A Risk Worth Taking? : A Qualitative Study Regarding Risk and the Refurbishment of the Swedish Civil Defense Shelter System and its Effect on Urban Planning

Abstract: This thesis investigates how risk can be seen within urban planning, with a particular focus on the Swedish civil defense shelter system. The research is conducted as a case study, with methods based on interviews with affected actors together with documents and reports regarding the Swedish shelter system. Thereof the main empirical data are collected as of interviews. The interviews set out to find how responsibilities within the civil defense shelter system are viewed and how this, in turn, affects urban planning. By doing this the specific risks associated with a refurbished civil defense shelter system are analysed from interviews, official documents, and reports as well as laws. With the analysis, it is concluded that Sweden’s civil defense, and especially the shelter system, were something that was a huge political endeavor and built up from the end of World War II until the 1990s. At the beginning of the 2000s civil defense was disbanded in Sweden, but shelters were still to be maintained by property owners and municipalities. And the disbandment took place over just a few years until it was decided to refurbish Sweden’s civil defense in 2015. This see-saw of events is argued to have led to vague guidelines for municipalities and property owners as to what to do with, and how to care for existing shelters. Something that the interviewed actors also pointed out. Shelters are argued to be put in place as a response to the risk of an armed attack on the civilian population. The shelter system and its accompanying regulations are argued to have an effect on planning practices as well as actors throughout the whole society. Further on it is argued that the decentralisation process that has taken place in the Swedish society and led to a more communicative way of planning clashes with civil defense questions in urban planning. As decisions regarding civil defense and its shelter system is a matter of national interest and therefore surpasses any other interests and are therefore argued to be more in line with rational planning.