Implementing an area-based strategy in Groruddalen, Norway

Abstract

This article discusses the implementation of a 10-year programme of regenerating Groruddalen, a cluster of post-war housing estates in Oslo. In the wake of a shift from urban government to urban governance, the study indicates that urban planning still embodies a hierarchical structure of traditional institutions and role models. The study nevertheless also shows how such a regeneration programme can develop and expand on existing patterns of urban governing, and as such the study explores some of the inertia in the change from government to governance in which local differences both arise and circumscribe the process.