Planning as a barrier for growth: Analysing storylines on the reform of the Danish Planning Act

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has been structured in the public debate in Denmark, and how this discourse has created a political pressure to reform the Planning Act. We identify three main storylines, which support the discourse that planning constitutes a barrier for growth in the most rural areas of Denmark, framed as ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public debate. We argue that the contemporary critique of planning in Denmark has a distinct spatial dimension, in which planning deregulation is rationalised as a means to boost development in the economic periphery and combat increasing socio-spatial inequalities. Whilst the ideology and rationality behind the storylines calling for deregulation of planning can be interpreted as rooted in social welfarism, we argue that the framing of Outer Denmark is merely being used in the public debate to legitimise the (neo)liberalisation of spatial planning in Denmark. Nevertheless, the case of planning deregulation in Denmark is illustrative of how spatialities are discursively (re)constructed and enacted in order to challenge and transform the role of planning in the context of neoliberalism.