Municipalities in Sweden use public land development to engage public and private actors in collaborative urban experimentation and innovation to create public value. This points to a wider scope of potential and current utility for public land development than previously theorised. The aim of this paper is to investigate municipalities’ use of public land development to enable and structure public value co-creation, and to provide suggestions for enhancing public value. Findings are based on a multiple case study of five flagship urban development projects located in different municipalities in Sweden. We illustrate how municipalities co-design public value propositions with different public and private actors, which aretranslated into criteria for choosing developers to allocate land to and project-specific requirements for housing development. When co-designing public value propositions and subsequent requirements, the main role of the municipality is to form arenas where relevant actors can collaboratively find creative solutions to emerging problems rooted in value conflicts. Findings align with previous research on public value co-creation in other contexts, demonstrating an appropriate application of the theory and potential for further theoretical development across research fields.

Swedish municipalities are taking an active role in shaping and implementing sustainability-related policies in urban development by initiating and governing sustainability-profiled district developments on municipally owned land. To drive sustainable development and innovation in these districts and develop future policies, municipalities use land allocation agreements to set project-specific sustainability requirements on housing development projects that go beyond the current national building regulations. Developers play a key role in implementing these municipal sustainability requirements. The purpose of this paper is to explore housing developers’ perceived barriers to implementing municipal sustainability requirements in their projects, which ultimately constrain possibilities for municipalities to drive sustainable development. Findings are based on case studies of two sustainability-profiled district developments in different Swedish municipalities. Main barriers perceived by the developers could be categorized into: (1) increased costs when adapting to unforeseen changes that constrain project budgets and (2) conflicting interests and objectives between interdependent actors. These barriers are contextualised within the relationship between the developers and municipalities. Contributions are made to literature on developers’ roles and perspectives in sustainability-oriented urban development. We illustrate how conflicting short-term and long-term interests between developers and municipalities complicate and impede problem solving in housing development projects. This calls for more research on these actors’ interests, and how they align and conflict in these types of projects. Findings also illustrate how developers resolve issues through interactions with municipalities, indicating collaborative problem solving processes to investigate further.

Swedish municipalities are developing sustainability-profiled districts incollaboration with private actors to achieve their public sustainability objectives.These districts are comparable to developments found in many other Europeancountries and the wider world. They are intended to model sustainable urbandevelopment and act as testbeds for collaborative innovation and urbanexperimentation. To initiate and govern the districts, Swedish municipalities areusing public land development, which provides them with more options to influencehousing development and increases their leverage during land use planning. It alsoforms exchange relationships between the municipalities and housing developers.Although previously acknowledged, there is a lack of research investigating thispractice in-depth. In the Swedish context, land ownership has a substantial influenceon the structure of the development process and collaboration betweenmunicipalities and housing developers, which are considered two key actors fordriving sustainable urban development. In sustainability-profiled districtdevelopments, these public and private actors collaborate during the municipal landallocation process, an important part of the public land development process, inorder to develop and implement new sustainable solutions and practices. Thiscollaboration during the land allocation process is investigated in the dissertation.

The purpose of the dissertation is to increase the understanding of municipal landallocation processes in sustainability-profiled district developments by applying acollaborative perspective to public-private exchange. Municipal land allocations insustainability-profiled districts are first analysed and interpreted as public-privatevalue co-creation processes specifically intended to generate sustainable innovation.This is complemented with theories on conflict management, project relationships,and public value capture. The utility of using municipal land allocations for framingpublic-private collaborative innovation is then evaluated using value co-creationtheory. A single and multiple case study approach was employed to investigate indepthmunicipal land allocation processes in sustainability-profiled districts at thedistrict- and building project-level. Focusing on the perspectives of municipalitiesand housing developers, interviews and documents were used to reveal complexprocessual and relational dynamics mired in conflicting value creation objectives.The research is focused on sustainability-profiled district developments in Swedento gain an in-depth understanding of the intricacies and influences of this nationalcontext. The findings are then discussed in relation to public land developmentpractices in other European countries.

The results reveal that the possibilities for municipalities to co-create public valueusing public land development are ultimately determined by housing developers’ ability to implement municipal sustainability requirements and co-create privateproject value. These municipal sustainability requirements are included in landallocation agreements and are negotiable throughout the rest of the land allocationprocess. Thus, the potential for public value creation is determined by the ability ofmunicipalities and developers to co-design sustainability requirements forimplementation during the land allocation process, in order to translate municipalsustainability requirements into developer procurement requirements. Areoccurring theme in the dissertation is that problems are rooted in inter-actor valueconflicts, which are central drivers for value co-creation processes betweenmunicipalities and housing developers.

