ABSTRACT
Throughout the urban Arctic, systems of exchange fueled by urbanization, regional dynamism, land commodification, and unilateral economic and spatial policy frameworks are shaping new balances of power in the built environment. As Arctic cities adapt to both natural and urban environmental changes, whether caused by primary human activities or the secondary effects of anthropogenic climate change, in many cases, limited means for adaptation results in the displacement, relocation, or otherwise transformations of cities, their buildings, and residents. In mono-industry cities, whose labor markets depend on the continued productivity of a single industry or company, the ability of residents to participate in the decision-making process when it comes time to move is a dynamic factor of their regional economic dependence, the extent, feasibility, or costs associated with new infrastructure outside of the urban core and their capacity to engage with large-scale planning processes. This chapter examines the existing set of systems-based frameworks that drive ongoing and future urban transformations in Kiruna, an Arctic mono-industry city located in the Norbotten County, Sweden. These research frameworks help define the primary drivers of relocation and the urban risks that cities must address. This chapter evaluates the relocation-driven transformation of Kiruna by examining such urban change for cities across diverse contexts, key data, and economic, cultural, and spatial policy frameworks applied in an Arctic development context. Such analysis reveals limitations on socioeconomic mobility resulting from regional dependency, privately initiated property rights exchanges at the local level, and a shift in housing typology and occupancy type. Data also indicates a stakeholder gap at the local level, where the responsibility for urban redevelopment increasingly shifts from public authorities to the private sector. The results of this research are applied to a proposed integrative development model and speculative project consisting of four operational frameworks: economic, infrastructural, residential, and ecological. Combined, such design strategies work to increase the capacity, choice, mobility, and well-being of residents impacted by urban transformation while addressing risks of stakeholder capitalism at multiple urban scales by placing residents on the other side of the decision-making table.
