Scenario construction for urban planning

There exists a substantial amount of literature on visionary urban futures. These scenarios over the urban futures have been interesting attempts to inform professional planners and futurologists as to the rich variety of alternative physical-spatial developments ahead. They have, however, been based on the prospect of large-scale urban growth and are not relevant for the slow or no growth conditions which characterize many cities and towns in Sweden and in other Western countries. The paper presents one method for constructing alternative urban scenarios under economic and political uncertainty. The method has been applied by the urban government in Västerås, Sweden. The paper is divided into six sections. The introductory section includes a very brief discussion of urban visions and their relevance for current urban planning problems. The second section contains a brief review of the Swedish urban planning system. In the third section the author discusses some conceptual and methodological issues in constructing scenarios. The fourth section contains the Västerås method for constructing scenarios which requires the participation of decision-makers and planners in order to ensure the implementation of development strategies outlined in the scenarios. The fifth section discusses the use of scenarios in urban planning in Västerås. A discussion of the operational and methodological problems and suggestions of key issues for further research are put forward in the concluding section.