The dissertation contributes to public land development research by introducing apublic-private value co-creation framework to describe and explain collaborativeexchange and innovation between municipalities and developers. It also provides indepthknowledge of public land development, and more specifically municipal landallocation processes, in sustainability-profiled district developments, which differfrom more typical developments in regards to innovation ambitions. Finally, thedissertation contributes with a micro-level analysis of municipal land allocationprocesses, at the district- and project-level, in the Swedish context. Building on theanalysis and evaluation, recommendations for enhancing private project value andpublic value creation in sustainability-profiled districts are provided. Thedissertation ultimately illustrates how collaboration between public and privateactors aimed at achieving divergent and oftentimes conflicting sustainable urbandevelopment objectives is shaped by the specific planning processes and systemsthey are embedded in.

Svenska kommuner utvecklar hållbarhetsprofilerade stadsdelar för att nå offentligahållbarhetsmål på lokal nivå. Många exempel på liknande typer av distrikt finnsockså i andra europeiska länder. Svenska kommuner använder offentligmarkexploatering för att initiera och leda utvecklingen av dessahållbarhetsprofilerade stadsdelar, som ska exemplifiera hållbar utveckling ochfungera som testbäddar för innovation och urban experimentation. Detta fenomenhar tidigare uppmärksammats, men det finns en brist på forskning som undersökeranvändningen av offentlig mark i dessa typer av distrikt. I svenskt sammanhang harmarkägandet ett betydande inflytande på relationen och samverkan mellankommuner och byggherrar vid markexploatering. I hållbarhetsprofileradestadsdelar samarbetar dessa offentliga och privata aktörer under den kommunalamarkanvisningsprocessen, som är en viktig del av exploateringsprocessen påkommunal mark, för att utveckla och implementera nya hållbara lösningar ochpraxis. Detta samarbete under markanvisningsprocessen utforskas i avhandlingen.

Syftet med avhandlingen är att bidra till forskning på markanvisningsprocesser ihållbarhetsprofilerade stadsdelar med ett samverkansperspektiv på offentligt-privatutbyte. Kommunala markanvisningar i hållbarhetsprofilerade stadsdelar analyserasoch tolkas som värdesamskapande processer. Nyttan av att använda kommunalamarkanvisningar för att forma offentlig-privat samverkan och innovation utvärderassedan med hjälp av teorin om värdesamskapande. Fallstudier används för attundersöka kommunala markanvisningsprocesser i hållbarhetsprofilerade stadsdelarpå distriktsnivån. Intervjuer och dokument används för att undersöka komplexaprocessuella och relationella dynamiker, med särskilt fokus på både kommuners ochbyggherrars perspektiv. Forskningen är inriktad på hållbarhetsprofileradstadsdelsutveckling i Sverige för att få en fördjupad förståelse för just dennanationella kontext. Resultaten diskuteras sedan i relation till offentligmarkutveckling i andra länder.

Resultaten visar på att kommunernas möjligheter att samskapa samhällsvärde medoffentlig markexploatering beror på byggherrarnas förmåga att genomförakommunala hållbarhetskrav. Dessa kommunala hållbarhetskrav ingår imarkanvisningsavtal och är förhandlingsbara under resten avmarkanvisningsprocessen. Potentialen för offentligt värdeskapande beror således påkommunernas och byggherrarnas förmåga att tillsammans designa hållbarhetskravför implementation under markanvisningsprocessen, för att översätta kommunalahållbarhetskrav till byggherrens upphandlingskrav. Ett återkommande tema iavhandlingen är att problem, utmaningar och intressekonflikter bottnar i värdekonflikter mellan aktörer vilka är centrala drivkrafter för värdesamskapandemellan kommuner och byggherrar.

Avhandlingen bidrar till forskning om offentlig markexploatering med ett offentligtprivatvärdesamskapande perspektiv. Den ger också kunskap om offentligmarkexploatering, och mer specifikt kommunala markanvisningsprocesser, ihållbarhetsprofilerade stadsdelar, som skiljer sig från mer typiska bebyggelser.Slutligen bidrar avhandlingen med en distrikts- och projektnivåanalys avkommunala markanvisningsprocesser i den svenska kontexten. Med utgångspunkt ianalysen och utvärderingen ges rekommendationer för att öka privat och offentligtvärdeskapande i hållbarhetsprofilerade stadsdelar, baserade på teorin omvärdesamskapande.

