Multifaceted municipal pop-up planning : A case-study analysis of Vancouver, Canada and Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: This thesis is born out of a desire to better understand the intentions and implications behind a contemporary planning approach we term ‘pop-up planning’. This approach can be viewed as legitimized planning institutions borrowing aesthetic and practice from citizen-led, do-it-yourself urban initiatives which act to improve public space through often tactical or temporary means. There is a blurring of the intentionality behind pop-up planning approaches, as well as contention around the actual impacts pop-up planning approaches have. We relate the ambiguity of the intentions and impacts of pop-up planning approaches to both the diversity of terminology used by different local governments, and additionally, to the dominant economic imperative which favours exchange value over use value. Therefore, through a comparative critical analysis of pop-up planning in both Vancouver, Canada and Stockholm, Sweden, we seek to explore what implications pop-up planning has relating to democracy and social justice, and to uncover what impacts and intentionalities lay behind these approaches.