Currently I am involved in the following courses:

Theoretical Perspectives on Planning, 7.5 ECTS (Master-level, course leader)

Field Project in Urban and Regional Planning, 7.5 ECTS (Master-level)

Spatial Planning Across Europe, 7.5 ECTS (Master-level, course leader)

Samhällsplaneringens grunder, 7.5 ECTS (Bachelor-level)

Samhällsplaneringens organisation, 7.5 ECTS (Bachelor-level, course leader)

Samhällsplaneringens processer, 7.5 ECTS (Bachelor-level)

Urban Governance, 7.5 ECTS (Bachelor-level) 

Supervision of Master and Bachelor Thesis

Current research projects and related activities:

Sustainable Transitions. Action Research and Training in Urban Perspective (STARTUP), 2025-2028, funded by HORIZON EUROPE

Regional planning cultures – institutional changes and place-based practices for a sustainable future (2024-2026), funding organization: FORMAS – A Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development

Planners as agents for the transition towards sustainable cities and regions – implications for future needs in expertise and education (PLANTS), 2021-2025, funding organization: FORMAS – A Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development

Regonal planning for sustainable land-use (2023-2024), funded by Region Stockholm

Beyond the process - Finding common ground for a discussion on planning’s substantial foundation (2020-2024), Member of International Working Group, facilitated by the the Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (ARL)

Geography of Governance (2020-2024), Commission of the International Geographic Union (IGU), Elected Member of Steering Committee

ARL – Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association, Member and active in different working formats 

AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning), contact person at the Department

Editorial Board Member: European Journal of Spatial Development, Planning Practice & Research

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Spatial Planning Systems in Europe: Comparison and Trajectories

  2024. Vincent Nadin, Giancarlo Cotella, Peter Schmitt.

  Book

  This insightful book provides a comprehensive and comparative account of the current state and trajectories of spatial planning in 32 European countries. The book also explains how European governments are reforming spatial planning to meet new challenges, and how the European Union and its Cohesion Policy have shaped change through the Europeanisation of territorial governance.

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• Rum för experiment: Regional planering för hållbar markanvändning i Stockholm

  2024. Lukas Smas, Peter Schmitt.

  Report

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• Towards just planning: on the relationship between procedural and distributive justice in local development actions

  2024. Peter Schmitt, Sabine Weck. Planning practice + research

  Article

  Though scholars often argue that the relationship between procedural and distributive justice is crucial in planning practice, conceptual and empirical contributions are rare in the literature. In this paper, we suggest an analytical framework to better understand how procedural and distributive justice are interrelated in local development actions. Drawing on empirical findings from 22 case studies across Europe we identify promoting and inhibiting factors influencing the relationship between procedural and distributive justice. The paper contributes to linking the conceptual discourse of justice in planning to the analysis of actual local cases by focussing on a number of dimensions and categories.

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• Disclosing the Logics of Non-Statutory Regional Planning: The Case of Sweden

  2024. Hilda Bergkvist Andersson, Peter Schmitt. European Planning Studies

  Article

  In many European countries, regional planning is an established institutional framework. In recent years we have observed a resurgent research interest in regional planning with a specific focus on governance and institutional design and on the strategic and practical relevance of regional planning in pursuing sustainable development. However, in Sweden, regional planning traditionally has a weak position in practice as well as in research. Yet over the past 15 years, we have seen an increasing political interest in experimenting with different forms and formats of regional planning. In this paper, we explore the emerging logics of non-statutory regional planning, which the majority of Swedish regions have chosen. Drawing upon a qualitative research design we identify, compare and discuss three different logics and their inherent rationales, practices, challenges and prospects. Our analysis shows that our three case regions can do very little non-statutory regional planning unless they are part of properly working multi-level networks, and have well-established regional informal arenas for interaction and political backing. More specifically, we point at a number of tensions caused by the large degree of freedom to design non-statutory regional planning, which foster conflicts, confusion and insecurity.

