Sustainable urban and regional planning is one of today's biggest challenges, especially in view of the urbanization that is taking place around the world. Many cities and regions face major challenges when it comes to infrastructure projects. We have the possibility to integrate sustainability (environmental, social and economic) into the planning processes of urban infrastructure projects. But it isn’t happening, yet. Most planning practices lack both the strategies and the instruments to assess, adapt to and shape the social and environmental consequences of ongoing, rapid, technological change. This is particularly true for the energy and transport sectors. We must facilitate sustainable and socially inclusive innovations in these sectors, paying close attention to their impacts both on land use and strategic planning. These are some of the issues central to my research.
Several projects
I have several ongoing projects. In the project “Role of Planning for the Future Fossil-Free Transport System: Innovative Transport Solutions (PLANINT)”, the overall project goal is to contribute with knowledge about the role of urban and regional planning to implement innovative transport solutions. Together with Uppsala Municipality, a pilot will be developed. The project builds on already existing knowledge about transport and mobility solutions to more strategically address urban and regional planning processes related to changes in the transport sector.
The project “Circular spatial planning for transformative change through reuse and renovation (PLAN-C)”, develops strategies to strengthen the governance of circular construction by introducing the concept of "circular spatial planning. The focus is on reducing the climate impact of the built environment and promoting reuse and renovation. Four specific objectives are addressed: examining international key projects, identifying barriers and opportunities in Swedish spatial planning, learning from successful examples, and supporting municipalities in adopting more strategic and proactive planning. PLAN-C employs a range of methods such as surveys, workshops, scenarios, and interviews to map key projects in Europe and Sweden. The project will develop tools and materials to support municipalities in integrating circular principles into their planning processes. The outcome is expected to benefit municipalities, decision-makers, and the real estate sector by reducing climate impact and optimizing resource use.
In the project, part of Driving Urban Transition (DUT).“Policy Effect Navigator: A Map-based Tool for Effective and Equitable 15mC Policy Synthesis (PERSEUES)”, The proposed research extends the team’s modelling and data expertise to develop a framework of responsive indicators to rapidly visualise the potentiality of achieving 15mC embedding socio-demographics, network characteristics and policy needs. Specifically, a rapid, model-agnostic indicator approach is proposed to evaluate accessibility, environmental, economic and equity impacts of car restriction and active/sustainable mobility measures by synthesising empirical and ex-ante evidence. An interactive “research-to-practice” decision support tool will enable expert and non-expert users to test, visualise, and comprehend the outcomes of integrated policies. In addition, pilot studies will be developed to validate and facilitate rapid policy tools in democratised planning processes. a framework of responsive indicators is being developed to visualise the 15-minute city.