Rational Goals for the Urban Environment: A Swedish Example

In Sweden, the government's aim to create sustainable urban environments is expressed through the environmental quality objective “A good built environment”. The objective embraces seven sub-goals and is designed to guide central, regional and local authorities’ planning towards urban sustainability. However, for objectives concerning the urban environment, such as the Swedish objective “A good built environment”, to form a solid basis for decision-making, two types of rationality (functionality) conditions ought to be met. First, the objectives should guide and motivate those who are responsible for their implementation. This is applicable when the goals satisfy the criteria of precision, evaluability, approachability and motivity. Second, when the goals are parts of larger goal systems, the goal systems should be coherent. Using the objective “A good built environment” as an empirical basis, this article gives a few examples of how environmental goals can fail to guide and motivate action towards improved urban sustainability.     

Knowledge-based development dynamics in less favoured regions: insights from Australian and Icelandic university towns

Knowledge-based development (KBD) is a widely practiced policy and is signified as an effective development approach particularly for the metropolitan city-region context. Even though, increasing recognition of this policy resulted in some initiatives in less favoured regions – such as regional university towns – its appropriateness for this context has not been investigated adequately. This paper explores the concept thoroughly in regional university town settings from the lens of the triple-helix model – a critical element for success in KBD. The study aims to broaden our understanding on the challenges of implementing a successful triple-helix model in regional university towns by providing evidence from different country contexts – Australia and Iceland. The methodology of the comparative case investigation incorporates policy and stakeholder perception analyses. Results reveal the journey of the investigated cases, their limited accomplishments and failure factors. Findings shed light on the developmental challenges of regional university towns by highlighting critical issues relating to suitability, appropriate implementation and effectiveness of the KBD policy.