Summary

The group report entails a Strategic Sustainable Urban Plan for Stockholm Royal Seaport for the next 20 years. The key issues involved in the report are the economy, environment and equity. However, the project does not concentrate on the wider spectrum of the economy and the environment. It tends to give more attention to TODs, equity and innovation. The three aspects tend to form the main ideas that underline the report. The report focuses on TOD not only as a tool for mobility, but also as a redistributive tool for current and future generations. This will be enhanced by creating diversity and enhancing equal access to opportunities. Transit Oriented Development will be used to bring the desired development of Stockholm Royal Seaport by helping to achieve the social, economic and environmental planning strategies that have been put in place. The TOD to be used for the project merges with aspects of Green Urbanism and elements of a diverse, mixed income neighborhood. This will result to a “Green Equitable TOD”.

On the innovation aspect, the report tends focus on development of innovation hubs and agglomeration economies. The innovation hubs will be open to the public and will serve in the best way of ensuring technological advancement, which will ensure a steady economic growth. Agglomeration economies on their part tend to create an essence of competition among the businesses involved. This enhances creativity since each firm wants to out-do the other. As a result, innovation takes the centre stage. Equity on the other hand is going to be enhanced by ensuring that there is community engagement in most decisions that will be undertaken. This is to ensure that all groups of individuals in the area have been represented and the decisions made favor everyone. Land is going to be put in trust in order to ensure that external investors do not take advantage of the locals. There are tendencies of land prices rising when such projects are been undertaken. Enhancement of equity will works towards protecting the low income earners from such forms of exploitation.

Strengths

The SSUP has tried to combine the TOD and equity aspect. This is a very good approach since it ensures that the community will not have to suffer at the expense of development. In most TOD projects, land costs tend to go high due to the increased demand. This gives external investors the opportunity to raise house rates once the project is completed. Low-income earners are forced out of the region as a result. However, when the equity perspective is put in place, this is prevented. Every individual’s need is put in consideration before various conclusions are made.

In addition, TOD is designed to bring about community development. This means that every move made should be directed towards improving the lives of the individuals within the community. The report has set out equity measures that include community engagement in the decision making process. This will ensure that the TOD does the job that it was intended to do.

Weaknesses

Among the weaknesses is that the overall transportation network is not clearly defined. The TOD nodes included in the report do not show with clarity how they are related. This makes it difficult for an individual reading the report to have a vivid design in their imagination of how the network might look like.

The governance aspect is also not clearly defined. The report only mentions the perspective of participatory leadership. This is elaborated under the community engagement initiative. It is not sufficient since not all decisions can be made through community engagement. This is because the parties involved have different interests and all of them want a win-win situation, which is not possible at all times.  The report should have outlined the decisions that will be solely left to the municipal in order to bring about efficiency and effectiveness in the execution of the project.

Improvements to the SSUP

Improvements that can be done to the SSUP are first analyzing all the relevant stakeholders in the project. An analysis of the stakeholders will help in division of duties. Each stakeholder will have the responsibility of ensuring that their section of the project is operating in the right direction. This will help in establishing effectiveness and efficiency by eliminating conflicts which are prevalent in such projects. Every stakeholder wants to gain from the project hence the possibility of unethical behaviors occurring is high.

TOD seems to be the main focus of the project. For this to be reflected in the project, the aspect of TOD should be represented everywhere. This means that innovation and equity aspects which have been emphasized in the report should be put in a way that they enable efficient functioning of the TOD. They should not work as opposing forces, but work as complimentary tools.

The report should also factor in the challenges that come along when equity is being enhanced in such a project. Among them is derailment, conflicts, long decision making process, loss of interest from external investors among others. Analyzing these challenges will help with the development of solutions to mitigate them before they come to hinder the project later on.

 
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