The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

The municipalities of Sweden have a great responsibility when it comes to adapt the physical planning to a more sustainable development. The development of the society depends upon the growth of new communities and other public services, but to build new communities in a long-term sustainable manner you need good methods and guidance. This study presents four sustainability certification scheme intended to improve and adapt the planning, implementation and performance of new communities and infrastructure project to more sustainable methods based on economic, ecological and social sustainability. These systems are the latest versions of environmental classifications and similar rating schemes, but with a broader focus since they also include the social aspect of sustainability.This study aims to investigate what role sustainability certification schemes can play in local planning for sustainable development. The study compares the certification systems criteria to the tools and goals that the Swedish municipalities have been provided with, to lead efforts towards a more sustainable society.

The right to the city has lately become the rallying cry for many urban social movements all over the world to challenge neoliberal planning, gentrification, the privatization of urban commons and growing spatial and social gaps in city and society. This senior essay studies urban social movements that in different ways advocate the idea of the right to the city. The term right to the city was coined in the late 1960s by French urban theorist Henri Lefebvre, who promoted the idea of the city as a common, a space belonging to everyone. The right to the city is not ?a return to traditional cities?, but ?a right to urban life? (1996:158).This study focuses on the city of Hamburg.

The effect of climate change places demands on how we build cities. Cities have to be built denser to meet the objectives of sustainability but as a result of this densification city green areas are at risk of exploitationand disappearing. The question this raises is whether there has to be an opposition between a dense and a green city?Urban trees are playing a very important role in cities. They stand as the major part of the vegetation in citieswhich are otherwise dominated with concrete and stone.

We came in contact with the project "Grönplan Danderyd" that aims to create a green structure plan for a municipality of Stockholm called Danderyds kommun. Our thesis is a part of this project and makes it's contribution through the gathering and systematization of the knowledge of the functions of an urban green structure. It also makes a contribution through suggesting how this knowledge can be applied during the construction of an urban green structure plan. We found that "Stadens parker och natur", published by the Swedish National board of Housing, Building and Planning, was a recurrent source of information in the green structure plans that we studied. We saw a need of complementary additions and updates to the rather old report and found literature that adds the developments of the last decade. First of all we have chosen to make themes based on the functions of a green structure that were presented by 'Stadens parker och natur'. The themes we suggest that a greenplanning document manage are: Recreation, Pedagogies and Heath, Biological Diversity, Green structure in the History of Building Cities, Cultural Identity, the Health of the City, Biological Technology in the Municipality and Use and the Users. We found good examples of how to handle these themes in documents that handle greenstructure planning from the municipalities of Göteborg, Strängnäs, Eskilstuna, Malmö, Lund, Västerås and Uppsala.

Environmental problems are accelerating with energy consumption and the release of greenhouse gases as the major issues. This affects landscape planning mostly through environmentally hazardous transportation and heating of buildings. In environmental work, the term "Sustainable development" is often used. This term was coined in the Bruntland report in 1987. A number of frameworks have been developed to clarify the term and to remind the user about relevant aspects of sustainability.

Spectacular buildings and categorized districts are becoming more common elements in cities. In many cases, they are the result of city branding, which means choosing a city image and dealing with it like a brand to profile and compete against other cities. This essay study what impact on and roll in urban planning the trend might have. The first part relies on literary studies and describes what has been written about city branding. The globalization, the experience economy, urban management, urbanization and the theory of the creative class are pointed out as driving forces of the popularity and the spread of city branding.

This essay examines how public planners and the inhabitants of södra Gårda relate to the physical planning of the area and to the demolition versus the preservation of the quarters Eken and Cedern, and how the dialogue between planners and citizens appears to be. How do the planners and policymakers relate to citizen participation in urban planning, and how is participatory planning carried out in the legislation, rhetorically and in practice. Former research indicates a distinct gap between rhetorics, legislation and actions in practice regarding citizen participation in planning, which is why we find it an interesting topic for further research. The essay aims to highlight the different actors interests and visions of the development of the area. Which are the standpoints and arguments the different actors set out for the future visions of the area? The essay focuses on citizen participation in urban planning in the city of Gothenburg.

Public participation is a key aspect in the planning of Swedish municipalities. It is probably the most important tool of them all in the planning towards a sustainable future within the cities and the municipalities as a whole. Participation from the public can take on several different forms. In this paper I focus to research and discuss in and around the usage of a web-based 3D platform called City Planner. The tool allows the user (the public) to view the municipalities planning in a fairly new (but quickly growing) environment.

There are many barriers and obstacles that need to be removed to make the urban environment more accessible for people with disabilities. There are currently no adequate tools for urban planners to assess and address these obstacles. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) provide powerful methods for the visualization and analysis of spatial data, including the kind of data important in studies of accessibility. This study suggests a method urban planners can use to identify accessibility obstacles and to propose future actions to fix them.A literature review was conducted to find out what has been done and what is new regarding the accessibility issues. Different methods were evaluated which in turn led to the construction of a multi-step analytical strategy.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen i Kulturvård, Landskapsvårdens hantverk, 15 hp, 2012.

All around the world more and more people move from rural areas to live in the cities. Because of this, the urban areas have become an important part in the debate about the effects on the environment and sustainability. In many countries word wide initiatives have been taken to build sustainable cities and eco cities, the Stockholm Royal Seaport is one example. The vision for the district is to become a world class sustainable city based on the three dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic and ecologic. The municipality of Stockholm has set requirements for the buildings? energy usage, emissions and amount of waste generated during the building process.

Stockholm has in recent years experienced a strong population increase but despite that fact, the demand for housing has not been followed by enough housing contracts. According to forecasts, growth in population will further be continued upward. With more condominiums than rental units on the market, new apartments are too expensive to live in. This creates unsustainable problems for those in lower classes of society. Creating a housing market in the periphery of Stockholm is not sustainable from a social perspective.

Det här är en masteruppsats i fysisk planering med inriktning omvärldsanalys och strategiskt arbete i kommunal översiktlig planering. Uppsatsen undersöker hur kommuners omvärldsanalyser ser ut samt hur de utifrån dessa formulerar strategier. Vidare undersöker uppsatsen vilka huvuddragen i strategierna är samt vilka planeringsprojekt som kommunen menar ska bidra till att strategin uppnås. Med hjälp av kvalitativ innehållsanalys och semistrukturerade personliga intervjuer har två översiktsplaner och en fördjupad översiktsplan för Helsingborg, Malmö respektive Ystad undersökts. Uppsatsen åskådliggör ett tydligt generellt mönster för samtliga undersökta strategier; förtätning genom blandad bebyggelse, marknadsföring och regionförstoring genom gränsöverskridande samarbete..

Sverige är ett föregångsland när det gäller miljöarbetet men har inte tillhört de ledande länderna på vindkraftsområdet. Vindkraftsproduktionen i den urbana miljön är sällsynt på den svenska marknaden. Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka vad som menas med urban vindkraft, belysa vilka problem och hinder finns för vidare utveckling och berätta om framtidsplanerna för urban vindkraft i Malmö. Vidare försöker jag även redogöra för vilken påverkan urban vindkraft har på vårt samhälle. Uppsatsen grundar sig på analys av artiklar som behandlar urban vindkraft, studier av rapporter samt intervjuer med ansvariga för dem olika projektet som pågår i Malmö idag.