Partnerships in Planning

Cities have a pivotal role in enabling resilient and low-carbon urban development, as well as healthier urban environments. For this purpose, a wide range of innovative participatory models and partnerships models are developed to channel citizen input into local planning- and decision-making. In this paper, we study new innovative participatory models that are introduced in the strategic, overall planning processes for societal development of cities and municipalities in Norway. Our data is a quantitative study to all the planning executives in Norwegian municipalities, as well as in-depth case-studies with planners, politicians/councillors and private actors in 10 cities and municipalities. Here we have a critical perspective and ask if the new, innovative models are able to channel new, relevant local knowledge into local planning- and decision-making, with a special focus upon the aggregation mechanisms (from citizen voice to planning input). We then compare this development to the European literature about strategic planning.