodological objectives of the project were informed by empirical evidence gathered from urban experiences in Germany and Norway, particularly in Hamburg, Hannover and Oslo.