Unsettling the Copenhagen Finger Plan: towards neoliberalization of a planning doctrine?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Finger Plan has guided the spatial development of the Greater Copenhagen Area for more than 70 years, constituting a planning doctrine in Danish spatial planning. However, recently the Finger Plan has come under attack from the liberal Danish Government (2015–2019), who implemented a number of initiatives to deregulate spatial planning in Denmark, most significantly through a ‘modernised’ Planning Act. As part of this process, the Finger Plan was revised twice in 2017 and 2019. The latest version of the Finger plan was prepared as part of a larger policy package aiming at promoting growth in the Greater Copenhagen Region towards 2030. This paper argues that the recent revisions of the Finger Plan must be understood as part of the ongoing neoliberalization of spatial planning in Denmark, but that the Finger Plan, at the same time, has remained ‘immune’ to a more widespread neoliberalization in this process.