A study of Groruddalen Integrated Urban Regeneration Project

Keywords: segregation, area-based strategies for urban regeneration, urban governance, post-war housing estates

Supervisor: Edward Robbins

The thesis explores an ongoing urban regeneration project in Groruddalen, Oslo. By a joint venture from the state and the city, more than 100 000 000 NOK are invested annually in the effort of creating better living conditions in the valley. The thesis examines structures within the organisation and implementation of the project, and discusses this kind of urban planning so increasingly popular all over Europe. The case of Groruddalen shows that old social and institutional structures still operates in contemporary urban planning even if much of the rhetoric is new.

By document studies and qualitative interviews with various stakeholders in the process, it becomes visible to what extent the Groruddalen Integrated Urban Regeneration Project is vulnerable to the body of international critique of this type of urban planning.