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• Educating planning professionals to promote the transformation towards carbon-free cities and regions – a survey of planning schools in Europe

  2024. Peter Schmitt, Dick Magnusson. Planning practice + research

  Article

  In this paper we address the question of whether academic educational planning programmes are prepared to provide future planning professionals with the essential expertise to promote the transformation towards carbon-free cities and regions. Drawing upon interviews with master’s programme directors and involved academic teachers from European schools of planning, we argue that in view of transformative planning there is a need for adjustments in terms of knowledge areas and methodological skills. Our results also suggest reconsideration of normative and ethical aspects of planning as well as the attributed roles of planners and planning educators.

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• Do new brooms sweep clean? Striving for ‘A Just Europe’ in the Territorial Agenda 2030

  2023. Estelle Evrard, Peter Schmitt. European Planning Studies

  Article

  The Territorial Agenda 2030, adopted in December 2020, introduces a new policy frame: that of ‘A Just Europe’. This intergovernmental policy document is intended to guide territorial cohesion policy and strategic spatial planning in and across the EU member states. But what does the adjective ‘just’ mean and to what extent can it become operational? Drawing on text analysis and expert interviews, the paper investigates the rationales and expectations underpinning this policy frame. It firstly contextualizes the policy frame of ‘a Just Europe’ within the policy and academic debates on spatial justice and territorial cohesion, and positions the Territorial Agenda 2030 against the backdrop of its forerunners. The analysis demonstrates that instead of guiding measures, the Territorial Agenda 2030, like its forerunners, essentially has a diagnostic and to some extent also a motivational function to mobilize policy actions. We do however identify and discuss three rather novel conditions which, unlike those of its forerunners, may revitalize the European spatial planning discourse. This contribution demonstrates that spatial justice is an inspiring notion to critically reflect on the current and future character and potentials of European spatial planning in general and territorial cohesion policy in particular.

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• Sweden

  2023. Peter Schmitt.

  Other

  Samhällsplanering is the Swedish term for spatial planning. Although the word samhälle may be translated to English as society, in the Swedish context the term even includes the notion of community as well as settlement, village, town or suburb and thus also the physical and spatial dimension. Since housing played a central role in the Swedish welfare state, the term samhällsplanering became increasingly important in the time of the so-called Million Homes Programme, a public housing programme implemented between 1965 and 1974. To this day, the Swedish Planning Association is therefore called Föreningen för Samhällsplanering.

  Read more about the Swedish planning system at https://www.arl-international.com/knowledge/country-profiles/sweden. 

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• Approaching spatial justice in local development actions: A European comparative perspective on promoters, inhibitors, and achievements

  2023. Peter Schmitt, Sabine Weck. Spatial Justice and Cohesion, 49-71

  Chapter

  This chapter discusses findings stemming from more than twenty case studies which analysed how spatial justice is achieved in practice across Europe. We identify and discuss generic types of promoters and inhibitors that became evident across these local and regional case studies and set these in context with the achieved outcomes. More specifically, we distil the factors that enhance or limit local abilities to articulate needs and realise concrete outcomes as well as local capacities for exploiting the opportunities given by the action and the eventually induced policy changes across places and time. Drawing upon a further analysis of five cases, we then test the hypothesis in how far ‘appropriate and fair’ procedures and mechanisms to ensure participation and accountability are key for a fair (or better) distribution of resources and opportunities. In conclusion, we discuss from a European perspective policy failures, lessons and prospects in approaching spatial justice in practice.

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• Region + planering = regionplanering – en komplicerad ekvation

  2022. Lukas Smas, Peter Schmitt. Regioner och regional utveckling i en föränderlig tid, 43-62

  Chapter

  I detta kapitel undersöker vi regional planering som generell företeelse och den svenska regionala planeringens besynnerligheter. Med utgångspunkt i detta är syftet med kapitlet att klargöra varför regional planering är en så komplicerad ekvation i Sverige idag.

