Ph.D: A Critical Geography of Compact Urbanism

Since the 1990s, compact urban development has become a prominent international goal. By living close and in close proximity to daily chores, the compact city tries to facilitate more sustainable communities. This dissertation questions how sustainable the compact city is, especially with regard to growing inequality and the need for change towards a climate-friendly way of life.

Oslo is a city that is often praised for succeeding with compact urban development. But Oslo also has several challenges related to social sustainability, rising housing prices and high climate footprints per capita. Through a qualitative study of Oslo's compact urban development, the dissertation seeks to shed light on practices and discourses that attempt to solve the challenges that arise in the compact city as it is planned and built today. The dissertation focuses on projects and actors connected to the international network Sub> urban, the development of Hovinbyen and the project 'the third housing sector'. In particular, there has been a desire to understand how policies and practices from elsewhere affect the alternatives that are developed.

The findings from the dissertation show that the compact city's sustainability must be assessed more holistically than today. Both local and global conditions need to be taken into account to a greater extent. Alternative solutions that are highlighted are fragmented and often build on experiences from other places to show that new and sustainable ways of living in the city are actually possible. For cities to solve the problems that result from compact urban development, these fragmented solutions must be seen in context, where housing policy, welfare policy and climate policy must work together.