Kristian Olesen
Biographic Data
| ID | 4896034 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kristian Olesen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kristian |
| FAMILY NAME | Olesen |
| SIGNATURE | OLESEN K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aalborg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1318-6807 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
How urban planning can reduce energy consumption – Eight Planning Principles
Considerable research efforts and academic discussions have recently focused on how Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) can be developed as stepping stones towards realizing larger political ambitions of transitioning cities into climate neutrality. To date, the research agenda on PEDs has remained rather technical and energy-oriented, focussing on how renewable energy technologies and infrastructures can be implemented at the district level to incr…
Mainstreaming marginalized neighbourhoods: Resident experiences of non-profit housing transformation in Copenhagen, Denmark
As urban governance has been broadly neoliberalized since the 1990s, the social housing sector in Europe has undergone a transition. As part of this change, some social housing areas are problematized as ‘failed estates’ and targeted by neoliberal urban redevelopment policies. In this politico-discursive environment, housing associations increasingly act as entrepreneurial urban developers under the influence of neoliberal policies and discourses…
The neoliberalization of housing policy and social housing provision in the Nordics: Convergence or Continued Variegation
In the last 30–40 years, the role(s) of social housing providers have changed in many European countries from being welfare-oriented and oftentimes non-profit organizations, to being hybrid organizations that combine the traditional philanthropic agenda with a more strategic organizational setup and mindset. These changes are often seen as responses to the retrenchment of housing policies and ideological attacks on the social housing sector, view…
Housing Associations as Urban Entrepreneurs? A New Role for Housing Associations in Danish Urban Governance
This article explores the changing role of housing associations in Denmark. We suggest that an ongoing neoliberalization of urban governance in Denmark has produced new conditions of existence for housing associations, and influenced the kind of strategies they are able to enact. Using the case of Himmerland Housing Association in Aalborg, we show how housing associations are becoming more “entrepreneurial” actors in urban governance, informed by…
Solutions in search of a problem: Opening policy windows for Business Improvement Districts in the Nordic countries
Policy mobility literature invites us to consider the power-laden processes of how urban policies are exported, mimicked, and transformed in different urban contexts. However, recent critique has highlighted the need for a fuller understanding of urban policy context to understand where and when policies come to be implemented in new settings and how they are transformed. The purpose of this study is to explore understandings of urban policy cont…
Reviving strategic spatial planning for the challenges ahead
This paper discusses the future challenges of strategic spatial planning in Europe in the coming decades. The paper argues that one of the core challenges for strategic spatial planning is to regain its political legitimacy. Strategic spatial planning has increasingly lost its political support after the global financial crisis in 2007–2008 and a decade of austerity policies. Strategic spatial planning must make itself relevant again by addressin…
Unsettling the Copenhagen Finger Plan: Towards neoliberalization of a planning doctrine
The Finger Plan has guided the spatial development of the Greater Copenhagen Area for more than 70 years, constituting a planning doctrine in Danish spatial planning. However, recently the Finger Plan has come under attack from the liberal Danish Government (2015–2019), who implemented a number of initiatives to deregulate spatial planning in Denmark, most significantly through a ‘modernised’ Planning Act. As part of this process, the Finger Plan…
Infrastructure imaginaries: The politics of light rail projects in the age of neoliberalism
In the last decade light rail transit systems have become a popular mode of public transport in many cities around the world to upgrade the existing public transportation network, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to support neoliberal urban development strategies. The paper takes its starting point in the growing critical literature discussing the politics of light rail and related transport infrastructure projects in the context of neolib…
Introducing business regions in Denmark: The ‘businessification’ of strategic spatial planning
This paper explores the driving forces behind the promotion of new soft spaces of territorial governance in Denmark at the scale of city regions, the so-called business regions. We interpret the emergence of business regions as outcomes of the most recent round of reterritorialisation in Denmark, producing new spaces for promoting neoliberal policy agendas of competitiveness, job creation and economic growth. We argue that the business regions sh…
Artefactual anchoring’ of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling
This article examines the coordinative capacity of strategic spatial planning conducted as persuasive storytelling. It suggests that spatial imaginaries and metaphors developed in storytelling gain coordinative capacity when they perform as boundary objects. Boundary objects are conceptually flexible to lend themselves to the stakeholders’ varying interpretations, and artefactually robust to provide joint targets and tools for coordinated strateg…
Towards business improvement districts in Denmark: Translating a neoliberal urban intervention model into the Nordic context
This paper investigates how business improvement districts (BIDs) are translated into a Danish context. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines the concepts of travelling ideas, mobile urbanism and neoliberalisation, this paper explores how an actor-network is being constructed to mobilise support for a BID pilot scheme in Denmark. The introduction of BID-inspired concepts in Denmark represents an illustrative case of how mobile urban po…
