European Planning Studies Vol. 19, No.

1, January 2011

The Scaling of Sustainable Urban Form:

A Case of Scale-related Issues and
Sustainable Planning in Malmo, Sweden
RRHOLM
MATTIAS KA
Department of Urban Studies, Malmo University, Sweden & Department of Architecture & Built
Environment, Lund University, Sweden

(Received September 2009; accepted October 2009)

ABSTRACT In this article, I investigate spatial scale as an aspect that needs to be more carefully
addressed in the discussion and planning of sustainable urban forms. Focusing on the Malmo
Lund region in Sweden, I discuss problems of scale as related to the new take on sustainability in
Malmo planning documents, especially the update of the Malmo comprehensive plan from 2005.
The article is divided into three sections. First, I discuss the concept and problem of spatial
scale, contextualizing it in theory as well as in recent discussions on urban transformations.
Second, I briefly discuss the discourse of sustainable urban forms, pointing out some scalerelated issues that need to be more carefully addressed. In the third and main section of the
article, I investigate plans and projects for urban development in Malmo, focusing and
elaborating on spatial scale and discussing the findings in terms of three kinds of scale
stabilization: in terms of territory, size and hierarchy. The article concludes with a call for
further work for the possibilities of a more dynamic and multi-scalar approach in urban planning.

1. Introduction
The idea of applying the concept of sustainable development to urban and architectural
form has increasingly been addressed and discussed by researchers, planners and
architects during the last decade. The issue of sustainable urban form has, however,
both in discourse and practice, been problematic, resulting in different and contradictory
results, e.g. in discussions for and against the compact city (Frey, 1999; Jenks & Dempsey,
2005; Kaido, 2005). The research results are thus often uncertain, but various guidelines
and directives have been adopted and produced in recent years, often in favour of a
compact city solution (Williams et al., 2000; cf. a recent attempt in Sweden in Ullstad
(2008)).

Correspondence Address: Mattias Karrholm, Urban Studies, KS, Malmo University, 205 06 Malmo, Sweden.
Email: mattias.karrholm@mah.se
ISSN 0965-4313 Print/ISSN 1469-5944 Online/11/01009716
DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2011.530394

# 2011 Taylor & Francis

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One core issue is that of methodology. How do we find and define sustainable urban
forms? How do we investigate this question? How should we even pose it? To actually
judge whether or not a certain urban form is sustainable is not an easy task. To some
extent, the problem echoes the old modernist dilemma of function and form. Both problems are set up as a relationship between cause and effect, between urban form and
outcome. I do not contest that there may be stable relationships between a set of activities
or relations agreed upon as sustainable and a certain urban form. These relationships are,
however, not easily generalized about, using such dichotomies as nature culture, object
subject or form function.
The aim of this article is to investigate research and planning discourses on sustainable
urban form, posing the question on what scales are these sustainable urban forms discussed
and implemented? It has often been acknowledged that the integration of social, ecological
and economic sustainability is contradictory, as different aspects of sustainability rely on
different criteria for success. However the contradictions associated with sustainability go
deeper still, as the same effort might increase one aspect of sustainability on one scale (e.g.
the urban), while decreasing it on another (e.g. the neighbourhood). So far such aspects
have been discussed at national, global and regional levels,1 but not so much at urban
level. In order to counteract this, more light needs to be shed on tendencies toward
scale stabilization, i.e. the tendencies of planning from the perspective of only one or a
few pre-fixed scales. In this article, I advocate an approach that sees scales as effects
of processes and actions of the lived environment. Such an approach imply that effects
(whether contributing to a sustainable development or not) are always enacted at different
spatial levels in terms of size and dimension, and they are thus much more multi-scalar
than suggested by the predefined scales of, for example, planning programmes and administrative organizations.
This article is divided into three sections. First, I give a short introduction to spatial scale,
contextualizing it both theoretically in recent scale theory, and in the empirical notion of
rapidly growing urban landscapes. Second, I provide some brief notes on the discourse of
sustainable urban forms. In the third and main part of the article, I look at the Malmo
planning documents and some of the urban development projects planned there over the
last decade to discuss three tendencies of scale stabilization that seem to be reflected in
these texts and plans. The main empirical material consists of the official plans and
documents concerned with sustainability, produced at the Malmo City Planning Office
during the years 20032006. These were the main years during which the concept of
sustainability was introduced and integrated into the planning documents of the city. I
chose Malmo for several reasons. First, it is the largest city in one of Swedens fastest
growing urban landscapes (second only to the Stockholm region). Second, it is one of the
Swedens most ambitious cities in terms of sustainable planning, producing a great deal
of planning material and ideas about sustainable form, for which it in fact also has been internationally acclaimed and awarded (e.g. the Liveable communitys award 2007, Swedens
first Fairtrade City 2006 and the fourth greenest city in the world by Grist in 2007).
1.1 Spatial Scale
Spatial scale is a vital but, at a theoretical level, little-discussed aspect in the discourse
on sustainable urban forms. In this article, I will specifically look at the scales on which
different sustainable urban forms are implemented and discussed (in research and