Swedish municipalities use negotiable developer obligations and public land development in sustainability-profiled districts to achieve various public sustainability objectives. They initiate and govern these districts, which act as models for sustainable urban development and testbeds for new sustainability-related policies, using municipally owned land. Public land development in Sweden enables municipalities to include sustainability-oriented negotiable developer obligations in development agreements. The aim of the study is to investigate how Swedish municipalities use sustainability-oriented negotiable developer obligations together with public land development, and to identify what public value outcomes they currently seek to create by using these public value capture instruments. Sustainability-oriented negotiable developer obligations are investigated in relation to municipalities’ desired public value outcomes in five sustainability-profiled district developments in different Swedish municipalities. Findings illustrate that Swedish municipalities use negotiable developer obligations to create ecological, social and cultural, political, and economic public value outcomes. This calls for more research investigating different forms of value and value creation in relation to public value capture instruments.

As a result of local governance, municipalities and housing developers work together to define housing development projects and to co-create value propositions. The purpose of this study is to explore how value propositions are co-created during the front-end of housing development projects and how this affects housing developers’ ability to drive change and innovation. The value co-creation process is explored through interviews, documents and observations in a case study of an urban development programme in Sweden. The findings illustrate how emerging conflicts and the process of resolving them are central drivers for value co-creation between these actors. However, conflicts that are not managed and resolved constructively can lead to the co-destruction of value. In this study we illustrate how value co-creation processes that precede procurement limit the flexibility of housing developers and determine the scope for value that can be realised.

Municipalities in Sweden govern construction projects on municipal land through requirements that sometimes go beyond national building regulations in order to advance sustainable building practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of negotiating such project specific requirements for construction projects built by private housing developers on municipal land. The paper builds on a case study of an innovative urban development programme in Stockholm where interviews with private housing developers and municipal representatives and observations of meetings, seminars and forums were conducted. Emerging negotiations between the municipality and private housing developers over project specific requirements set by the municipality were explored and analysed using the concepts of product and process innovation. Findings reveal that housing developers try to remove or change those requirements that are considered to increase costs, increase risks and decrease the value of their final product. This paper illustrates how project requirements for construction projects on municipal land are dependent upon early phase negotiations between the municipality and housing developer.

Purpose: – Previous research on clients’ procurement typically focuses on their procurement strategies. Research on local sustainability governance has, however, revealed that municipalities also govern construction projects through land allocations. This paper aims to explore how housing developers are governed by municipal land allocations and the implications. The purpose is to problematize the governance of sustainability during the early phases of construction projects.

Design/Methodology/Approach: – A case study on an urban development project in Sweden was conducted. Empirical material consists of interviews with housing developers’ project managers, observations from seminars and meetings between the developers and municipality officials and the municipality’s policy for land allocations and sustainability program. This was analyzed using Bulkeley and Kern’s (2006) typology of modes of governing change at the local level as a framework.

Findings: – The results provide examples where the municipality governs the housing developers by authority, enabling and provision. The implications for the housing developers during the early phases of their construction projects are explored.

Research limitations/implications: – Findings have implications for research on clients’ procurement strategies because it illustrates how they can be governed during the early phases of certain construction projects, which might limit their flexibility during procurement. However, the study is only based on housing projects in one urban development project governed by one municipality.

Practical implications: – Findings provide support for clients when designing their procurement strategies.

Originality/value: – This paper contributes to the understanding of how sustainability is governed in construction projects and the implications for housing developers’ flexibility.

Municipalities in Sweden use public land development in sustainability-profiled districts to engage public and private actors in sustainable innovation to create public value. This points to a wider scope of potential and current utility for public land development than previously theorised. The aim of this paper is to investigate municipalities’ use of public land development in sustainability-profiled districts from a public value co-creation perspective, and provide suggestions for enhancing public value. Findings are based on a multiple case study of five sustainability-profiled districts located in different municipalities in Sweden. We illustrate how municipalities co-design public value creation objectives with different public and private actors, which are then translated into criteria for choosing developers to allocate land to and project-specific requirements for housing development. When co-designing public value creation objectives and subsequent requirements, the main role of the municipality is to form arenas where relevant actors can collaboratively find creative solutions to emerging problems, such as value conflicts. Findings align with previous research on public value co-creation in other contexts, demonstrating an appropriate application of the theory and potential for further theoretical development across research fields.