Regulatory Power,Network Tools and Market Behaviour: Transforming Practices in Norwegian Urban Planning

Planning changes can be initiated formally through revisions of statutory rules; alternatively changes can arise informally through amendments to everyday planning activities. This article explains how local planning authorities in Norway introduce new planning practices relating to the management of land and planning procedures. The observed new practices have been introduced even though the formal hierarchical structure of the planning law has stayed unchanged. They are analysed as outcomes of the changing use of tools under the three models for co-ordinating behaviour: hierarchy understood as government, market and network. First, the existing planning system is analysed to explain the legal possibilities for changing planning practices informally. Two categories of practices are then discussed: the use of the detailed development plan as an implementation instrument, and the use of the regulatory power in framing interconnections and responsibilities towards stakeholders. The main conclusion is that regulatory tools have lost some strength in favour of tools under the network model, and that the observed changes in planning practices are mostly a result of mutual dependencies between these two models for co-ordinating behaviour.