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planning). The argument is based on the notion that urban forms participate in the production of effects on different scales (they are multi-scalar), and that if we want to
discuss the meanings and effects of built form, scale is an issue of key importance. The
article uses the concept of spatial scale as related to urban form, taking its cue primarily
from urban morphology but indirectly also from scale as discussed in a more eclectic
architectural discourse by such diverse authors as Rasmussen (1957), Licklider (1965),
Boudon (1999) and Lawson (2001). Although architectural and spatial scales have been
widely discussed in architectural theory, for example, as the human scale, the scale
of the body or the scale of the car, the actual impacts of the built environment as analysed through different scales is seldom studied (although see Yaneva (2005)). Here I
use Caniggia and Maffeis Architectural Composition, one of the classics in the field of
urban morphology, to define scale as: different level of complexity of the components
internally arranged to construct a whole (Caniggia & Maffei, 2001 (1979), p. 245).
Different scales are thus to be discussed as relationships between spaces of different
dimensions, where the constructed whole of one scale can be a mere component
among components at another (Caniggia & Maffei, 2001 (1979), 68f.). In this sense, I
use scale as a relative (and analytical) concept insofar as one would need at least two
different complexities of the components producing effects (e.g. those of a city and
a city district), where the effects of different complexities can be seen as different
scales. The differences of these components can be found both in terms of category and
size. Discussing the effects of a certain neighbourhood, the outcome of such a discussion
will, for example, surely be different if we discuss it from the perspective of (and the scale
thus implied by) the city, the city district, the motor way system, the cycle way system, the
local street level or the human body.
My take on spatial scale differs somewhat from the scale analysis and scale theory that has
been developed since the 1980s, largely within the field of political and human geography
(Smith, 1984, 2003; Jonas, 1994; Swyngedouw, 2000; Brenner, 2001; Randles & Dicken,
2004; Collinge, 2005; Marston et al., 2005, to mention a few). I agree with some points
made in this quite heterogeneous field of research: e.g. Neil Smith notions that scales are
materially real frames of social action (Smith, 2003, p. 228), and that they are socially produced. However Smith also describes scale as the spatial resolution of contradictory social
forces (Smith, 2003, p. 228) taking the nation as an example. In this article, scale is not
necessarily understood as so closely intertwined with the process of institutionalization,
but as a phenomenon that also could relate to less stable spatial usages or effects, e.g. the
space used by six-year-old kids at a certain neighbourhood might tend to have a certain
scale in common, whereas the space used by teenagers living at the same place have
another (cf. Lieberg, 1992). I also think that it is fair to argue that scale theory needs to
become more sensitive to materialities; forms, shapes and artefacts, than has hitherto
been the case. These materialities are indispensable co-producers of scales and scalerelated effects. This in turn often means that scales are not always institutionally fixed
and that scalar outcomes can be non-direct, unintentional and even unpredictable (cf.
Randles & Dicken, 2004). The politics of space must thus be discussed not just by analysing
intentions and discourses, but also by taking the issue of form and materiality seriously.
In this article, I regard scale as an analytical concept that is both dynamic and relational,
and does not connote pre-fixed sizes or levels per se. Spatial scales are continuously
produced by different components, human actors, rules, built structures, objects, paving,
etc. An investigation of urban form in terms scale could, for example, follow the roles

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of a certain urban block in different settings, acknowledging and tracking the impact of the
block in systems of different sizes, levels, lengths, etc. The role of the block would of
course be totally different if analysed from the scale suggested by the city grid or from
the scale suggested by the perspective of a single apartment. Similarly, the spatial
impact of the urban block is heterogeneous, producing certain effects at the scale of the
city grid, and other effects (setting limits and opportunities) at the scale of the apartment.
1.2 The Scale of the Urban Landscape
Although it is not always fully recognized as a subject of its own, scale has always been
one of the main issues of urbanity and the urban form debate. French architect and theorist
Phillippe Boudon even regards it as the key concept of an autonomous architectural
science, a field he refers to as architecturology (Boudon, 1999; cf. Lundequist, 1999).
Today regional scale seems to be an issue of growing importance in a much larger
context than that of architectural research. The transformation of towns and cities to
urban regional landscapes was ongoing throughout the 20th century, starting with the
trends of suburbanization, garden cities, etc. early in the century. Lewis Mumford commented in the 1930s that motorways and railroads enabled a non-hierarchical region
where: no single centre will, like the metropolis of old, become the focal point of all
regional advantages: on the contrary the whole region becomes open for settlement
(Mumford, 2003 (1937), p. 96). Although this transformation of the urban structure was
noted early, it did not become thoroughly conceptualized until the 1990s (partly owing
to a vast number of influential hierarchical conceptualizations, e.g. Christallers central
place theory, The Chicago School ring model, The Athens-charter zoning systems and
Newmans Defensible Space). Today, however, we are witnessing a seemingly neverending conceptual production discussing these urban transformations on the scale of the
region in terms such as Zwischenstadt (Sieverts, 2003), Netzstadt (Oswald &
Baccini, 2003), citta diffusa (Boeri et al., 2003), lurbanisme des reseaux (Dupuy,
2005), the network city (Abrechts & Mandelbaum, 2005), the edge city (Garreau,
1991), the regional city (Calthorpe & Fulton, 2001) and splintering urbanism (Graham
& Marvin, 2001). These conceptualizations, and to some extent also mappings (Boeri
et al., 2003; Abrams & Hall, 2006) of urban landscapes, networks and nebulae imply
that regional scale is rapidly becoming an issue of growing importance (Boeri et al.,
2003), even play with the idea of seeing the whole of Europe as one urban region,
echoing Doxiades notion of a world city, Ecumenopolis. New regional developments,
infrastructures and politics also affect and involve everyday life. People commute more
and longer, tourism is an ever-growing industry, and new institutions are being established
on new scale levels. Aldo Rossi suggested as early as the 1960s that the new urban scale of
the metropolitan area was more or less defined by the size of the local labour market (cf.
Lobsinger, 2006). In the province of Skane (where Malmo is situated) the number of estimated labour markets decreased from 16 to 4 between 1970 and 2000, whereas there was,
and still is, a steady increase in the number of commuters. Spatial planning is thus facing a
new context in which distance has more to do with time than kilometres, and in which
urbanization, greenbelts, investments, centres, etc. seem to be facing scalar shifts (Hajer
& Zonneveld, 2000; Albrechts & Mandelbaum, 2005; cf. Healy, 2005).
The change of perspective from city to urban landscape does not just involve a scalar
shift. It increases scalar complexity as it adds a new scale of relevance to the urbanization

