Abstract
The urban expansion currently under development around the two materials science facilities MAX IV and European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden, surrounds two meticulously designed research facilities steered by global demands. The new urban area, together with the research facilities dedicated to science and the development of knowledge, expands the city of Lund onto high-quality agricultural land. In doing so, the municipal planning is attempting to align contemporary ideas of sustainable urban development with large-scale scientific infrastructure. This actualizes an ethical dilemma as the urban expansion onto productive agricultural land overrides previous decisions taken by the municipality regarding land use. It can also be understood as going against national land use policy which states that development on productive agricultural land should be avoided. As the planning stands today, the research facilities heavily push local urban development into the area while the intended research outcomes primarily relate to a global research community tied to international scientific demands for materials science. Although the Brunnshög area is realized through a neutralizing planning strategy, thought to balance and compensate for the development on farmland, the effects of the counterbalancing acts are primarily played out at a local urban level in terms of diverse, exciting, and locally sustainable neighbourhoods. The land use protection policies meant to secure national food production rather operates on a national scale. The argument made in this text is that sustainable development, and the intended balancing acts it involves, ought to be carefully considered in terms of scalar effects. Sustainable planning<em> </em>effects’ <em>scalar extent</em> should be taken into account through careful assessment of the step between good intentions and expected outcomes.
Highlights
The urban expansion currently under development around the two materials science facilities MAX IV and European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden, surrounds two meticulously designed research facilities steered by global demands
Scale impact may be produced on contingent scales but planning intentions need to target actual sustainability problems. Such inconsistency in the handling of scales points to a need for an increased scalar awareness in urban planning and attention to various scalar effects. This text treats ethical questions tied to various scales of sustainable urban planning through the case of Brunnshög, an area currently under development in Lund, Sweden
The case concerns a multiscalar process initially set in motion by the planning, and development of, the large-scale research facilities MAX IV and European Spallation Source (ESS)
Summary
In the small university town of Lund in southern Sweden local urban materialities develop as consequences of global scientific initiatives. A former agrarian area outside the city, recently renamed to the more internationally sounding Lund Northeast Brunnshög, is currently under development When completed, it will include two large-scale research facilities for state of the art materials research, a supporting science village located between the facilities, and a whole new urban district—all built on high-quality farmland (see Figure 1). It will include two large-scale research facilities for state of the art materials research, a supporting science village located between the facilities, and a whole new urban district—all built on high-quality farmland (see Figure 1) This text aims to discuss various scales, and balanc-. ESS is scheduled to be opened in 2023 and will have the world’s most powerful linear proton accelerator (ESS, n.d.) It is an international collaboration between 13 European nations, including the host nations Sweden and Denmark. The combined budgets of MAX IV and ESS are estimated at 2,44 billion Euros (Lunds universitet, 2020)
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