ABSTRACT
Why is it so difficult to achieve sustainable urban development? In this chapter, I elaborate one answer from a political perspective based on the ongoing attempts in Stockholm to transform a centrally located area into a nature reserve. My starting assumption is that the political parties in the city government have different ideas about what sustainable urban development means, and my observation is that social sustainability commonly garners stronger political support than does ecological sustainability.
The approximately 70-hectare site of Årstaskogen in Stockholm was to be classified as a nature reserve in 2018, 25 years after the first initiative to do this. It proved difficult since there was little political support to ‘only’ protect ecological values without also making land available for new housing. The department for land use development and the planning department, together with the environmental department, assessed how the boundaries of the reserve should be drawn. The resulting proposition of how to draw the boundaries was experienced as arbitrary by the inhabitants who expressed concerns about ecological sustainability being placed in opposition to social sustainability. The political majority required the boundaries to be redrawn, but found it difficult to take responsibility for the decision to create a nature reserve, and distrust grew. My conclusion is that with more solid foundations for the decision, this outcome could have been avoided.
