We Can Build a New Tomorrow - Competencies for Transformative Spatial Planning in Swedish Municipalities

Abstract

This article highlights the urgent need to explore how transformative planning can be put into practice and what competencies urban and regional planners need to facilitate this transition. There is a consensus that traditional planning, with its rigid and structured approaches, is inadequate to address the challenges of climate change. Instead, more proactive, transformative planning practices are needed. This study presents the results of a questionnaire conducted among planning managers in Swedish municipalities, aiming to deepen the understanding of how municipalities can achieve climate neutrality by identifying the necessary competencies among planners. The results identify five competence categories: technical knowledge (including climate adaptation), broad knowledge in various areas, analytical skills, coordination and cooperation, and communication. Our findings thus suggest that current planning practices in Swedish municipalities are largely traditional rather than transformative, but also that the focus is on adaptation rather than mitigation. We argue that this can partly be explained by the concept of obduracy, and how frames and persistent traditions affect the way planning managers think of the future, making it difficult to envision a future beyond current challenges and demands, but also the importance of thinking more visionary about planning to achieve climate neutrality and transformations.