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• Place-based development and spatial justice

  2021. Sabine Weck, Ali Madanipour, Peter Schmitt. European Planning Studies

  Article

  Within EU cohesion policy, a place-based approach is expected to promote a strategic shift towards more place-sensitive, cross-sectoral and socially inclusive development. These expectations are underlined in the new Territorial Agenda 2030, which highlights that a place-based approach is key to territorial cohesion and to overall efforts towards a just Europe. Drawing on findings from the Horizon 2020 project RELOCAL – Resituating the local in cohesion and territorial development – this special issue explores the relations between place-based development and spatial justice. It addresses the complex challenges of place-based interventions, such as the critical role of the national policy environment in explaining variegated outcomes, enabling place-based agency in peripheralised regions, and assessing impacts. In this editorial, we provide an introductory discussion of the relations between place-based development and spatial justice, as well as brief introductions to the nine papers. We argue that there are a number of distinctive locally and nationally anchored mechanisms and inhibitors at play, which academics, and particularly planning professionals and policy-makers, need to be aware of in working towards a just Europe. Hence, place-based interventions are a valuable contribution to the territorial cohesion approach of the EU, but in the quest for spatial justice they cannot replace a redistributive territorial cohesion policy. 

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• Knowledge and place-based development – towards networks of deep learning

  2021. Thomas Borén, Peter Schmitt. European Planning Studies

  Article

  The influential work by Barca on place-based development, which has permeated policy and academic discourses alike in recent years, builds on the premise that localities are expected to utilize their endogenous potential rather than placing their trust in redistributive policies. This endogenous potential involves local knowledge and place-based knowledge, and how these two types can tap into actions. This has barely been explored in a systematic and comparative manner. This paper therefore examines 20 urban and rural development actions across Europe in order to understand how, and the extent to which, local knowledge and place-based knowledge are mobilized (or not). It makes use of empirically informed evidence to identify evolving mechanisms and to analyse how learning loops are triggered. We argue that it is crucial for leading actors in such development actions to pay attention to these different mechanisms of mobilizing these two types of knowledge and how to trigger learning loops. Since this analysis also highlights a number of shortcomings and inhibitors regarding the extent to which these collective knowledge and learning capacities actually inform actions over time, the concept of ‘networks of deep learning’ is suggested as a knowledge management principle for key actors in local governance.

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• Spatial framing within EU Cohesion Policy and spatial planning

  2021. Eva Purkarthofer, Peter Schmitt. EU Cohesion Policy and Spatial Governance, 31-47

  Chapter

  This chapter addresses the processes of spatial framing underlying EU Regional Policy and spatial planning in the EU member states, which shape the spatial delineations of programmes, plans and projects. While administrative, fixed and hard spaces continue to exist and to be relevant for both policy fields, functional, flexible and soft spaces are gaining importance. Despite these parallel developments, the two policy fields remain disconnected due to their unique origins, different policy rationales, varying logics of implementation as well as prevailing political concerns. However, we understand the developments towards functional and soft spaces as yet another opportunity to establish stronger links between EU Regional Policy and spatial planning in the member states. A stronger integration could help to strengthen the territorial perspective in EU Regional Policy, to provide financial resources for the achievement of strategic objectives in planning, and to harmonise different sectoral policies under the umbrella of spatial planning.

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• Dissolution Rather than Consolidation - Questioning the Existence of the Comprehensive-Integrative Planning Model

  2020. Peter Schmitt, Lukas Smas. Planning practice + research

  Article

  Previous research has shown that the comprehensive-integrative planning model seems to be expedient for modernising planning systems, specifically regarding the relation between spatial planning and sectoral policies. However, contemporary, and particularly comparable studies are non-existent. Based on empirical findings from a European research project our comparative analysis explores whether spatial planning in nine countries conforms to key features of this idealised planning model. Our analysis reveals discrepancies regarding how spatial planning is positioned in relation to sectoral policies across the various countries. We argue that this planning model appears rather to be in a state of dissolution than of consolidation.

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• Positioning regional planning across Europe

  2020. Lukas Smas, Peter Schmitt. Regional studies

  Article

  Many scholars argue that regional planning has lost its political significance and practical relevance in recent years. Based on a comparative analysis of formal regional planning in eight European countries, this study questions and nuances this view. It is concluded that the institutional conditions for regional planning are still extensive and have been adapted to changing contexts since the year 2000, but along different pathways across the analysed countries. The investigation highlights that multiple forms of planning regions have been incorporated in the planning systems through multipurpose planning instruments that have further added to the existing dynamic and diversified regional planning landscape across Europe.

