Urban Contractual Policies in Northern Europe

Abstract

This working paper is based on two separately commissioned projects that Nordregio carried out during 2015–2016. The first project was commissioned by the Nordic Working Group for Green Growth: Sustainable Urban Regions set up under the Nordic Council of Ministers' Committee of Senior Officials for Regional Policy (EK-R). This project relates to Chapters 2 to 5 of the present working paper, which describe the policy details and inner workings of urban contractualism in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The second project was commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation. The objective was to review the experiences in France and England with different forms of contractualism. This relates to Chapters 6 to 8, which incorporate additional comparisons and critique of urban policies in France and, especially, the UK. The projects were a collaborative undertaking, with a number of national experts at Nordregio involved. Lukas Smas was the overall co-ordinator and editor. Liisa Perjo was responsible for Finland, Christian Fredricsson contributed the Norwegian part and Christian Dymén (now at Trivector) was responsible for Sweden. Julien Grunfelder was responsible for France while Timothy Andersson (currently a PhD Student at Tallinn University) wrote the UK section alongside contributions to the introduction and conclusion.