Organisational Conditions Shaping Spatial Planning Practice : An Ethnographic Study of Planners’ Work with Urban Segregation

This thesis examines how the role of spatial planners is shaped by organisational constraints within the everyday practices of a local planning authority. Spatial planners are key actors in navigating diverse interests and stakeholders to promote sustainable development. This role is particularly significant in an era of climate change and growing social inequity where understanding the scope of action available to spatial planners in addressing complex issues is crucial. The role has previously been studied and discussed through various normative and theoretical lenses, as well as from institutional perspectives. This thesis contributes to previous research by exploring organisational micro-practices which underpin the everyday work of spatial planners. The empirical focus is on urban segregation, a complex, cross-sectoral issue faced by spatial planning practitioners. Previous studies show how policy ambitions concerning urban segregation often face obstacles when moving from strategic processes to operative spatial planning practice. Here, organisational constraints rooted in a mix of governance ideas are argued to be critical to understand how contextual and practical aspects of everyday work shape the enactment of the spatial planner role. To gain the necessary closeness and contextual understanding of spatial planners’ work situations, this thesis is based on a five-year ethnographic case study of a local planning authority. The case is Borlänge municipality, a mid-sized municipality in Sweden, where I have worked as a spatial planner in parallel with my doctoral studies. Everyday observations, tensions, and reflections from being part of the spatial planning department were documented in a field diary and complemented by semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and document studies. With the aim of understanding how organisational conditions shape the role of public spatial planners in practice, the guiding question is: How is the role of spatial planners shaped through everyday practices in a municipal organisation when working with a cross-sectoral issue such as urban segregation? The results of the case study are presented in three papers. Paper I addresses the discrepancy between strategic and operational work to reduce urban segregation through spatial planning by analysing the work of three groups of practitioners within the organisation. The findings show how an organisational deadlock emerges when different governance ideas influence the work among strategists, managers, and spatial planners in varying ways, preventing ambitions to reduce urban segregation from being operationalised through spatial planning. Paper II discusses challenges arising when governance ideas associated with an urban development project meet the established municipal organisation for the first time, revealing organisational inertia. The results show an organisational inability expressed through the lack of resource allocation and formalisation of the studied project, as well as an unwillingness to do so rooted in both urban development projects ideological dependency on attractiveness and the local organisational context. The focus of paper III is on understanding how the actions of spatial planners are shaped by the tension between differing conceptions of the planners’ role and the organisational context within a municipality. Two approaches to spatial planning are identified based on the studied case, showing how an integrative holistic approach to issues such as urban segregation is marginalised through responsibility redistribution and discursive practices, in favour of an administrative task oriented approach aligned with Neoliberal ideals concerning the role of spatial planners. Based on the findings formulated in the papers, three planner personas are identified (the democracy worker, the enabler and the sustainability worker), shaped through different practices within the municipal organisation. However, a paradox emerges in that none of the personas are fully enabled within the hybrid municipal organisation. The thesis contributes to previous debates by concretising the tensions brought by parallel governance ideas and planning ideals manifested in organisational structures. To further understand the organisational constraints and challenges involved in municipal spatial planning, the term multi-level hybridity is introduced. This concept highlights how hybridity, in the meaning of parallel, conflicting, and equally valid ideas of how work should be done, exists at several analytical levels; and contributes to the status quo in public planners’ work situations, where complex issues such as urban segregation become separated from the spatial planner’s role.