Planning for a sustainble community, the curious case of Lund Northeast / Brunnshög

Abstract: We’re living in a time where more and more evidence of our impact on the environment appears every day. A lot of resource and time have been spent in order to identify and inform about the ecological footprint us humans enlarge day by day. The realization of human impact on the environment introduced large scale research and UN reports on the subject and a definition and goal to strive after was established as late as 1987 in the Brundtland report. Since its introduction the development have gone far and now it’s generally understood that the terminology of sustainability should be regarded as a three-way ‘sphere’ where the concepts of ecological, economic and social sustainability is regarded as unified, coherent and equally important if one want to define sustainability in the 21st century. The goal to become ‘sustainable’ has suddenly developed into a whole franchise with different agents competing for the throne. Several new urban development projects have seen daylight only during the last ten years in Sweden, and all of them are trying to implement different actions in order to showcase their aim for sustainability. In the southern part of Sweden a new major urban development project is taking shape. The city of Lund mostly known for its University and high concentration of research heavy industry has been selected for location two new research facilities. The area of Brunnshög will not only host the two facilities but also to a vast range of housing and workplaces alongside connected services. One of the main aims presented in the comprehensive plan is to create a world leading community for sustainability. This paper seeks to identify the planning processes that will create a sustainable community and evaluate if they will be a success. The analysis will be based on the comprehensive plan trying to outlining whether or not the plan will incorporate the concept of sustainability according to the sustainability triangle. Planning has and always will be influenced by various ideals (The creative class, the mixed city concept etc), the paper will summarize key elements in urban planning and the conflict of interests that may arise. Results points on a ‘prioritizing schedule’ that promotes some aspects of sustainability over the other ones, is it possible to plan accordingly to current sustainability norm?