About the project (completed)
More than half the world's population lives in urban areas, and this is expected to rise to 70% by 2050. City regions generate more than 60% of all carbon dioxide and use an estimated 78% of the world's energy. One sector of particular significance is transport, which is the largest source of CO2 emissions. Simultaneously, it generates local stress and pollution, hampering the ambitions of urban policy makers to increase accessibility and living conditions in city regions. This project has provided knowledge on governance processes and mobility practices, to support the development of urban policy and planning strategies dealing with increasing transport and associated problems.
The project has addressed two shortcomings of urban policies and smart city strategies. First, we have focused on suburban areas, which, in contrast to urban cores, have been little studied. Yet, substantial parts of cities are suburban, and the spatial structure and social practices of suburban areas have profound effects on travel patterns and energy use for urban regions. Second, the project has emphasized social, cultural, and political processes and implications. Existing smart city strategies, being focused on technological innovation, often fall short to address important societal changes. In addition, unintended social implications (i.e. social inequality and exclusion) are little studied.
We have investigated how regional and municipal governance and planning regulate mobility within selected suburban or regional towns in Greater Oslo. We have provided new knowledge about innovations in mobility practices and policies. Our research reveals that a low share of all trips made to most places outside Oslo is made by public transport. People are travelling less by car and more by other modes (walking and public transport) when they live in or travel to urban cores or regional towns, compared to adjacent peri-urban areas. In addition, people living in or travelling to locations along the railway corridors travel less by car and more by other modes. These findings confirm that densification in and around highly accessible regional towns may lead to more sustainable transport. Besides, there are promising innovations. An investigation of shared electrical bikes found that e-biking has a great potential for long-distance suburban and intra-regional travels. We have also mapped changes in housing prices, finding an increase towards the centers of the regional towns, causing possible social inequalities in access to sustainable transport.
Our study of governance and planning processes in the regional towns revealed challenges facing municipal authorities. On the one hand, our findings suggest that the goals and strategies of the municipalities are very much in line with the goals of the regional plan for land use and transportation. The municipalities emphasize compact, transit oriented and multi-functional development in the regional towns, although there are examples of housing projects in conflict with the regional plan. However, the municipalities meet resistance against parts of their policy, especially restrictions on car use. And it is challenging to coordinate the policies of the road authorities with the strategies for developing urban centers. We also found examples of large-scale visions and plans that are promoted as energy smart, even if they contradict the regional land use and transport plan.
On the other hand, our study has revealed that the municipalities have taken on a more active governance role. This implies a use of strategic planning to handle collaboration and pressure from private developers. However, the focus on planning and coordination with the private sector, combined with internal capacity problems, may have hampered civil society participation. The turn towards network governance and market driven urban development, has made networks and partnerships more important, opening up for dialogue and co-creation with private actors. This may lead to democratic and transparent processes, but new power relations and reduced influence by civil society may also lead to less accountability and democratic control. We have found a combination of governance modes. Hierarchical governance has become reactivated through increased use of planning and negotiations where the municipality takes a lead role, motivated by sustainability goals. At the same time, we found a dominant market-based mode of governance, where developers seek profit from urban development.
Research results have been disseminated throughout the project period. Many presentations have been held at international and national conferences, and the project is also presented in popular science articles, newspaper articles and blog posts. Six master theses related to the project have been submitted. Research results have mainly been disseminated in several scientific articles.
Achieved effects
The SMS project has been of strategic importance to each of the research partners and their strategies. It has formed the basis for long-term research collaboration, including stakeholders in the Oslo region, and has developed collaboration with several strategic research initiatives. The SMS project has also been a base for developing the now funded FME Include, Research Centre for Socially Inclusive Energy Transitions, where the SMS project leader is leading the research area Energy Spaces and Flows. A transition towards low energy mobility is crucial for the mitigation of climate change and vitalisation of urban regions, but the large impacts of suburban areas on the regional transport system often overlooked. The knowledge on challenges and innovations in governance and social practices produced by SMS may strengthen local/regional and public/private governance capacities to meet climate challenges, and deal with sustainable accessibility, living conditions and inclusiveness.
International scientific advisory board
- Marco Helbich: Spatial analyses and GIS
- Monika Buscher: Mobility practices
- Greg Marsden: Transport governance
- Jon Shaw: Geographies of mobilities
Previous events
About Time: Changing mobilities and creative urbanism
Time and place: 10 September 2018
Seminar and workshop with Professor Monica Buscher from Landcaster University, department of Sociology
Lecture abstract: “We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote, they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions”, a recent UN report states. But opportunistic use of normative disjunctures in time is only part of the story. How is (dis-)alignment between temporal, social, and moral orders done? And how do ‘we’ fail to connect across generations, spaces and times? As anthropogenic climate change and environmental destruction are making their monumental mark in the ‘deep time’ of geological earth history, ruinous collapse of large parts of the biosphere is made to happen in the lived temporal and normative orders of modernity, capitalism, and human time. People are notoriously bad at perceiving the ‘system-ness’ of their actions. However, not only are cities essential for a low carbon transformation, they are also spaces of hope where temporal and normative orders of mobilities enable an emerging sense of crisis and of change. In her talk, she uses praxeological reflections on the temporal organization of transport and traffic to explore the normative, prefigurative, performative momentum of changing mobilities and creative urbanism.
Lectures and talks
Smart Micro Cities
Kollektivforum's conference 06 February 2018
By Lars Böcker and Torstein Throndsen
Urbanization of suburbia (The politics and planning of greater Oslo)
The "after suburbia" conference October 20 2017
By Per Gunnar Røe
Popularised articles and interviews
Urban Future Global Conference til Oslo neste år
Published at blogg.hioa.no [broken link] december 10 2018
By Trond Vedeld
Grønn mobilitet og attraktivt byliv i regionbyene rundt Oslo?
Published at blogg.hioa.no [broken link] April 18 2018
By Trond Vedeld
Utvikler smarte mikrobyer rundt hovedstaden
Published in Apollon April 28 2016
By Trine Nickelsen
Master theses
- Does the Urban Structure Mobility? Master thesis, Torstein Throndsen, 2017
- Ski - en regionby i vekst: En studie av kommunens styringsrolle i en tid preget av krav, påvirkning og vekst. Master thesis, Jarle Gunnes, 2018