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• Learning from elsewhere? A critical account on the mobilization of metropolitan policies

  2020. Peter Schmitt. Metropolitan Regions, Planning and Governance, 79-95

  Chapter

  This chapter discusses the emerging body of literature on the mobilities of metropolitan policies since the 1980s. It will achieve this by reviewing the various directions of research and by identifying a number of implications of when such policies are mobilised and eventually land in a given metropolitan area or city, respectively. A tentative typology on the movement of different types of urban/metropolitan policies is suggested that intends to kick off a debate on whether we can distinguish the degrees of visibility, transferability and mutability between these different types of policies. The chapter finalises with some concluding observations concerning the current state of the study of the mobilisation of metropolitan policies and by pointing out some avenues for future research. The key contribution of this chapter is an overview of the conceptual, empirical and historical literature about the mobilisation of metropolitan policies within urban and planning studies.

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• Shifting Political Conditions for Spatial Planning in the Nordic Countries

  2019. Peter Schmitt, Lukas Smas. Politics and Conflict in Governance and Planning, 133-150

  Chapter

  The political conditions for spatial planning in the Nordic countries are changing in multiple directions. This chapter investigates recent shifts and trajectories of change in spatial planning in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The focus is on the politics behind these recent shifts and the induced rescaling processes and modification of spatial planning instruments. The chapter provides at first a background on the so-called Nordic model, the different political-administrative structures in the Nordic countries and recent changes in regard to the political conditions for spatial planning. After that, we review the shifts in the spatial planning systems in the countries with a particular focus on the spatial planning instruments in the last 15 years. This is followed by a section in which we compare a number of further trajectories related to spatial planning. In the concluding discussion, we take up the post-political question in order to reflect upon to what extent we can identify signifiers towards either depoliticization or even repoliticization in regard to spatial planning in the Nordic countries.

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• Mobilising post-political environments

  2019. Toni Adscheid, Peter Schmitt. Urban Research and Practice

  Article

  This paper develops an analytical framework from which to understand the mobilisation of post-political urban environments across spatial and institutional contexts. Our analysis of two closely related cases from a Swedish context reveals the potential benefits of combining studies on urban political ecology and policy mobility. By utilising Actor-Network Theory (ANT) we illustrate how post-political environments that are shaped by mobile and mutating policies of sustainable urban development are stabilised through distinct discursive strategies, capital investments and the desire for increased influence within global frames of action and contribute to the creation of, what we call, selective geographies.

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• Unpacking Spatial Planning as the Governance of Place

  2018. Peter Schmitt, Thorsten Wiechmann. DISP 54 (4), 21-33

  Article

  Since the 1990s, the concept of governance has become an integral element of spatial planning research. In this article, we revisit some of the key contributions to the literature to discuss how and to what extent governance theory has informed planning theory so far and what the implications are for our understanding of how to construe planning practices. Next, we examine the current governance literature in order to identify promising elements that can further inform planning theory and practice. More specifically, we discuss relations between hybrid modes of governance in regard to cross-sectoral coordination of actors and institutions, and the implications of various forms of learning within governance networks. Finally, we suggest entry points for planning research such as studying the combination and the interplay of various modes of governance to understand the inherent functioning of spatial planning assemblages, or investigating the learning capacity of actors and institutions in order to anticipate their adaptive capacity to respond to changing contexts in spatial planning practice. However, we also point out a few, but troublesome implications. One of them is that planning understood as the governance of place might imply that the term ‘planning’ as such becomes meaningless and that planning theory might turn into a subsection of (institutional) political theory. The article serves as a framing text for this special issue as it addresses a number of key elements and underlying concepts of the governance literature that are relevant for understanding the procedural dimension of spatial planning and which underpin some of the issues that are addressed in the more case study-based contributions by the other authors.

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Show all publications by Peter Schmitt at Stockholm University