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process. The urban life of today seems to be enacted at more different spatial levels or
scales than ever before. The transformation and addition of new relevant scales have,
however, not yet been sufficiently dealt with in Swedish planning, where spatial development still is very much treated as territorial issues set within the frames of a hard-edged
container (Healy, 2005, p. 151), which does not take into account the fact that many
relations, problems and phenomena are being increasingly enacted on new and multiple
scales. Although the scale of the urban landscape is increasingly conceptualized and discussed by researchers as an empirical phenomenon, it has not yet achieved its full potential, one could argue, in more normative terms, in texts such as planning visions and in
expressions of new ideas about how to build. It has even less raised the meta-question
of new scalar approaches to urban issues. To some extent this is also a result of how planning practice is organized, with responsibilities hierarchically divided on different scales,
often focused on intra-territorial issues and different fields of interest. These organizations
can at worst result in the optimization of isolated elements, areas or aspects, which could
make it more difficult to cope with the multiple relations of the urban landscapes (cf.
Healy, 2005). These issues are part and parcel of the tendencies of scale stabilization discussed below, but first we need to address the question of sustainable urban form.
2. Sustainable Urban Form in Research
Sustainability has, since its definition in the Brundtlandt report of 1987, become an
increasingly important concept not just in politics, but also in research and planning. It
is, however, not so easily translated into built form. In Achieving Sustainable Urban
Form, Williams et al. conclude that sustainable urban forms are characterized by compactness (in various forms), mix of uses and interconnected street layouts, supported by
strong public transport networks, environmental controls and high standards of urban management (Williams et al., 2000, p. 355). Compactness and concentration of the built
environment to transit nodes are two of the most common recommendations in the literature of the field (and can, for example, also be seen in Swedish reports such as SOU
1997:35 and Boverket Vison 2009; see Westford (1999) and Ullstad (2008)).
In research on sustainable urban forms (Frey, 1999; Jabareen, 2006) and anthologies
such as Williams et al. (2000) and Jenks and Dempsey (2005), there almost seems to be
a consensus on the themes that are relevant. But what kinds of forms are sustainable?
Looking at the discourse from the perspective of (morphological) spatial scale, three
things come to mind.
First, and perhaps most striking, is the absence of differentiation when it comes to the
notion of form. The key themes for sustainable urban form are often represented as formless statistical numbers of density, numbers of usages (in mixed-use areas) or distances
(that at best could be described as one-dimensional form), and some of the desired
effects are characterized as sustainable, rather than discussing the urban forms that
could accommodate these effects. Using Kevin Lynchs definition of urban form as:
the spatial pattern of the large, inert, permanent physical objects in a city (Lynch in
Jabareen, 2006, p. 39), I note that the notion of pattern or shape is seldom addressed at
all concretely. The differentiation of form is often quite weak with lists of some ideal
models (Jabareen, for example, lists four idealized models) (Jabareen, 2006) rather than
discussions of various morphological aspects (such as different block types to follow
classical urban morphology, or different spatial configurations and integration values to

