Strategic planning toward sustainable urban planning models: The Case of Municipal Directors in Denmark

The challenges posed by climate change, the threat to biodiversity, and the emerging importance of geoethics lay the ground for new imperatives for urban planning and leadership. According to the geoethic debates, it is essential to ensure these challenges become an integral part of planning professions. However, it can be difficult to translate the mere description of such challenges into actionable measures and low-carbon results. To ensure better strategic planning for low-carbon cities, this chapter develops and discusses geoethics for strategic urban leadership. The approach is multi-methodological and rooted in Danish strategic planning. First, the climate content in existing urban planning and land-use regulation is examined. Then, the existing frameworks are exposed with strategic leadership in towns and municipalities. The analysis shows that national housing and planning policies in Denmark primarily regulate types of buildings and architectural and construction standards, whereas strategic planning for low-carbon regulation is less prevalent, although urban physical and spatial structures have tremendous effects on the carbon footprint of a city. This, we argue, fosters a planning environment in which planning for low-carbon societies is less coordinated on a national urban scale. Next, we examine contemporary perspectives of sustainability and carbon measures in strategic planning. Based on 11 interviews with municipal directors and participant observation of 23 municipal directors in seminars on strategic urban leadership (KomDir7), we identify a mismatch between their municipal strategic visions and existing urban planning and land-use regulatory frameworks. Against this finding, we develop and discuss six principles for sustainable urban planning regulation models. Each principle can be moderated, and different cities can shape them according to their visions and planning structure.