CITY PLANNING AS AN ARENA OF SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT

IN NEOLIBERAL TIMESThe case of Malmö, Sweden

GUY BAETENDepartment of Human Geography

University of Lund

BARCELONA, SUMMER SCHOOL ON ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTJune-July 2010

• Try to bring together social, environmental, economic and sustainability issues in city building under the heading of ’neoliberal contradictions’

• The case fo the Hyllie UDP in one of most ’sustainable’ cities of the world: Malmö

• Socio-environmental issues as reworking urban politics• Contradictions make common categories always have an

unfulfilled character, blurred, incomplete, messy

Hegemonic neoliberalism...

• ”Neoliberalism is the most successful ideology in world history” (Anderson, 2000)

• ”Neoliberalism has swallowed up the world in its clutches” (Said, 2000)

• ”Neoliberalism is a utopia of unlimited exploitation” (Bourdieu, 1998)

• ”Neoliberalism is not simply an economic structure, it is a philosophy” (Treanor, 2005)

’Neoliberal city planning’ as an usual combination

• Contradiction in terms, or ’giving up’• Yet: neoliberalism has a decidedly

urban history

”To mobilise city space as an arena both for market-oriented economic growth and for elite consumption practices” (Brenner and Theodore, 2002, 368)

• Coming to terms with ’actually existing neoliberal planning’ as an uneasy co-habitation, planning in an anti-planning ideology

Reading neoliberal planning as a set of contradictions

• Contradictions create eternal tension, linger on, suppressed, explode, thought away but always present, haunting specter

CONTRADICTORY URBANITIES• The plan: short term profits, long term problems

– PROFIT MAXIMISATION V DURABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENT• The people: reworking the Malmö demographic fabric against the odds:

desired immigrants and real immigrants– CREATIVE CLASS V REAL PEOPLE

• The builders: men in black, beyond democracy– AUTHORITARIAN STATE TO IMPLEMENT ’FREEDOM’ V DEMOCRATIC

PLANNING• The place: disjointed landscapes and scales of super- and subplaces

– POLARISATION V INTEGRATION• The history: Building away history, take II

– OVERCOMING SOCIAL DEMOCRACY• The environment: building a car city in the most ’sustainable’ city in the

world– NATURE V PROVEN PROFIT EXTRACTION

6

Malmö reinvented

Sustainability as core city planning idea

• 1980s: Planning in crisis– Chicago School and Milton

Friedman promoting anti-state theoryand free market absolutism

– Planning as part of the problem– Planning as the opposite of ’freedom’, ’market’– Seek new legitimacy– ’Sustainability’ discourse perfect match for planning as a

discipline and a profession• Planning had long tradition of bringing together social, economic

and environmental issues in making land use decisions• Sustainability is what planning is all about• Popularity of ’sustainability’ could revitalise planning

Eco-branding as core regeneration strategy

• 4th most ecological city (GRIST, 2010) after Reykjavik, Portland, Curitiba

• One of the 12 ’Fast Cities’ 2009• First Fairtrade City• Seeking world-leading ecological

identity after deindustrialisation

HYLLIE, THE PROJECT• new city district in southern Malmö • 7 000 dwellings, 15 000 inhabitants• new railway (21 km, 6 km tunnel, ready 2011)• new railway station (5 min to centre, 15 min to Kastrup,

25 min to Copenhagen)• ice hockey stadium (15 000)• shopping centre (75 000 m²)• hotel (600 rooms)• offices• Point Hyllie (95m)• parks and parking

(3 500)(1 300)

10

THE PLAN

11

IMMIGRATION IN MALMÖ BY REGION OF ORIGIN (2007), AND MIGRATION SALDO (2006)

0

5 000

10 000

15 000

20 000

25 000

30 000

amount 2007 27 227 21 797 10 619 4 979 3 366 2 947 1 002 195

’Eastern’ Europe

Asia NordenRest of Europe

AfricaSouth

AmericaNorth

AmericaOceania

-2 000

-1 000

0

1 000

2 000

3 000

saldo -1 610 -32 703 2 400

South West

Rest of Skåne

Rest of Sweden

Abroad

12

Saldo

Origin

REWORKING THE DEMOGRAPHIC FABRIC: WWW

• Looking west for imagined immigrants while real immigration flows come from the east

– Not building for people who do come while building for people who may not come

– “For groups, like the homeless who already have difficulties on the housing market, a acute housing shortage is in the making. There is not one apartment for rent for those who are poorly embedded in the housing market like people on low income, or youngsters” (Olle Sundh, Real Estate Office Malmö, 31-10-07)