Planning as a barrier for growth: Analysing storylines on the reform of the Danish Planning Act
In this paper, we investigate how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has been structured in the public debate in Denmark, and how this discourse has created a political pressure to reform the Planning Act. We identify three main storylines, which support the discourse that planning constitutes a barrier for growth in the most rural areas of Denmark, framed as ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public debate. We argue that the contemporary criti…
The neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning
Strategic spatial planning practices have recently taken a neoliberal turn in many northwestern European countries. This neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning has materialised partly in governance reforms aiming to reduce or abolish strategic spatial planning at national and regional scales, and partly through the normalisation of neoliberal discourses in strategic spatial planning processes. This article analyses the complex relationsh…
The neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning
Strategic spatial planning practices have recently taken a neoliberal turn in many northwestern European countries. This neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning has materialised partly in governance reforms aiming to reduce or abolish strategic spatial planning at national and regional scales, and partly through the normalisation of neoliberal discourses in strategic spatial planning processes. This article analyses the complex relationsh…
Infrastructure imaginaries: The politics of light rail projects in the age of neoliberalism
In the last decade light rail transit systems have become a popular mode of public transport in many cities around the world to upgrade the existing public transportation network, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to support neoliberal urban development strategies. The paper takes its starting point in the growing critical literature discussing the politics of light rail and related transport infrastructure projects in the context of neolib…
Towards business improvement districts in Denmark: Translating a neoliberal urban intervention model into the Nordic context
This paper investigates how business improvement districts (BIDs) are translated into a Danish context. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines the concepts of travelling ideas, mobile urbanism and neoliberalisation, this paper explores how an actor-network is being constructed to mobilise support for a BID pilot scheme in Denmark. The introduction of BID-inspired concepts in Denmark represents an illustrative case of how mobile urban po…
Planning as a barrier for growth: Analysing storylines on the reform of the Danish Planning Act
In this paper, we investigate how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has been structured in the public debate in Denmark, and how this discourse has created a political pressure to reform the Planning Act. We identify three main storylines, which support the discourse that planning constitutes a barrier for growth in the most rural areas of Denmark, framed as ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public debate. We argue that the contemporary criti…
Artefactual anchoring’ of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling
This article examines the coordinative capacity of strategic spatial planning conducted as persuasive storytelling. It suggests that spatial imaginaries and metaphors developed in storytelling gain coordinative capacity when they perform as boundary objects. Boundary objects are conceptually flexible to lend themselves to the stakeholders’ varying interpretations, and artefactually robust to provide joint targets and tools for coordinated strateg…
The neoliberalization of housing policy and social housing provision in the Nordics: Convergence or Continued Variegation
In the last 30–40 years, the role(s) of social housing providers have changed in many European countries from being welfare-oriented and oftentimes non-profit organizations, to being hybrid organizations that combine the traditional philanthropic agenda with a more strategic organizational setup and mindset. These changes are often seen as responses to the retrenchment of housing policies and ideological attacks on the social housing sector, view…
Solutions in search of a problem: Opening policy windows for Business Improvement Districts in the Nordic countries
Policy mobility literature invites us to consider the power-laden processes of how urban policies are exported, mimicked, and transformed in different urban contexts. However, recent critique has highlighted the need for a fuller understanding of urban policy context to understand where and when policies come to be implemented in new settings and how they are transformed. The purpose of this study is to explore understandings of urban policy cont…
Introducing business regions in Denmark: The ‘businessification’ of strategic spatial planning
This paper explores the driving forces behind the promotion of new soft spaces of territorial governance in Denmark at the scale of city regions, the so-called business regions. We interpret the emergence of business regions as outcomes of the most recent round of reterritorialisation in Denmark, producing new spaces for promoting neoliberal policy agendas of competitiveness, job creation and economic growth. We argue that the business regions sh…
The neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning
Strategic spatial planning practices have recently taken a neoliberal turn in many northwestern European countries. This neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning has materialised partly in governance reforms aiming to reduce or abolish strategic spatial planning at national and regional scales, and partly through the normalisation of neoliberal discourses in strategic spatial planning processes. This article analyses the complex relationsh…
Planning as a barrier for growth: Analysing storylines on the reform of the Danish Planning Act
In this paper, we investigate how the discourse ‘planning as a barrier for growth’ has been structured in the public debate in Denmark, and how this discourse has created a political pressure to reform the Planning Act. We identify three main storylines, which support the discourse that planning constitutes a barrier for growth in the most rural areas of Denmark, framed as ‘Outer Denmark’ in the public debate. We argue that the contemporary criti…