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follow the theories of space syntax) (Hillier & Hanson, 1984; Hillier, 1996). The discourse
on sustainable urban form surprisingly seldom takes its cue from urban morphology,
although there are exceptions (e.g. Scoffham & Marat-Mendes, 2000; and to some
extent Frey (1999)). Let us consider the example of building density to illustrate the
problem of neglecting more thorough discussions on form. Changing the borders and perimeters of a place obviously changes its density but even within the same borders the same
density or floor space ratio could very well represent totally different building typologies
and ways of life (cf. Radberg & Johansson, 1997; Jenks & Dempsey, 2005).2
Second, when scale is addressed, this is still often done quite simplistically and hierarchically. Scales are set in terms of administrative borders or typological area classifications; scale is then used as a pre-fixed and static entity rather than a dynamic field of
inquiry. Furthermore, most discussions seem to focus either on the scale of the city
(e.g. the compact city) or the neighbourhood. Some authors look at the region, in discussions of, for example, polycentric vs. monocentric models (Frey, 1999; Okabe, 2005).
However the ability to change scales, to jumping up and down them, lies at the very
heart of the design process (Yaneva, 2005), as well as of the ways in which we relate to
our surroundings in our everyday lives. In architectural practice, scaling often is more
phenomenological, scales are produced from the perspective of lived space, asking, for
example, how does this particular building affect the skyline, life on the street, the view
from the park, or the light in the rooms of the building next door? (cf. Licklider, 1965).
Just determining the height or the width of a building immediately affects all of these
scales and many others. This kind of multi-scalar approach has, however, unfortunately
not been much verbalized or conceptualized in discourse to date. Relevant questions
would be: In what contexts does this building (or parts of the building) have an effect
on everyday life? What roles does it play on different scales? Different and mixed uses
within a city district do not necessarily imply that people will walk or cyclethat has
also to do with other things such as income, workplace, distance, urban design and
spatial structure, but scale is also relevant. On what scale are these activities mixed, at
the level of the building, the street, the block or the district? Is the mix to some extent
repeated on several streets within the district or located to one street or a mall?
Third, there seems to be a tendency to favour certain aspects such as density and mixed
use, and to look for a one-rule model. Jabareen develops a matrix for the evaluation of
particular suggestions, but it would also be possible to argue in terms of several futures
and pathways (Guy & Marvin, 2000). The possibility of seeing scaling problems and
solutions differently, together with a diversity of social interests, etc., suggests that
there might not be one single optimal solution. Thus a discussion of sustainable urban
form needs to follow a more heuristic trajectory, addressing a plurality of important
issues and methods rather than producing one-rule models, one-liners or optimal solutions
such as the compact city.
3. Three Tendencies of Scale Stabilization
During 2004, Malmo published ten dialogue-memoranda (here referred to as M1 10)
followed by a new Comprehensive Plan in 2005. These planning documents, together
with other planning material from the time 2000 2007, form the basis of my investigation.
One of the primary aims of Malmo Citys work with the new Comprehensive Plan was to
integrate three aspects of sustainability (social, economic and ecological) into planning in

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general and the Comprehensive Plan in particular. Although I am critical in my readings of

this material, it is important to note that this article is not primarily to be read as a critique
of Malmo planning (cf. Anderberg & Clark, 2009, for a more critical approach), but more
as a road map that opens up for further work on the issue of a dynamic and multi-scalar
approach in urban planning.
Malmo is a good city to use for a discussion on scale, since it is very much undergoing
urban development and transformations on the scale of the region, involving scalar
shifts, as old villages and towns become transit-nodes for commuters, local squares
and services decline and retail spaces are increasingly appearing at inter-district or
even interurban levels. Malmo has also been internationally acknowledged for
sustainable urban development in the area of Vastra hamnen, and for the Housing
exhibition Bo01 in 2001 (State of the World, 2007). Bo01 was a pilot project, an
attempt to build the city of the future, by focusing on ecological sustainability, etc.
and promoting the compact city. It also stressed the important role of architectural
and urban design in sustainable development. The evaluations made (Larson et al.,
2003) argue that, although Bo01 could be regarded as successful in terms of ecology
and technology, the aspects of social and economical sustainability tended to be
st were also able to trace a functional planning ideology in
weaker. Sandstedt and O
the efforts made to plan for a general user, while socio-economical stratification
st, 2003:164;
and differentiation of the population were not addressed (Sandstedt & O
on user, cf. Forty, 2000, 312ff.).
In the planning programmes and memoranda produced in connection with the Malmo
Comprehensive Plan (2005) there is a more general approach to sustainability than in
Bo01. Its focus was very much on how to integrate the three aspects of sustainability:
social, economical and ecological. Although there are some examples of empty rhetoric
(cf. Anderberg & Clark, 2009), especially when it comes to the level of actual architectural
or urban design,3 Malmo also started a more decisive line of sustainable planning, pinpointing some of the core aspects for sustainable planning (M1 10). I will not be able
to address all the aspects in this article, but I focus on some of the most important ones
concerned with issues of scale and urban form. Half the memoranda focus on the different
geographical areas in Malmo; the other half focus on issues such as trade and industry, the
transport of dangerous goods, regional strategies, and restrictions for air pollution. For
example the documents underline the importance of keeping the city and the city areas
dense. The dense inner city is meant to grow and promote sustainable development as a
mixed, walkable city with retail and work opportunities. This is clearly described in
M1, where it is stated that:
Malmos most important contribution to an ecologically sustainable development is
to keep a dense city that can offer both inhabitants and visitors a many-sided and
easy accessible content. (my tansl., M1:6)
The documents are also concerned with integrating different parts of Malmo spatially; this
especially includes the spatial integration of the eastern parts of Malmo with the central
parts, and the integration of the new area of Hyllie with the rest of the city (Aktualisering
versiktsplan 2003). To summarize in terms of urban form, the documents investigate
av O
some well-known prerequisites associated with the sustainable citya denser and
more well-integrated (spatially and socially) walkable citybut they fall into the