13

THE BUILDINGS

14

Point Hyllie

45,000 sqm

PEAB

2/3 bostadsrätt

300 flats

1/3 kontor hyresrätt

CITY BUILDERS STEER MALMÖ’S FUTURE

– VISIONARY”Malmö will be the new Scandinavian powerhouse in 20-30 years

time” (Artur Buchardt, hotel developer)

– POWERFUL”Percy Nilsson took a detailed plan with a hotel, shopping mall, a

new tower and ice hockey stadium to the town hall” (E24 business magazine)

– AMERICAN”In Malmö people spend 20 pct of their consumption budget in

shopping malls. In the US that is up to 35-40 pct. People in Malmö could and should shop more in shopping malls” (Peter Warming, Emporia shopping mall)

– PERSONAL”I want this stadium to symbolise my entrepreneurship for the next

five hundred years” (Percy Nilsson, Sydsvenskan)

15

NEO-LIBERALSPATIAL DUALITIES

• New landscapes of wealth

– Cashing in on bridge, outer ring roadand opening up of nearby land:the production of space

– “Ambient power” through design and architecture (J Allen, 2006)

– Very strict idea of what the end-state of Hyllie centre should be: well-off suburb with top-quality services (transport, shopping, entertainment) and prime office market

16

• New scale of wealth– Network of ”Öreplaces”,

connected with excellent transport means rising above the ordinary urban skyline

– Superplaces• Elite consumption and housing, prime office markets,

tunnels, in control of glocal mobilities • Aestethic• Upscaled city feeding off the existing city but in denial

of it

17

Bara new golf

courses

DavidshallSlotsstaden

Rörsjostaden

Copenhagen

Örestad

Kastrup

Ideon

Dockan

Unversitets-holmen

Nyhamnen

Västra Hamnen

Hyllie

18

NEO-LIBERAL FALL-OUT

– New landscapes of deprivation

• Overcrowding (Olle Sundh, Fastighetskontoret)• Moving to cheaper places in town or away from

Malmö• Overspending on housing• Growing need for transit housing• Increasing homelessness

19

– Homelessness in Malmö

Increasing most: women, youth, non-addicts

0

200

400

600

800

1000

amount 313 413 480 521 638 801 531 563 694 849

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

20

• New scale of deprivation– Places not connected to Öreplaces and

Örenetwork become in-between places, unnoticed, disconnected from the Örespectacle and its monies and possibilities

– places of burden, of cost, of socialbidrag– subplaces– downscaled city, depending on the Örescale but

unable to connect

21

BUILDING AWAYHISTORY TAKE II

• Unbridled believe in economic growth and progressleaving history behind, long-term futurism

• Unmatched desire to build a new city• Large-scale, industrial, impatient development• Modern architectural language• A-historical modern man overcomes social divides: difference with

the other becomes redundant through modern progress

• Progress for the few, not the masses• Building away the other take II:

– industrial, social-democratic Malmö, – growing ethnic presence

22

FUCK THE CONTEXT

23

Elitist and individualistic urban living with the city as decorum

’In’ the city but not ’of’ the city

CONCLUSION 1: neoliberal city planning as a set of contradictions

• Malmö neo-liberal variant steers away from, yet embedded in past planning– Echoes Million Program’s belief in progress and modernity, copying Million Program

forms– Building away history

• Disjointed, fragmented urban landscape of superplaces and subplaces• Reworking the demographic fabric of Malmö through the built environment: white,

western and wealthy• In the city but not of the city• Building an unsustainable city under the heading of sustainability: solving sustainability

issues elsewhere, or afterwards

24

CONCLUSION 2: neoliberal city planning as the reworking of politics and justice

• CITY MARKETING : image of the city as engaged with nature, liveability• Attract and/or keep MIDDLE CLASS POPULATIONS• DEPOLITICISING POLITICS : green roof politics – marginalising hard politics of

justice• MORALISING POLITICS : sustainable projects as ”good” for the city –

marginalising justice• JUSTIFYING INJUSTICE : elitist but green• Supporting the very development of ecological INDUSTRIES (eco-clusters)• ENGAGING WITH ’GRAND’ VISIONS for the city, rallying broad support, while

maintaining existing power relations

The blurring of concepts

• Neoliberal planning, tempered by and embedded in social-democratic past

• Socio-ecological concern, tempered by the race for profit