Towards business improvement districts in Denmark: Translating a neoliberal urban intervention model into the Nordic context
This paper investigates how business improvement districts (BIDs) are translated into a Danish context. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines the concepts of travelling ideas, mobile urbanism and neoliberalisation, this paper explores how an actor-network is being constructed to mobilise support for a BID pilot scheme in Denmark. The introduction of BID-inspired concepts in Denmark represents an illustrative case of how mobile urban po…
Introducing business regions in Denmark: The ‘businessification’ of strategic spatial planning
This paper explores the driving forces behind the promotion of new soft spaces of territorial governance in Denmark at the scale of city regions, the so-called business regions. We interpret the emergence of business regions as outcomes of the most recent round of reterritorialisation in Denmark, producing new spaces for promoting neoliberal policy agendas of competitiveness, job creation and economic growth. We argue that the business regions sh…
Artefactual anchoring’ of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling
This article examines the coordinative capacity of strategic spatial planning conducted as persuasive storytelling. It suggests that spatial imaginaries and metaphors developed in storytelling gain coordinative capacity when they perform as boundary objects. Boundary objects are conceptually flexible to lend themselves to the stakeholders’ varying interpretations, and artefactually robust to provide joint targets and tools for coordinated strateg…
Infrastructure imaginaries: The politics of light rail projects in the age of neoliberalism
In the last decade light rail transit systems have become a popular mode of public transport in many cities around the world to upgrade the existing public transportation network, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to support neoliberal urban development strategies. The paper takes its starting point in the growing critical literature discussing the politics of light rail and related transport infrastructure projects in the context of neolib…
Unsettling the Copenhagen Finger Plan: Towards neoliberalization of a planning doctrine
The Finger Plan has guided the spatial development of the Greater Copenhagen Area for more than 70 years, constituting a planning doctrine in Danish spatial planning. However, recently the Finger Plan has come under attack from the liberal Danish Government (2015–2019), who implemented a number of initiatives to deregulate spatial planning in Denmark, most significantly through a ‘modernised’ Planning Act. As part of this process, the Finger Plan…
Reviving strategic spatial planning for the challenges ahead
This paper discusses the future challenges of strategic spatial planning in Europe in the coming decades. The paper argues that one of the core challenges for strategic spatial planning is to regain its political legitimacy. Strategic spatial planning has increasingly lost its political support after the global financial crisis in 2007–2008 and a decade of austerity policies. Strategic spatial planning must make itself relevant again by addressin…
Solutions in search of a problem: Opening policy windows for Business Improvement Districts in the Nordic countries
Policy mobility literature invites us to consider the power-laden processes of how urban policies are exported, mimicked, and transformed in different urban contexts. However, recent critique has highlighted the need for a fuller understanding of urban policy context to understand where and when policies come to be implemented in new settings and how they are transformed. The purpose of this study is to explore understandings of urban policy cont…
Housing Associations as Urban Entrepreneurs? A New Role for Housing Associations in Danish Urban Governance
This article explores the changing role of housing associations in Denmark. We suggest that an ongoing neoliberalization of urban governance in Denmark has produced new conditions of existence for housing associations, and influenced the kind of strategies they are able to enact. Using the case of Himmerland Housing Association in Aalborg, we show how housing associations are becoming more “entrepreneurial” actors in urban governance, informed by…
How urban planning can reduce energy consumption – Eight Planning Principles
Considerable research efforts and academic discussions have recently focused on how Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) can be developed as stepping stones towards realizing larger political ambitions of transitioning cities into climate neutrality. To date, the research agenda on PEDs has remained rather technical and energy-oriented, focussing on how renewable energy technologies and infrastructures can be implemented at the district level to incr…
Mainstreaming marginalized neighbourhoods: Resident experiences of non-profit housing transformation in Copenhagen, Denmark
As urban governance has been broadly neoliberalized since the 1990s, the social housing sector in Europe has undergone a transition. As part of this change, some social housing areas are problematized as ‘failed estates’ and targeted by neoliberal urban redevelopment policies. In this politico-discursive environment, housing associations increasingly act as entrepreneurial urban developers under the influence of neoliberal policies and discourses…
The neoliberalization of housing policy and social housing provision in the Nordics: Convergence or Continued Variegation
In the last 30–40 years, the role(s) of social housing providers have changed in many European countries from being welfare-oriented and oftentimes non-profit organizations, to being hybrid organizations that combine the traditional philanthropic agenda with a more strategic organizational setup and mindset. These changes are often seen as responses to the retrenchment of housing policies and ideological attacks on the social housing sector, view…
Political science (10 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (9 works) · Economics (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Geography (6 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Spatial planning (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Context (archaeology (4 works)