Introduction

Comprehensive municipal land-use and ‘community strategic planning’ have been a part of local political and administrative responsibilities in Norway since 1965, although many Norwegian municipalities encounter significant challenges around the design of effective planning processes, decision-making and implementation. A number of tensions undermine the efficacy of plans and some of these centre on the interface between strategic priority and the local needs sometimes expressed through community action. In this chapter, I will use the Volda municipality – together with results from national research – to expose the shortcomings of local planning in Norway and its interactions with strategic national priorities, local needs and community action. Complexity theories are used to explain these shortcomings and also to point to potential remedies, paying attention in particular to the appropriate level at which services are planned and delivered. The chapter will use the idea of ‘complex adaptive systems’ to examine the blurring between the public and private in municipal planning and as a framework for thinking about the processes needed to link community initiative with the orthodoxies and instruments of municipal planning.

The chapter is concerned primarily with linkages and with formulating public policy, and producing plans that are operable across different scales. In focusing on scales of responsibility, I will contrast national and regional priorities with the initiatives from action groups, and from local organisations and communities which seek to strengthen civil society and localise municipal functions, providing a counterbalance to regional and national directive. In light of the inherent complexities of planning and delivery systems (see Rittel and Webber, 1973), I will spotlight the role of community actors and civil society in working with the local, regional and national state to resolve critical challenges and ensure more tailored service outcomes.

Complex rural challenges and changes

Norway is sparsely populated, having just 16 inhabitants per square kilometre. Moreover, less than a fifth (19 per cent) of the country's land area is populated, with the remaining 80 per cent completely devoid of people. Although characteristically rural – and subject to typical rural pressures such as depopulation, economic fragility and the erosion of vital public and private services – Norway's rural areas are in some respects atypical, being significantly influenced by the oil economy.