The Experience Economy and the Transformation of Urban Governance and Planning

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between experience-oriented development and urban governance and planning, based on a case study of the city of Frederikshavn (DK). Triggered in 1999 by a sudden local economic crisis, Frederikshavn entered a process that reinvented its “mental frame” and transformed not only its urban development, but also its identity, image and governance towards an experience economic and entrepreneurial profile. We investigate what influenced urban strategy-making and planning in Frederikshavn and allowed the city to move towards an experience economy. Municipal investments, internal reorganization and public–private cooperation played significant roles. Traditional spatial (land use) planning and regulation were replaced with transformative urban growth strategies and more risk-taking experimental approaches. The municipality became a project partner that favours “actions because they create new opportunities”. Experience-oriented projects thrived in this entrepreneurial environment. However, recent political tensions between growth and welfare agendas indicate that Frederikshavn thereby exemplifies a test to the reaches or limits to government-supported neoliberal approaches in urban development and governance—and thereby also to the role of the local state.