Perform or conform? Looking for the strategic in municipal spatial planning in Sweden

In recent decades, various strategic approaches to spatial planning have been introduced and implemented in Sweden, although the planning system itself has not fundamentally changed. However, strategic spatial planning is not a fixed and regulated institutional practice in either planning in general or in the Swedish planning system. To investigate strategic planning practice in Sweden, 16 recently approved comprehensive plans were studied to elucidate how strategic planning is understood and conceptualized by planners and then expressed in a statutory planning instrument. Although there is no ‘right theory’ of strategic planning, to avoid an ‘anything-goes’ attitude towards strategic planning, the contents of the studied plans were set against an ideal, normative model compiled from the academic debate, thus researching practice in dialogue with theory. The results indicate that comprehensive plans, rather than being contextually embedded, follow generic models of environmental scanning and strategy making, and most visions reiterate common political goals and slogans found everywhere. The plans often become catalogues of detailed instructions that, although not legally binding, tend to steer practice into predefined paths framed by generic doctrines within the planning community, rather than being the flexible and open-minded planning instruments that academic ideals prescribe.