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common spatial, and in this case also scalar trap of cutting connections too soon, following
preconceived spatial categories rather than the spatial effects of activities regarded as
sustainable or non-sustainable.
In the following I will present three tendencies of scale stabilization, i.e. tendencies of
institutionalization and reification of scale as certain predefined and thus predictable sizes
or categories of components.
3.1 Stabilizing Scale at the Level of an Area (Intra-territorial Bias)
Most of the plans and planning documents define a territory as being of a certain size,
focusing discussions and plans to that territory, and thus also defining the scale at
resundswhich sustainability is discussed. This scale may be the urban region (e.g. M7; O
regionen 2045), a certain city district such as Augustenborg or Bo01 (Dahlman, 2003), or
P; M1; Malmo, hallbarhet blir verklighet
perhaps most vividly the municipality (Malmo O
2008), or the inner city area (Malmo 2005), and then they tend to keep to that scale.
The most well-known example of sustainable urban design in Malmo is still the building
of the city area Bo01. Bo01 was initially planned to be a heterogeneous and socially
sustainable area, but at one point the city chose to consider the question of integration
on the scale of the municipality, claiming that Malmo needed more wealthy taxpayers.
They thus argued for social homogeneity on the scale of the area to increase heterogeneity
st, 2003:165). Apart
in terms of income on the scale of the municipality (Sandstedt & O
from this, the planning of Bo01 focused on the area as an isolated object of itself. It
was planned as a spatial enclave and the aspect of sustainability was primarily dealt
with as an intra-territorial issue. Evaluations and discussions have tended to do likewise,
focusing on the scale of the area (cf. Laurell, 2002; Dahlman, 2003; Larsson et al., 2003).
This tendency is to some extent echoed in the planning memoranda (M1 10), which
mainly focus on specific geographical areas. Even more surprisingly, some statements
in these planning documents suggest strategies of functional zoning rather than mixing,
thus contradicting the overall aims and strategies presented in M1 and quoted above.
The inner city, for example, is defined as a retail area (M10:8, which it has in fact also
become increasingly transformed into, cf. Karrholm, 2008), and other zoning examples
could also be found in the new large centre of logistics suggested for the North harbour
(M2) and the development ideas for the hospital and university areas (M1).
Although sustainable planning primarily seems to be an intra-territorial endeavour,
some exceptions should be noted. First of all, a lot of the projects seem to involve the connection between different city areas. These projects work on different scales, enhancing
local city spaces and connecting different parts of Malmo with each other. This,
however, does not change the fact that the notion of the city area still seems to be the
primary spatial category.
Malmo planning also seems to be increasingly attentive to important urban routes that
make for important social connections between different parts of the city. This is interesting since Swedish planning in general, but also most research on sustainability seem to be
focused on the area as a basic unit for discussion. An explicit focus on strakplanering
stergatan, Norra Sorgenfri
(route planning) was advocated, for example, in projects in O
and Bennets vag (Malmo 2006, Vision Norra Sorgenfri 2006; cf. Persson, 2003). The
importance of the grid plan is also noted in plans of older parts of the city, where a coherent
and well-connected grid is seen as an important aspect in defining a city area. The inner

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city, for example, is defined at one point as the city within walking distance of the central
square Gustav Adolfs torg (M10:8). However in newly built areas such as Hyllie, the
notion of the grid seems to be of less importance (M9; Planprogram for Hyllie) and is
not addressed as ambitiously as, for example, in relations to the more centrally located
area Norra Sorgenfri, and the attention to the spatial connections between Hyllie and its
surroundings is kept to a minimum.
The tendency towards intra-territorial fetishism (to put it bluntly) should not be
confused with spatial fetishism, which is much discussed in scale theory. In Amsterdam
Zuidas European Space, Swyngedouw criticizes the tendency of solving certain social
problems by way of spatial intervention or territorial planning, changing focus from comprehensive planning to projects for urban development (Swyngedouw, 2005, 70f.). This
might in turn lead to a spatial fetishism, treating space in itself rather than the social
relationships that are present in (and produce) the space (Lefebvre, 1991; Collinge,
2005). Leaving the question of spatial (or social) fetishism aside there is, however,
another related problem at stake: that of pre-fixed scale, delegating sustainability to be
solved within the boundaries of one (or at best a few) territories and thus at one (or a
few) scales. This we could call an intra-territorial bias.
The modernist tendency towards territorialization, building cities as molecules, objects,
zones or big boxes, is a well-known one. Modernist architects often discussed their architectural projects and buildings as enclosed, self-contained systems (Forty, 2000, p. 94).
Panerai et al. (2004) point out Le Corbusiers Unite dHabitation (Panerai et al., 2004,
p. 116) as a key historical example of how the urban morphology of block and street was
transformed to the single building, reducing building cities to building monuments. The
issue of sustainability seems to have triggered a new interest in the neighbourhood as a
unit for the city or urban region, conceptualizing neighbourhoods as TODs, TNDs, urban
villages, communities, etc. (Frey, 1999, p. 41). However the neighbourhood as a base for
intervention is sometimes too large for questions such as safety, and too small for others
such as integration and employment (Lahti Edmark 2004, 165ff.). Such models still have
the problem of non-differentiation; they set up a quite homogeneous morphology,
echoing modernistic examples such as the linear city, broadacre city, Ville Radieuse, etc.
(cf. Dupuy, 2005). Such uniform and standardized ways of living seem more utopian
today than ever. To host all the activities of contemporary society, one would expect differentiation at least at the level of the region. Regional structures cannot be built from bottom
up alone, or from a few uniform elements such as centres and sub-centres.
3.2 Stabilizing the Scale to That of the City Centre (the Inner City Area Bias)
The tendency towards scale stabilization does not just follow an intra-territorial line of
thinking (as suggested above) but more specifically it involves a certain territory, and
thus a certain grain (Lynch, 1990), a certain measure and a scale of a certain size. In
the case of Malmo the fetishization of the inner city is quite evident. In the Malmo planning documents it is stated that Malmos most important contribution to sustainability is
maintaining and enlarging the inner city: Malmos strength and potential is primarily to
be found in the inner city area (my transl., Malmo 2005, p. 28). This goes for all three
aspects of sustainability: ecological sustainability is promoted by maintaining a
compact inner city, adapted to cyclists and pedestrians; economic sustainability is
focused on enhancing and expanding the inner city, encouraging urban businesses; and

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in terms of social sustainability the operative term is meeting points (Motesplatser). In

the booklet Meeting in the City (Moten i Staden), part of the sustainability efforts in the
project Welfare for all (Valfard for alla), good examples of meeting points are given,
and at least three quarters of them are located wholly or partly in the inner city.
The model of the compact city often refers, explicitly or implicitly, to the old European
city cores (cf. Guy & Martin, 2000). The planning material for Malmo contains many
examples, from the planning of Bo01, explicitly planned with old Venice as a model, to
the emphasis put on Malmo inner city in the Comprehensive Plan and other planning documents such as Meeting in the City (Moten i Staden). The focus on the image of the
urban inner city follows the logic of postmodern urbanism (Ellin, 1999). In fact one
could argue that the discourse on sustainability started a process of de- and reinstitutionalization (Hajer & Zonneveld, 2000; Lundquist, 2004), in which a lot of the old planning
issues needed to be reappropriated within the new discourse. After one hundred years
of suburbanization it does not come as a surprise that the pro-urban rhetoric of postmodern
urbanism has survived and been integrated into the sustainable form discourse. However
the fetishization of the inner city, with its spatial scale as a kind of model (in terms of size)
for planning, is also problematic in the perspective of recent changes in urban development. In one sense it seems as if the inner city is gradually becoming a district of consumption (Karrholm, 2008) and mono-functionality, and its role as a live model for mixed uses
is thus slowly becoming an anomaly. This would thus contradict the goals of Malmo planning since mixed functions, dwelling and work places (my transl., M10:8) are seen both
as a characteristic and an exemplary trait of the inner city.
3.3 Stabilizing the Process of Scaling (the Hierarchical Bias)
The discourse on sustainability actually still echoes the critique of industrialism of the
Ebenezer Howard triad-perspective, be it town, town country and country, or urban
suburban rural. There are centrists, decentrists, compromisers (Frey, 1999:27), monocentrists and polycentrists (Okabe, 2005). However as described above a simple hierarchical
model no longer works as a metaphor for the city. The urban region consists of a whole
range of overlapping hierarchies and even non-hierarchical structures. In discourse as
well as in planning, one can sometimes find a tendency towards establishing one hierarchy for the city, defining the process on how to scale up and down (cf. Healy, 2005)
and establishing the bias of a specific scale hierarchy. In Malmo, as in most cities in
Sweden, the scale levels discussed are often limited somewhere between one and four;
resund), the county (Skane, represented by administrative institutions such
the region (O
as Region Skane and the county administrative board), the municipality (Malmo) and
the city districts. Most hierarchical planning seems to create a competition between municipalities, since these make up the strongest nodes of the hierarchical structure. The scale
of the region is still quite weak in Swedish planning, but it is at least discussed and analysed by the county administrative board and Region Skane. There are also some less institutionalized spatial categories such as Southwest Skane (Samverkan Skane sydvast,
SSSV) and the Malmo Lund area (evolving as an important region for planning in
M7), but still there is much work to do in establishing regional instruments of planning.
As an example one could mention the planning and localization of retail. This has
clearly become an issue of regional importance in the Malmo Lund region, but is still
only planned at a municipal level, causing competition among municipalities fighting to

The Scaling of Sustainable Urban Form

107

secure the first mall or the largest retail areas (Franzen, 2004). This problem is not mentioned in the municipal planning documents (focusing as it were on the municipal level)
but becomes clear in the light of recent national investigations (Vagverket, 2006, 2008).
On the urban level the municipality of Malmo is divided into western and eastern parts.
This was formerly also an administrative division at the City planning office, but today the
division is most noticeable in terms of a socio-economic gap, differences in political
affiliation, etc. (cf. Persson, 2008). The western districts of Vastra hamnen (including
Bo01), Bunkeflo and Hyllie are the places of most of the important recent investments
and urban development projects in Malmo. The memoranda (M1 10) dealing with the
sustainable planning of the eastern part are largely focused on the border between west
and east in general and the connection between the eastern part and the inner city area
in particular, rather than on the development of eastern part itself.
It has sometimes been assumed that cities change in parts rather than in their entity
(e.g. Frey, 1999, p. 45), and architectural inventions are often district solutions, with the
city built from the bottom and up. This is, however, an oversimplification (cf. Hillier,
1996). Caniggia and Maffei (2001) suggest that different scales have different time intervals of change. Caniggia and Maffei, however, have also pointed out a hierarchical change
where de- and reterritorialization not only influence new spaces, but also can destabilize
whole hierarchies of spatial institutionalizations. As retail areas such as the shopping/
pedestrian precinct of the inner city area have been territorialized as an urban type on a
scale between the urban core and the street, a lot of issues, activities and forms, formerly
handled or enacted on these scales, now seem to take place on the scale produced by the
pedestrian precinct. Local neighbourhood centres are another point in the case, where a lot
of local services and shops close down, leaving people to buy their everyday goods at large
outlying malls. The ongoing development and expansion of the retail areas SvagertorpHyllie (M9), with IKEA as one of its latest additions (in 2009), will not, for example,
just impact on the neighbouring local retail centres. It has already had a considerable
impact on all the local retail centres in Malmo, where new retail areas are now being produced and enacted on new and different spatial scales (e.g. Svagertorp, the pedestrian
malls of the inner city, Pilelyckan, Center Syd, etc.). New retail business is thus being
established on new spatial scales affecting the whole field of retail establishments, destabilizing previous structures and starting the process of finding a new balance and
hierarchic structure on other scales (Caniggia & Maffei, 2001; Alppi, 2006). Such transformations call for a new approach to planning that does not always take pre-fixed spatial
categories as its cue. Urban transformations affect and shed light on the notions of predefined territories, sizes and hierarchies. It can be argued that the old city centre in some
respects might be losing its place as a privileged node in the urban region: this Mumfordian shift (as we might call it) indicates a horizontal de- and restabilization of scales, e.g.
as the old urban and rural centres are deterritorialized and dispersed. Centres are, however,
also reterritorialized and we can thus also speak of a Caniggian shift (if such an expression
is possible), indicating a vertical de- and restabilization of scales where centres de- and
reterritorialize not just geographically but also hierarchically.
4. Concluding Remarks
The aim of the research on sustainable urban forms is to inform us about how to
build urban environments without compromising the possibilities of future generations.

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M. Karrholm

A possible strength of the sustainability concept is as a tool for integrating issues and problems that were previously specialized or sub-optimized: this would also open for a multiscalar approach that does not conceive of scale as given and as an institutionalized entity,
but as a multitude of spatial effects and a field open to enquiry. Although the sustainability
of a certain area at hand is prioritized in planning, the effects of the suggested plans are in
fact always multi-scalar. If we follow the entities that make up the effects that are to be
accounted for as sustainable or not, these entities, actors or components are found at different levels or dimensions of complexity, and thus at different scales. An important task
would then be to develop the administrative structures and planning instruments that
enable identification and discussion of the different scales at which the suggested
efforts for sustainable development seem to be effective and have spatial impacts.
In this article, I have investigated some aspects of spatial scale in sustainable urban
planning, focusing mainly on those having to do with impacts and meanings of urban
form. Following three tendencies towards stabilization presented above (intra-territorial,
inner-city area and hierarchical), I conclude by suggesting some questions that might be
important in discussions on sustainable urban form. First, avoiding an intra-territorial
bias, we might, for example, look more carefully at the aspect of mobilities. Morphological literature often tends to point out the road structure and the urban grid as important and
generative aspects of urban form (Hillier & Hanson, 1984; Hillier, 1996; Caniggia &
Maffei, 2001). If one adds mixed mobilities to the often repeated demand for mixed
uses (in debates on sustainable urban form), the question of intertwining scales could be
addressed in a more explicit way. A mixed mobility approach implies that different
modes of transport can be integrated at the same place, establishing more complex topologies allowing connections to places both far away and close by, for example, places
where the infrastructure of the neighbourhood, the city district, the city and region
mingle and meet. I think that we need to address the mixed mobility question more consciously if we, for example, are to counteract the car dependency produced by the dialectic
between large retail areas of mono-mobility (pedestrians only, cf. Karrholm, 2008, 2009)
and vast parking areas (cf. M10:4 that suggest better parking and pedestrianization for the
inner city). This dialectic is, as I see it, partly a problem that has its root in negligence of
scalar complexity, i.e. how activities of different scales come together at a certain place.
Second, we need to be aware of the pars pro toto fallacy, where a certain area such as
Bo01, the inner city or a municipality comes to stand for the whole of the urban landscape.
The production of identity and image through symbolic buildings or areas might be important to a town, but when it comes to sustainability one cannot focus all the effort on a single
and discrete space. Third, I think that we need to be more aware of the ongoing production
of different scalar shifts. These might be horizontal (Mumfordian) or vertical (Caniggian),
minor or major, but since they are constantly at work, we need to address them more consciously.
Turning again to Caniggia and Maffeis definition of scale, it seems easy enough to
detect a problem with the way scale is treated in the sustainable planning of Malmo. Of
course there are some components or categories of different scales such as Vastra
Hamnen, Hyllie, Malmo municipality and the region, but these components seem rather
static and pregiventhe relation between components of different scales is not much analysed, and it seems as if the question of scale is not taken seriously. Whereas political regulations and spatial planning often are territorial by nature, thus tending to establish and
institutionalize certain scales, the effects of urban forms are not. The impact of urban

The Scaling of Sustainable Urban Form

109

design solutions and forms needs to be analysed in a more unbiased manner. One of the
problems of making such an analysis possible is the lack of a common ground where
these different scales could be discussed in an effective manner. In terms of planning, planning institutions such as the Municipal Comprehensive Plan, the town planning office or
the county administrative board neither could nor should be easy to alter right away.
Nevertheless, the fact that the issues they address and their areas of responsibility increasingly both affect, and are affected, by processes and spatial productions outside their
jurisdiction, needs to be acknowledged, and calls for further work on the institutionalization of collaboration between different planning institutions, e.g. on an inter-municipal
level. The new scales of an urban region, like the Malmo metropolitan area, cannot be
solved at the level of the municipality, e.g. by handing out yet another pamphlet of guidelines. In order to be handled more efficiently, the question of scale might call for stronger
and more democratic regional planning instruments.
Acknowledgements
This article has benefitted from encouragement, criticism and comments from Katarina
Nylund, Guy Baeten, Bengt Holmberg, Eva Kristensson and Nora Rathzel. The supportive
suggestions of the anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. The work reported in
this article was financed by the Swedish research council FORMAS.
Notes
1. Sustainability and scale have been addressed on much larger scales elsewhere, e.g. discussing how political issues can be set at a global scale, depoliticizing or repudiating the activities taking place on a
national or local scale (Baeten, 2000). Although the effects of the built environment might indeed take
us to a global level (and a network context) I constrain myself in this article to the regional level. See
also Marcotullio and McGranahan (2007) on scaling urban environmental challenges on both local and
global levels.
2. For diagrams on how different building types relate to the number of storeys, floor space index and density
ratio, see Radberg and Johansson (1997, p. 75) and Berghauser Pont and Haupt (2007).
3. Typical statements include, e.g.: the city that affords a good life is also a sustainable city (Staden som
erbjuder ett gott liv ar ocksa den hallbara staden) (Malmo, Hallbarhet 2005, p. 12), or High architectural
quality is a good starting point for designing sustainable buildings (s13). Such statements do not say
much, and the little they say could easily be criticized, e.g. by asking: is a good life always sustainable?
(my guess is not, if you do not set good sustainable, in which case the sentence becomes nonsense).

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Appendix. Planning Documents, etc.

versiktsplan for Malmo 2000, Arbetsprogram, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2003.
Aktualisering av O
Att bo och arbeta i Skane, Region Skane 2006.
Karaktar Malmo, Handlingsprogram for Arkitektur och Stadbyggnad i Malmo, 14, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2005.
[M1] Mal och strategier, Dialog-pm 2004:1, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.
[M2] Stadsbyggande och farligt gods, Dialog-pm 2004:2, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.
[M3] Malmos stationsnara omraden, Dialog-pm 2004:3, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.
[M4] Miljokvalitetsnormer, Dialog-pm 2004:4, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.
[M5] Battre forutsattningar for naringslivet, Dialog-pm 2004:5, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.
[M6] Fran Varnhem till Dalaplan, Dalog-pm 2004:6, Malmo Stasbyggnadskontor 2004.
[M7] Regional strategi for Malmo, Dialog-pm 2004:7, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.
[M8] Fran Triangeln till Heleneholm, Dialog-pm 2004:8, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.

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[M9] Hyllievang och sodra Malmo, Dialog-pm 2004:9, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontoret 2004.
[M10] Mer och battre Innerstad, Dialog-pm 2004:10, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2004.
Malmo 2005, Aktualisering och komplettering av Malmos oversiktsplan, Antagen februari 2006, Malmo
Stadsbyggnadskontor 2006.
Malmo hallbahet blir verklighet, Malmo stad och ISU, Malmo 2008.
Moten i Staden, Dialog-pm 2006:1, Malmo Stadbyggnadskontor 2006.
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Planering, Information fran Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor, nr 2 2006.
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SSSV och tilvaxten, Stadskontoret Malmo 2008.l.
Vision Norra Sorgenfri infor omvandling och planarbete, Malmo Stadsbyggnadskontor 2006.
Vagverket, (2006), Tatortsnara externa affarsetableringartillganglighet och utslapp. Publikation 2006:83,
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2008:34, Borlange.

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